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It was a feat of balance and vision. Elsie was always encouraging, and told me not to mind the nurses.
    ‘It would have been easier with plasticine,’ I complained one day.
    ‘But less interesting,’ she said.
    When I finally left the hospital, my hearing had been restored, and my confidence recovered (thanks to her).
    I had to go and stay with Elsie for a couple of days, until my mother got home from Wigan, where she was auditing the Society for the Lost.
    ‘I’ve found a new piece of sheet music,’ she said on the bus, ‘it’s got an interlude for seven elephants in it.’
    ‘What’s it called?’
    ‘The Battle of Abysinnia.’
    Which is, of course, a very famous bit of Victorian Sentiment, like Prince Albert.
    ‘Anything else?’
    ‘Not really, the Lord and I don’t bother with each other just now. It comes and goes, so I’ve been doing a bit of decorating while I can. Nothing fancy, just a dab on the skirting boards, but when I’m with the Lord, I haven’t time for anything!’
    When we got home, she came over all mysterious, and told me to wait in the parlour. I could hear her rustling and muttering, then I heard something squeaking. At last she pushed open the door, wheezing loudly.
    ‘God forgive me,’ she panted, ‘but it’s a bugger.’
    And she plonked a large box on the table.
    ‘Open it then.’
    ‘What is it?’
    ‘Never mind that, open it.’
    I pulled off the wrapper.
    It was a domed wooden box with three white mice inside.
    ‘Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the fiery furnace.’ She stretched her gums at me into a smile. ‘Look, I painted them flames meself.’
    The back of the box was a wash of angry orange paint shaped into tongues of flame.
    ‘It could even be Pentecost,’ I suggested.
    ‘Oh yes, it’s very versatile,’ she agreed.
    The mice took no notice.
    ‘And see, I made these too.’ She shuffled in her bag and pulled out two plywood figures. They were both painted very bright, but it was obvious that one was celestial, from the wings. She looked at me, triumphant.
    ‘Nebuchadnezzar and the angel of the Lord.’
    The angel had little slits in his base that helped him to fit on top of the dome without disturbing the mice.
    ‘It’s beautiful,’ I said.
    ‘I know,’ she nodded, dropping a bit of cheese past the angel.
    That evening we made some scones and sat by the fire. She had an old fireplace with pictures of famous men andFlorence Nightingale printed on to the tiles. Give of India was there, and Palmerston, and Sir Isaac Newton with a singed chin where the fire roared too high. Elsie showed me her holy dice, bought in Mecca forty years ago. She kept them in a box behind the chimney breast, in case of thieves.
    ‘Some folks say I’m a fool, but there’s more to this world than meets the eye.’ I waited quietly.
    ‘There’s this world,’ she banged the wall graphically, ‘and there’s this world,’ she thumped her chest. ‘If you want to make sense of either, you have to take notice of both.’
    ‘I don’t understand,’ I sighed, thinking what to ask next, to make it clearer, but she had fallen asleep with her mouth open, and besides, there were the mice to feed.
    Perhaps I’ll find out when I get to school was my only consolation as the hours ticked past and Elsie didn’t wake up. Even when she did wake up, she seemed to have forgotten all about her explanation of the universe, and wanted to build a tunnel for the mice. I didn’t find many explanations at school though either; it only got more and more complex. After three terms I was beginning to despair. I’d learnt country dancing and the rudiments of needlework, but not a great deal more. Country dancing was thirty-three rickety kids in black plimsolls and green knickers trying to keep up with Miss who always danced with Sir anyway and never looked at anybody else. They got engaged soon after, but it didn’t do us any good because they started going in for ballroom competitions, which