Calypso looked up at her uncle defiantly.
'Where's my present?' she demanded. Her face challenged him to be angry.
Through the window behind her, Dominic could see the remains of his van. It was hard to believe the fire had taken place just twenty minutes ago: already the vehicle seemed rooted in the yard. It had carried him round half the world, and would never move again.
He opened the box, and drew out a silver bird on a chain. 'It's a heron,' he explained, as Calypso fingered it carefully. She said nothing, at first. Then she looked up and smiled: 'Thank you, Uncle Dominic. Shall I wear it round my neck?'
'That's why I bought it. Where this comes from, they say a heron brings protection.'
She came forward and kissed him. For a moment he saw her eyes from close up: the prismatic depth of them: golden, dizzying. 'I still hate you for making Mummy upset,' she said. 'Thank you for the necklace.'
She had slipped away, like water through his fingers.
'I saw - did you know? As I drove here, I saw you in the back of the van.'
Calypso nodded, cautiously. 'I dreamed myself there. I saw you too.'
'Do you always travel in your dreams?'
Calypso nodded again. 'It's not so clear as that, not usually. And sometimes I go the other way.'
Dominic hesitated. 'The other way? What way is that?'
Calypso walked her fingers over the table, backwards and forwards. 'I move sideways and slideways, Uncle Dominic. That's how I know what's going to happen.'
'You see the future?'
'I see round corners sometimes. But I don't like it.'
'No darling?' asked Sophie. 'What don't you like?'
'It's not nice,' Calypso muttered at length, edging closer to her mother.
'What's not nice? Try to tell us,' said Dominic, as Calypso looked away.
'Enough, Dominic. She doesn't want to talk now.'
'Have you seen something that frightens you, Calypso?'
'I'm not frightened!' Calypso retorted with scorn. 'She doesn't frighten me!'
Dominic shot his sister a sharp look. 'Who do you mean, Calypso?'
'The one who took Daddy! I've seen her, of course I have.' Then she added: 'Didn't you know she was on the island?'
'What's her name? Perhaps I should talk to her.'
'She's not even real,' Calypso scoffed. 'Not yet.' She paused, as if a thought were taking shape in her mind. 'But she'd like to be.'
Dominic took Calypso's hand and whispered: 'Does she have a name - yet?'
'Stop it, Dominic! Can't you see she's talking about some made-up friend?'
Calypso had in any case lost interest. She made her heron loop the loop on its chain. Looking at her mother she smiled, squawked like a gull. 'Look Mummy!'
'It's lovely, darling. You go and help Sal now. Uncle Dominic and I have to talk.'
Calypso got to her feet and went to the door. But as she was leaning on it she turned to Dominic. And she asked, as she might have asked the name of a flower on the garden wall: 'Uncle Dominic?'
'Yes, Calypso?'
'Do you remember wishing… I mean - do you think you'll ever try to kill me?'
