The Uninvited

the nearest village, in a landscape of seaand heather, boulders and sheep. Here,with the capital far behind me, I tookstrategic command of myself bydeveloping a ritualised schedule of workand half-hour walks, began work on anambitious origami mollusc project, andtrained myself to think of Kaitlin in thepast tense. But nothing could fill thevacuum left by the boy.‘Look at me properly. In the eye,’Kaitlin used to say, at the climax of afight, or sex.It was a kind of taunt. She knew Icouldn’t. That I’d simply turn my faceaway or shut my eyes tighter.When she got me, she got the things Iwas, including the elements of mypersonality she deemed defective. She got