“That would in the circumstances be taking coals to Newcastle, isn’t that the phrase? It’s a fresh battery so we should be all right. Mrs. Appledore can’t be too long. I am sure the drinkers of Illthwaite expect their pub to open on time. Why don’t we sit down and wait till we hear something from above.”

“OK. As long as you mean in the kitchen.”

This amused him. They sat side by side, the torch between them, leaning against one of the walls. After a while he said, “Tell me about yourself, Sam.”

“What’s this? Occupational therapy, or the confessional?”

“Whatever you want it to be. I just thought talking might pass the time.”

“And stop me throwing another wobbly, you mean?”

“That would be a good result,” he agreed. “But it would help me as well. Darkness holds terrors for me too sometimes. Not the same as yours, but real and devastating nonetheless.”

“That’s supposed to comfort me?” she said. “Look, if we’re going to talk, I need something to call you. What was it Dracula’s daughter from the Hall called you? Mick?”

“Not Mick. Mig. That’s what my friends call me.”

“Then that will have to do, though it doesn’t mean we’re friends.”

“And I shall continue to call you Sam, with the same qualification.”

“I thought you men of God had to be friends with everyone,” she said.

“Indeed,” he said. “But with some people it’s harder than others.”

She knew what he was trying to do. Get her angry, get her talking, get her doing anything that might keep the darkness from finding its way into the heart of her being.

She said, “I remember my pa sitting with some of his mates having a drink one night and one of them had the toothache real bad. And Pa said to him, ‘Have you tried shoving a banana up your arse?’ And he said, ‘Will that work?’ And Pa said, ‘No, but it’ll give your friends a laugh.’”

Madero laughed and said, “Stoicism Australasian style. You love your father, I think, Sam.”

“Yeah. Don’t you?”

“Yes, I did. I miss him greatly.”

“He’s dead? I’m sorry.”

“Me too. My religion says I shouldn’t be, but I am.”

“How come you still go on about your religion even after you gave it up?”

“You’ve been talking about me? I’m flattered. But you are misinformed. It would be truer to say it gave me up, or rather it directed me to another path. But I still need it to tell me who I am. What about you, Sam? Perhaps you are one of the lucky ones who are so sure who they are that external help isn’t necessary. So who are you, Sam? Why don’t you tell me who you are, so I’ll know whether I can like you or not?”

She fixed her eyes on the torch and thought, why not? Might as well talk about herself before that self became reduced to a single unit of terror as small as that point of light.

“Why not?” she said. “Seeing I don’t have anything better to do.”

She took a deep breath and began.

Tell you who I am? That’s hard.

You grow up and no one ever tells you who you are. Not even math, which tells you most things, can do that. You’ve got to find out for yourself. Mostly you do it piecemeal, one small new thing following another till, with luck, you get a picture.

Sometimes you get a big piece and don’t recognize it. Not till much later. I got one when I was eleven, but I managed to ignore it for the next ten years.

I was at university by then and I reckoned I was pretty cool. I knew how the world ticked. Life was a game of chance, if you got dealt a decent hand, you’d be mad not to play it. Me, I was good, I’d drawn four to a running flush: I had a loving home, good health, no financial worries, and I was doing a course I loved.

Mathematics.

At school it was dead easy. I’ve got one of those memories, I can scan a page and recall every word of it, even if I don’t understand half of what it means. It wasn’t till I got to university that I began to feel even slightly stretched, and I loved it.

I had great tutors, one in particular, Andy Jamieson, a Pom from Cambridge UK on sabbatical. In my finals year, AJ asked me if I fancied coming to his old college to do my doctorate. My best friend Martie who was at Melbourne with me was sure he wanted to get into my pants. But I knew the truth was both better and worse. AJ hadn’t got the slightest interest in my body. He just knew I was a better mathematician than he was.

That’s not vain, by the way. In math you know these things.

I said yes, why not? It was only later the thought of traveling right across the world began to get to me. When I was eleven I’d seen this TV play about these kids who got shoved on a boat without a by-your-leave and ferried out to Oz to start a new life. It really got to me then, but I hadn’t thought about it for years. Now I recalled those poor kids in the play who’d made the journey the other way, not knowing what awaited them, and I felt really ashamed of feeling scared.

I got my First then came home to work for Pa to earn some bucks to help finance the trip. He’d have coughed up the lot, no problem, but I could see he was pleased. My mate Martie was getting married to some jock with a Greek-god profile whose old man owned half of Victoria. She asked me to join her on a pre-wedding shopping spree, and Pa told me to go and kit myself out with some wet weather gear for Cambridge.

We’d been away three days, having a great time, when my mobile rang. It was Ma, telling me that Gramma Ada, that’s my pa’s ma who lived with us, had collapsed. It was her heart, it was bad.

I headed home straightaway. Gramma had been part of my life for so long that I couldn’t imagine how things could be without her.

Maybe I’d get home and find it had all been a false alarm, I told myself. But when I saw the priest’s car parked outside the house, I knew things must be bad. Your money or your life, that’s all those bastards ever want from you, that’s what my pa used to say.

Sorry.

Gramma was a Catholic. Pa never got in the way of that, but he didn’t even pay lip service. I didn’t know why he took against your lot so much, but I let him set my agenda because he was my pa and knew everything.

When I got to know what he knew, I was glad.

Sometimes Gramma would talk to me about the Church in her easygoing loving way, usually after the priest had paid a visit. I think he must have gone on at her about me. I don’t know if he ever had a go at Pa, but if he did, I’d guess he only tried once.

When I went up to Gramma’s room, I thought I was too late. She lay there like a corpse and for the first time it struck me how very old she was. I knew Pa was only just turned forty. And I knew Gramma was eighty-five. But it wasn’t till I saw her lying there that it occurred to me that she must have been well into her forties when she had Pa.

So much for my mathematical mind.

Ma said, “Here’s Sammy to see you.”

I went and sat down by the bed. On the other side sat the priest, playing with those beads you lot lug around. I once asked Pa about them. He said they were like a holy abacus to help reckon up how much the Church was going to get from someone’s will.

Gramma’s priest looked like he was minded to stay but Ma said, “Let’s go downstairs and brew a pot of tea, Father.” She could be pretty firm herself, Ma.

I took Gramma’s hand and she opened her eyes, recognized me and said, “Sammy, you’re here. That’s OK then,” and closed her eyes again.

For a second I thought that she’d just held on till I got home then decided to give up the ghost. But now she spoke again, so low I had to strain to hear her.

What she said didn’t make much sense.

She said, “I thought not having kids of my own was a curse, but it turned out a blessing. Soon as I saw him I knew your pa was the one, even before I heard his name. And then he gave us you with your lovely red hair. That’s the color I’d have chosen for myself, and now I’d got it in you, and that was even better ’cos I’d got you with it.”