Katherine was reading a small book waiting for her visitor whose wet hair she could not live without. Behind her the girl in the wall was giggling again and if the book had not been so old and fragile, then things would have happened in the old way. But each short page endeared itself to this reader. She lingered over the dark words about maps and churches smiling at her awkward mouth as she tried( and God only knew why this was happening) to speak the words out loud, to almost spell them as she had once done.
Sometimes she just lifted a page to her nose and smelt it. Made her feel she was kneeling in a country church with damp pews and cushions faded by the sun. There was no one else in the church and this was no longer sad. And here in the room rented for what might remain of her life was a retired writer of short stories in need of a suncatcher, which was on its brilliant blue way, carefully carried and protected in a basket by linen and straw and a woman whose hands made the upside down world rightside up again.
Katherine did not hear her come in. She lifted her head in that faintly ironic old way of hers and there were two feet, rich creamy feet joined to shapely calves and then the rush of blue as the rest of her visitor leapt into her eyes. She was quite the most teasing creature. Katherine held out a hand and the creature took it, holding it by the wrist against her silk skirt, counting time, and then she tilted back the hand and kissed it for what seemed like a very very long time.
The giggling stopped.