‘Baby is three,’he said.
Baby is maybe. Me, three, thirty-three, me, you Kew you.
‘Kew!’ I yelled. Stern didn’t say anything. ‘Look, I don’t know why, but I think I know how to get to this, and this isn’t the way. Do you mind if I try something else?’
‘You’re the doctor,’ he said.
I had to laugh. Then I closed my eyes.
There, through the edges of the hedges, the ledges and wedges of windows were shouldering up to the sky. The lawns were sprayed-on green, neat, and clean, and all the flowers looked as if they were afraid to let their petals break and be untidy.
I walked up the drive in my shoes. I’d had to wear shoes and my feet couldn’t breathe. I didn’t want to go to the house, but I had to.
I went up the steps between the big white columns and looked at the door. I wished I could see through it, but it was too white and thick. There was a window the shape of a fan over it, too high up though, and a window on each side of it, but they were all crudded up with coloured glass. I hit on the door with my hand and left dirt on it.
Nothing happened so I hit it again. It got snatched open and a tall, thin coloured woman stood there. ‘What you want?’
I said I had to see Miss Kew.