Behind the Scenes at the Museum

by Kate Atkinson

The conception has left Bunty feeling irritable, an emotion with which she’s very comfortable,

It’s strange to be alone in my bedroom and I have a distinct feeling that something – or somebody – is missing. There is a space in the room that wasn’t there before, not a vacuum but an invisible cloud of sadness that drifts around, bumping into furniture and lingering at the foot of my bed as if the domestic phantoms had been joined by a raw recruit. The fur on Teddy’s neck stands up and he growls nervously.

A warm September sun washed the cottage like honey.

Sometimes it’s hard to be a woman.

‘Neither could you,’ Bunty says, her lips moving like a pair of scissors.