The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox

by Maggie O'Farrell

‘Your box?’ Iris asks. ‘Admissions box,’ the orderly chips in. ‘All the stuff she had with her when she came in. However long ago that was. How long has it been, Euphemia?’ ‘Sixty-one years, five months, four days,’ Esme incants, in a clear, staccato voice.

Iris tugs at a strand of hair over her eyes. She cannot fathom the strangeness of all this. She has acquired a relative. A relative who knows her home better than she does. ‘Which was your room?’ she asks.

We are all, Esme decides, just vessels through which identities pass: we are lent features, gestures, habits, then we hand them on. Nothing is our own. We begin in the world as anagrams of our antecedents.