'Glenda's got a bee-oh! Glenda's got a bee-ooh!'
'It's "beau", actually,' Glenda said, swiping to the back of her mind the recollection that it had taken her years to find that out herself. 'And I was just helping. We're helping him, aren't we, Mister Nutt?'
'Doesn't he look sweet lying there?' said Juliet. 'All pink.' She stroked Trev's greasy hair inexpertly. 'Just like a little boy!'
'Yes, he's always been good at that,' said Glenda. 'Why don't you go and get the little boy a cup of tea? And a biscuit. Not one of the chocolate ones. That'll take some time,' she said as the girl shimmied away. 'She tends to get distracted. Her mind wanders and amuses itself elsewhere.'
'Trev tells me that despite your more mature appearance you are the same age as her,' said Nutt.
'You really don't talk to many ladies, do you, Mister Nutt?'
'Oh dear, have I made another faux pas?' said Nutt, suddenly all nerves again, to such an extent that she took pity on him.
'Would this be "faux pas" that looks as if it should be said like "forks pass"?'
'Er, yes.'
Glenda nodded, satisfied, another literary puzzle solved. 'Better not use the word "mature" unless you are talking about cheese or wine. Not good to use it for ladies.'
She stared at him, wondering how to pose the next question. She opted for directness; she wasn't very good at anything else.
'Trev is sure you sort of died and came alive again.'
'So I understand.'
'Not many people do that.'
'The vast majority do not, I believe.'
'How did you do it?'
'I don't know.'
'This is rather late in the day, I must admit, but you don't feel any hunger for blood or brains, do you?'
'Not at all. Just pies. I like pies. I am very ashamed about the pies. It will not happen again, Miss Glenda. I fear my body was acting on its own. It needed instant nourishment.'
'Trev says you used to be chained to an anvil?'
'Yes. That was because I was worthless. Then I was taken to see Ladyship and she told me: You are worthless but, I think, not unworthy, and I will give you worth.'
'But you must have had parents!'
'I do not know. There are many things I don't know. There is a door.'
'What?'
'A door in my head. Some things are behind the door and I don't know them. But that is all right, Ladyship says.'
Glenda felt like giving up. Nutt answered questions, yes, but really all you ended up with was more questions. But she persevered. It was like stabbing away at a tin can, hoping to find a way in. 'Ladyship is a real lady, is she? Castles and servants and whatnot?'
'Oh, yes. Even a whatnot. She is my friend. And she is mature like cheese and wine, because she has lived for a long time and is not old.'
'But she sent you here, yes? Did she teach you... whatever it was you used on Trev?'
Beside Glenda, Trev stirred.
'No,' said Nutt. 'I read the works of the masters in the library all by myself. But she did tell me that people, too, were a kind of living book, and I would have to learn to read them.'