January, 1946
Kent’s oft-lamented dreary weather painted the landscape in a bleak greyscale, yet bestowed an enchanting sense of depth to Brittany’s surroundings. Scotland’s moors might be renowned across the world for the eerie ambience that inspired the literary greats, but she’d always felt that the Dengemarsh had a greater sense of vibrancy, of life, to it. Anyone who hadn’t grown up in New Romney would mistake this landscape for lush pastureland, but a local would enthusiastically tell you that “the soil remembered” when this was all part of the River Rother, and that the marsh was never far away.
Brittany remembered oba-chan, as her grandmother had insisted she be called, taking her for walks along Dengemarsh Sewer—a terrible name for a river, but a spellbinding stroll. Her quiet, dignified voice would enthral Brittany, and send her youthful spirits soaring as her grandmother regaled her with tales of her native country and its close ties to her adopted one. Brittany closed her eyes as she remembered one such occasion.
“You are a child of two island kingdoms. Two tiny, isolated dots of land, somehow able to hold sway over vast dominions. The world’s water besieged them both, and so they mastered the water in turn; mastery that was never far from subservience. These two nations share the temperament granted by the water, but they also share the water itself.
“This river takes its name from the Denge Marsh, from which it springs. The Denge Marsh, in turn, takes its water from the English Channel, fed by the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic Ocean tempestuously greets its sibling, the Indian Ocean, down at the tip of Africa. The Indian runs the Indonesian gauntlet to finally give of itself to the Pacific Ocean; after an interminable journey, a single drop of water arrives on the shores of Japan.”
Brittany came to and realised that she had wandered a bit far off the beaten track while lost in her reminiscences. She was on her way home from the bank, having already taken a considerable detour to stroll along the marshlands masquerading as farms. She had needed a touch of childhood to take her mind off the harsh realities of her adult life, but now it was back to the practicalities of that life—the life of a war widow.
Geoffrey’s pension from the army was barely sufficient to cover her grocery bill for the month, let alone maintain the picturesque but costly manse her grandfather had built out in the woods. Perhaps it was time to take in a few boarders, she thought.
She felt a wash of icy pain pour through her chest at the thought. That house meant family. Growing up, she and oba-chan had driven her parents mad in that house. When Father died, she and her grandmother had provided her mother support and love during her grief. Later, her mother had consoled her in turn when age had finally caught up to the most vital person in Brittany’s small world. She had met and married Geoffrey before her mother’s passing would have left her alone in the house, and she had been given just enough time to dream of restoring it to its status of ‘family home’ when the Second World War had hit. She might have dreaded the solitude in that house, but filling it with strangers was far worse.
There were other ways to make a living. She had volunteered as a nurse during the war. Rather than moping about and hoping to live off her husband’s death money, she thought it time to make use of the skills learnt during that hellish time.
Her decision made and her resolve restored, Brittany lifted her gaze to the horizon and quickened her step. Her maudlin amble was at an end and it was time to find her bearings.
She marched on through the unfamiliar terrain until she gradually became aware of a softening of the soil underfoot. She had crossed the Dengemarsh already, so she must be closing in on one of the streamlets that led off it. In the distance, she thought she could make out a faint shadow that might betoken the woods that surrounded her property.
Her determined tread faltered as she heard a curious crooning sound. It was utterly alien to her, especially considering the native fauna, but there was a distinct note of distress. Any hesitation that she might have had evaporated as another piteous wail assailed her. She crashed through the undergrowth, orienting herself according to the occasional cry of need. Finally, she came upon a tuft of rushes obscuring a shallow puddle.
Inside the puddle was something Brittany had never before seen. It was some form of reptile, she surmised, judging by its scaly hide, but bulkier than the lizards with which she was familiar. Its head, on the other hand, evoked something almost equine. Her analytical examination came to an abrupt halt as she beheld its eyes. In place of the anticipated vertical slit common amongst reptiles, a circular pupil regarded her. The look in those almost-human eyes was pure misery.
Without a second thought, she picked the creature up and cradled it to her chest. As she tried to comfort it, she staggered under its unexpected weight. She took in its full size and realised that the puddle could not have been as shallow as she had assumed. It was big. Roughly the length of a cat, it weighed twice as much due to its solid frame. Its stubby legs were slightly shorter than those of a cat, but, on all fours, its back would probably stand at approximately the same height.
She had never seen nor heard of a reptile that size in England, unless one indulged in mythology, but she knew that the deserts of the world had some gigantic specimens—called ‘something’ monsters, and quite understandably so. But there was nothing monstrous about this creature. Its size simply seemed natural, befitting its frame and appearance, although she had no idea why an adult of its species would be in such distress. It behaved almost as an infant in want of its mother.
“That’s it—you’re coming home with me,” she found herself saying out loud, before she knew the decision had even been made. As she shifted the little creature into a more comfortable position and set off for the five-minute walk to her home, she idly thought that it might not be quite so lonely after all.
January, 1947
Brittany couldn’t wait to get home and soak her feet after a long shift at the hospital in Rye. She knew, though, that she still had a long walk ahead of her from the bus stop to her home. These days, she was earning enough that she could have afforded not to walk home, but a year of frugality was hard to shake. Besides, she had a bottomless abyss waiting for her at home, and there was no telling how much Gila would soon be eating…
Work at the hospital paid well, and she was quietly proud to no longer be in need of her husband’s pension. Mrs Rateliffe from Lloyd’s had called her a few weeks before to ask why she hadn’t been collecting her cheques. Brittany wasn’t sure how to express her feelings on the matter—that taking that money every month was akin to looting her husband’s corpse. She knew that wasn’t a commonly held notion. Instead, she told the old secretary that she had re-married and no longer needed the income. Strange how that satisfied the poor dear, but my independence would have scandalised every bone in her body!
Regardless, she had no intention of working at the hospital all her life. She was thirty-one years old at the time, and she wasn’t going to spend her twilight years making ends meet while emptying bedpans. A question in the back of her mind added to her concern, but remained unacknowledged: how much longer could she keep up with Gila’s appetite?
She was busy working on an idea of sorts. If doctors made house calls, why couldn’t nurses? She had taken a look around her in New Romney and realised that, those the war had left behind were mostly the women, the elderly, and the youth. The young ones all flocked to the bigger towns and cities, the women married again and moved away, and the elderly were left behind to care for themselves. She knew this, because they would share a bus with her when they needed to go to the hospital in Rye.
Most of those visits were for things a nurse could do. A check-up on this, a shot of that, filling a prescription—she would, of course, leave diagnoses and prescriptions to the doctors, but why couldn’t she take some blood in the comfort of the patient’s home? Why couldn’t she pick up the prescriptions for a number of people and drop them off as she made her weekly round? Nothing stopped her performing the basic physicals—the ones she had been doing every day for a year—in a location more convenient for her patients.
Fleshing out the details of her bold new idea kept her going through the drudgery, the aching feet, and the few dark nights when all she could do was lie in bed and sob at the thought of the life she had lost when Churchill had made that fateful declaration.
***
As Brittany opened the front door, she felt a wry smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. Dog owners could expect an enthusiastic greeting upon their homecoming, and cat owners settled for a brief brush against the legs, if only in a mute appeal for food. She, on the other hand, merited a lazy opening of one eye from Gila, the lid drooping down over his oval pupil again in short order, as he lay curled up on a sofa.
It seemed her initial impression of the reptilian was incorrect. He must in fact have been close to full maturity, but he had since grown rather quickly. Gila was now the size of a large dog—about a metre from head to scaly tail, and coming up to half a metre in height—and must have weighed twice as much as your typical German Shepherd.
She would have dearly loved to head straight for a bath, but she knew how hungry he always was. How she knew that, she didn’t have the faintest notion, as he never really showed it. She headed to the freezer and took out some frozen fish.
She had tried red meats at first, but he wouldn’t touch it. He showed some interest in chicken, but walked away after a few bites. On that first night, she had been in a fine state, convinced that her newest friend would die of starvation by morning. It was only after she thought back to where she found him, in what could only be considered a quasi-marine habitat, that she had an idea. She rooted around in the rubbish, finding the remains of the fish she’d had for dinner the previous night. Before she had even approached him, he stood up on his four stubby legs for the first time since she had picked him up. Though his features were not terribly expressive, there was nevertheless a palpable eagerness emanating from him.
She tossed almost Gila’s own weight in fish in front of him and backed away. She felt slightly uncomfortable watching him eat. There was something too clinical in the way he dissected the food with deft swipes of his razor-sharp claws, contrasted with the subsequent savagery of rending the meat with his disquietingly powerful jaws.
She drew herself a steaming bath and ignored the sounds coming from the family room. She started when she realised that she had begun to call it that again—the ‘family room’. After her mother had passed, even once Geoffrey had moved in, it had always just been ‘the lounge’. She shook her head and chuckled quietly to herself. Clearly, I see myself and Gila as a family!
Settling into the steaming water, she let slip a subdued moan of pleasure. She could feel her muscles relaxing to the point where they approached the same consistency as the bathwater around her. She imagined her entire body disintegrating and becoming one with the water, and she floated in a perfectly serene state for an eternity. Geoffrey will be angry with me for letting the water grow cold—
She snapped back to the present moment and cursed herself roundly for falling into the same old trap. Rule one of widowhood: never let your guard down.
After her bath, wrapped only in her grandmother’s old robe, she sat down next to Gila on the couch, settled her head on his dependable solidity, and stroked the little nubs that had begun protruding from his scaly back.
January, 1948
Mr Burns stared at her through the Hanging Gardens of Babylon he called his eyebrows. He might be a lecherous octogenarian, but his weighty gaze still held an immense authority.
“I am terribly grateful to you for coming out to our homes and saving us that horrid trip, but I’m concerned for your wellbeing, young lady,” he croaked. “I see how you scurry to and fro in this town, seeing to all our needs, but there isn’t one of us that tips the years under sixty. Where are you supposed to meet a likely young gentleman?”
This was a recurring theme amongst her patients. They were all too eager to avail themselves of her services, but the thought of a single woman making it on her own still rankled. She knew, however, that Mr Burns was one of the few who was genuinely concerned, so she bit back the smiling retort that came so easily these days, and gave the question due consideration. “Mr Burns, I’m afraid that’s simply not on the cards any longer,” she smiled, with what she hoped would be seen as wry amiability. “I suppose the easy way out of this conversation would be to protest that I’m ‘over the hill’ and that no biddable bachelor would be interested in an old widow like me, but, truthfully”—she shrugged—“I feel like I’m just hitting my stride. I feel strong, confident, and in control. So, it isn’t that.”
She paused briefly as she gathered her thoughts. “My nursing practice takes up all of my time. When I started this, I envisioned seeing about five patients a day—at most. My primary concern was whether I would have enough patients to make ends meet. Now, I’m beginning to despair of ever having a moment free! I leave home before dawn and only walk through my front door again once the sun has set, and I still worry that I’m not getting to you all often enough. That is a reason for my ongoing solitude, but it isn’t the reason.”
She drew a deep breath. “My Geoffrey was my entire world.” Saying his name aloud still sent ice down her spine. “When he marched his way into my life, I gave up every last shred of self—I existed for him alone.” She forced a self-deprecating chuckle. “It doesn’t sound particularly healthy, I know, but it was an all-consuming love. In the first place, one simply cannot move on from that inferno of emotion to the softly glowing embers of a comfortable and affectionate marriage of convenience. In the second place, were I to find another Geoffrey, I don’t think I would want the inferno again! One cannot give all of oneself twice.”
Mr Burns regarded her levelly for a while. Finally, he gave out an exaggerated harrumph, the exclusive province of the British elderly, and spoke. “You’re far from over the hill—in fact, were I a decade younger, I’d tell you exactly what I think of your hill.”
Brittany burst out laughing. She recognised his lewd comment for what it was: an olive branch, a knife to cut the weight of the moment. “If you were a decade younger,’ she said as she swatted his shoulder and made to leave, “I might have wanted to know!”
As she strolled down High Street to her next appointment, she had a quiet chuckle as she thought back to Mr Burns winking at her on her way out the door, the Amazon jungle briefly dimming the glint of mischief in his eye.
***
As the sun valiantly hurled its last rays over the horizon before its battle with the evening was lost, Brittany noticed something wrong with the vague silhouette of her front door. She approached cautiously until the unusual detail resolved itself. There was no front door. It was lying about a metre away, where it had been deposited after being ripped off its hinges. She felt a surge of panic familiar to anyone who had lived alone, far from others, for any length of time. She quashed the thought and forced herself to think rationally.
If this had been the work of human intruders, the door jamb itself would have been broken, or hanging off one hinge, at most. No, the state of the door and the distance it had been hurled bespoke a bestial strength. While it was an outside possibility that some form of bear had found its way over from Europe, the more plausible scenario was that her very own little beastie was responsible. Her panic was gradually replaced with sharp concern.
She hurried inside to find Gila innocently dozing on his favourite sofa—a sofa he now draped himself over, rather than curled up in. She stopped in place and finally came to terms with his immense size. He was now easily the size of a horse, at least in height and length. No horse had ever possessed such sheer mass.
It was time to acknowledge that Gila was still growing. Her first impressions upon finding him, that his cries of distress were infantile, were indeed correct. If she was lucky, he was nearing full maturity now. She refused to consider that he was only an adolescent. What am I going to do with him if he gets bigger?
It wasn’t only a matter of space in the house. She was making a considerable amount of money now, but her seafood bill was approaching titanic proportions. As she approached him, she noticed scattered bones across the floor of the family room. The bones were definitely not from her stock of fish in the freezer. She had been buying deboned stock, worried that he might choke on the bones. Apparently, that was no longer a concern. Neither is my grocery bill. Clearly Gila had been out hunting for himself, hence the ruined door.
She made a mental note to leave the back door open for him in future—once her front door was fixed, at least. For now, all she wanted was to curl up next to him and take solace in his reassuring bulk. She wormed her way into the available space, taking care to avoid the spines that ran in a line down his back and tail. As she began to drift off, she had the distinct impression that his forelegs were becoming skinnier, and his hind legs more squat and powerful.
January, 1949
Brittany poured herself a stiff drink. It had been building for a while now—a vague sense of unease, a momentary chill that had nothing to do with the weather, restless sleep filled with dreams of amorphous, saurian terrors. A gradual, tidal encroachment of deeply buried anxieties upon the shores of her conscious mind. And on that day, the inevitable crash of the wave.
Her day had been going well. She had just concluded a handshake agreement with the mayor of nearby Lydd, and would be allowed to extend her network of home nurses to the elderly of that town, who faced the same problems she had identified in New Romney two years ago.
When she eventually conceded that she needed help, she was amazed to discover how many widows who, like her, were looking for ways to assert their independence. Most of them had worked as nurses during the war as well. Soon, she was able to rent a small office on High Street and tend to the administration of her ‘Angel Network’, as she privately thought of her girls. She still made one or two house calls a day, but she feared that would soon come to an end. Travelling in between New Romney and Lydd would take up a lot of time, and the paperwork was only increasing.
She had decided to celebrate her upcoming expansion by taking the rest of the day off. She was even whistling as she took a stroll along the Dengemarsh Sewer as a scenic detour on her way home, which must have been why she didn’t hear a thing before the river erupted in spectacular fashion right in front of her.
As she froze in the grip of fright, the water settled and a monster was revealed. Screaming would have been a blessed respite, but her throat had constricted to the point where breathing seemed a faraway dream. This dread apparition was towering over her, ready to rend her limb from limb, extending a hostile… Fish?
As her frenzied heartbeat slowed down, her throat opened up for a snatched breath and the blurring at the edges of her vision subsided. She recognised the unmistakable outline of Gila. However, this was a Gila transformed by one crucial detail: he was standing on his hind legs.
She knew he had continued to grow, but it was just so easy to dismiss when she saw him every day. Seeing him standing, albeit slightly hunched over, put his size in an entirely new light. He dwarfed her 1.58m height, of course, but he was taller than even her Geoffrey had been. Not only that, but he was easily three metres in length from tail to snout and carried an immensity of muscle that defied description. He reminded her somewhat of a few pictures she had seen of creatures called ‘dinosaurs’, but those were frail, spindly things compared to her Gila.
Her hand trembled as she took the fish from him. She noted how dexterous that forelimb had become. It was clearly no longer ideal for holding his immense weight. There was something disturbing about it; only humans and primates should have such manual capabilities, she thought.
***
She put down her empty glass and shook her head. She pondered whether the beast she had been so afraid of was really her Gila—her only family for the longest time, her constant companion. No. She would not let her highly strung emotions take him from her.
She would, however, bow to the demands of reality. Gila was simply too big to live in the house with her. In the morning, she would head out into the woods and create a comfortable, spacious den for her beastie. She would ensure that he knew she was not kicking him out—simply ‘expanding their home’.
Tonight, though, she would pour herself another drink. Simply to banish the silly flight of fancy. The ridiculous notion that she caught a flash of hostility when she took that fish.
January, 1950
Brittany strode into the eerily silent woods. There were no bird calls, no brief rustling in the bushes, and no near-silent susurrations. She wondered why that was. Gila may have been an apex predator, but he only fed on marine life. Why wouldbirds and small mammals fear him? Why would snakes, so prolific in this area, stay away from something that must be a close cousin?
She followed the broken branches and the gashes in the tree bark. Those gashes were more than three metres high now. Eventually, she came upon Gila feeding. Where on earth had he found a seal? She supposed that they weren’t too far from the ocean, but she wasn’t aware of any seals that big along their stretch of coast.
She thought of how powerfully he had launched himself from the river a year ago. Water was clearly his natural habitat. How far afield could he roam if given the wide ocean as a hunting ground?
She didn’t want to watch him feed, so she focused on the rest of his anatomy. His ridge of small spines had developed into a double row of large, razor-sharp plates. She theorised that these were used in underwater navigation. As his body had grown, his head, at first elongated, had become more proportional, and the gradual widening of his jaws had eliminated any resemblance to a horse he might once have had. In terms of size, the sheer scale was difficult to comprehend. He was easily two times her height, and half that again in length. He probably weighed more than ten tons.
At first, she had come to see him every day. Whether she had been imagining his anxiety or not, it gradually lessened. She began to allow work to distract her, and fairly soon she was visiting once a week. This had been her first visit in a month. There was some element missing in their interactions. There was never any physical contact; every time she neared him, a flutter of fear danced in her breast. As for him, he had never once sought her out physically, not even when he was an infant. She simply didn’t feel comforted by him anymore, either because she no longer needed that comfort—now that she was a well respected businesswoman—or because her fears kept her from being vulnerable around him, the way she used to be. That didn’t mean she didn’t love him. She had grown wise enough to realise that he had served as a surrogate child when her maternal instincts needed it most. Regardless, he was her child, and she his mother. Her discomfort and fear might keep her away at times, but she would always come back, she thought.
January, 1955
New Romney had been Brittany’s home for her entire life, but she was a victim of her own success. The Angel Network had reached every corner of Kent, and she had built up enough capital to fund a push into other regions. Unfortunately, its expansion into new territories would also require a new administrative hub. She couldn’t launch a campaign to take over England from the sleepy town of New Romney, after all.
The little house she had found in London was a far cry from the rambling spaciousness of her country manse, but she didn’t need much space. Besides, she would never sell her home. Whenever the open air of the country called, she would return to wash off the city. There would always be one thing drawing her back.
She approached that one thing. She hadn’t visited Gila often in the past five years, but she had always come back. Before, she had barely noticed his rapid growth, since it had been happening right before her eyes. Due to her infrequent visits, she was able to fully appreciate his size.
His head brushed the tops of the highest trees. She estimated his height at six metres, and his length at close to ten metres. There was no way of measuring, but she felt sure that he weighed between twenty and thirty tons. The fact that he had not yet been spotted by others was a testament to his stealth, of a level no creature that large had any right to. She had known from the start that he was unusual, but she was coming to understand that he was unique. Nothing like him had ever been encountered by humanity. Earth’s ecosystem simply didn’t have a place for something that ate other creatures and had such an advantage in terms of speed and power. If there had been more of Gila’s kind, humans would never have evolved from the primates.
No, she was convinced Gila was from another world. Brittany couldn’t be bothered with the mechanics and implications of that sweeping truth. It was enough that she had been given a companion when she had needed one most.
She climbed up a tree. How her girls would laugh if they saw their primly elegant boss scrambling from branch to branch, she thought. She reached the top of the tree, high enough to look Gila in the eye. Whatever had made his eyes seem so human had disappeared. His pupil was not quite the reptilian slit, but it was certainly no longer round, nor even oval. The void in that fiery yellow iris was a thick, flat bar with a slight bulge in the middle.
“Gila, I’m leaving for a while. My business has taken off and I’m needed in London if I’m to continue growing. I’m sure rapid and continued growth is something you can understand… I will be back to see you. I might not be able to come as often anymore, but I will always come back. This is goodbye, but it is a little goodbye, not The Big Goodbye. I love you dearly, little beast.”
If Brittany had spoken to a pet dog like that, she would have felt a fool. Staring into that eye, though, one couldn’t deny that there was a powerful and sophisticated intelligence at work. She got the distinct impression that Gila understood every word and nuance—possibly her stab at humour, too. However, if she were expecting sorrow, or even passing regret, she would be disappointed. All she felt from him was cold indifference.
January, 1966
Brittany looked up from her work for a moment to ask her secretary for a cup of tea. She buzzed the intercom, but didn’t receive any response. Irritated, she made to get up to give Kelly a piece of her mind, when she caught a glimpse out her office window. Gracious, it’s dark outside! Now that she thought about it, she vaguely remembered Kelly popping her head in to say goodbye. How long ago had that been? It must have been a few hours.
She got up and stretched a back that was beginning to ache more and more with every passing year. She stared out the window, down at the fiery swathe that made up London’s night lights and sighed. So, this is what it feels like to have ‘made it’. All she felt was tired.
How naive her thoughts of a ‘campaign to take over England’ had been. True, she’d done it, but it had been a decade of hard-fought battles. While she had stayed in Kent, she could be dismissed as an up-jumped country girl playing at men’s business, but the moment she stepped into London, she unleashed a storm of epic proportions. No man was willing to tolerate competition on a national level from a woman. They all insisted that she was far too soft, and should go back to running a household. Ironically, it was those selfsame qualities that gave her an advantage over the men.
Whenever a problem arose, there would be two ways of addressing it. The men would invariably apply brute force thinking, whereas Brittany would find the solution that would benefit her clients and staff the most. The men would win every fight, only to find that their clients had quietly gone over to The Angel Network while they had been swinging their battle axes. Of course, their insinuation that she was only fit to run a household also worked in her favour; her administrative prowess made her organisation far more efficient than theirs.
It had been a long, drawn-out war, and it was far from over, but she was no longer the underdog. The Angel Network was the single largest home health-care provider in Great Britain.
She decided to have that cup of tea before she headed on home. While it was brewing, she switched on the news. Her attention immediately zeroed in on the footage they were playing in the background while the news anchor spoke.
“After years of reports from local fishermen of something ‘monstrous’ lurking in The Channel were dismissed, the government was quick to take notice when one of its submarines encountered a large, unidentified return on their radar screens. After receiving no response to its urgent hails, the HMS Dreadnought fired upon the source of their signals. The return disappeared, but, mere minutes later, all communication with the submarine crew was lost,” crackled the anchor’s voice. “The footage you are seeing in the background is of the creature presumed to have destroyed the HMS Dreadnought. It seems to be on a direct path to London, and the authorities are scrambling to evacuate the city. Meanwhile, the military has fired almost every weapon in its arsenal at this monster, with little to no effect. In fact, it seems our efforts have only served to enrage it further.” The anchor looked shaken as he continued. “Our experts tell us that it is a heretofore undiscovered species of amphibian. Best estimates put the monster at eighteen metres in height and close to one-hundred tons. The devastation this creature has left in its wake is—”
Brittany mechanically switched off the television. She hadn’t returned to New Romney once in 10 years. It seemed, in his hour of distress, Gila was coming to find her.
January, 1981
Fifteen years later, Brittany thought back to that night as she walked into the water.
The media had speculated that the “monster” seemed to be searching for something in London, opening up buildings as if they were cans and peeking in before moving on to the next one. This was eventually dismissed in favour of the more popular theory: it simply revelled in destruction. Brittany knew the truth, though.
She did not have the courage then to go comfort her neglected child.
When Gila gave up, he simply turned around and headed back to the water. The nation’s mighty defenders, with their ships and their guns and their scanners, simply lost him. There had been scattered sightings of him over the years, so she knew he had kept growing. The last confirmed report had him as a shadow just beneath the surface of the Japan Sea—a shadow well over one hundred metres long.
Brittany shivered as the icy water reached her neck. Her doctor had given her two months to live. Well, she had achieved everything she wanted to in her life. There was just one final wrong to be put right. Her body went numb from the cold as she struck out for the open water.
The last thing she saw before the paradoxical warmth lulled her to sleep was a colossal alien eye, and she was gratified to note that there wasn’t an ounce of indifference in it.