It is my most, and yet least; favourite of things. A paper fan with a blue metal handle, dented where I threw it at the wall, sometime later, before I hid it deep in a drawer. The pleated body folds over and over and back again on itself, painted with a buttercream yellow bird, plumed blue feather tail stretching out behind it and there are two fat roses, too fat, all out of scale. 22 years ago it arrived, wrapped inside a toothpaste box, with a letter, I forget what I said, this is what I should’ve kept. And it is only now that I think it is a strange thing to give a seven year old that mainly rode her bike or sat crossed legged reading hidden in tree branches, but at the time it was exciting in the way that anything posted and wrapped and addressed only to you is.

Ten days later she was dead. The cream telephone receiver hangs down the once white wall where it was dropped with the cord twisting over and over and back again on itself, the voice at the other end repeating please replace the handset please replace the handset.