This morning a heavy parcel arrived, post mark Hamburg. Placing it on the table, I continued with my toast. If this was Walter's Secret Life, then Axel had sent it prematurely. First, he wasn't dead, and secondly, I hadn't earnt it. The package was substantial, well packed, and while I didn't recognise the handwriting as Axel's, those capital letters could easily be Gertrude's. And so I left for work aware that opening this package could set in motion a stage of my life to which I hadn't wholly consented. Like Thom's diary, there were things I didn't need to know about, not now. Was this a form of wisdom? Is it not wiser, sometimes, to manage a situation rather than understand every detail? Did I really want to spend the next few years with Walter's gushing, ejaculating servant girls, even if it was in the service of feminism? It's absolutely last battle? Would anyone thank me? I mean, really?

I waved at Helen and breezed into my room, ready to face my first client. Was I late? Client L, my mistress of the literal truth was already there, sat in her work clothes, sharp in a blue jacket. I turned away, the yellow of her blouse was even sharper, making her hard on the eye. I opened the window, hoping she'd remove the jacket.

With her work persona in the room she spoke of her current project, the funding for the completion of which was being delayed by unknown but undoubtedly dark forces. And then finally, Roger, her love, now in Australia. But she was overarticulating everything, as if I were merely another subordinate who needed firm, but careful handling. I gazed at my shoes awhile.

Anyway, it's only MHC.

Sorry, what is?

MHC genes...Major Histo-compatibility Complex.

I was happy to look at my shoes. Thom had done a good job on them, as it goes.  I wasn't going to buy into her suspense.

That's all that love is. MHC genes. We just fall in love with people who have different MHC to our own so that we can give our offspring an immune boost. And as I don't want children anyway, what does it matter?

At forty- six the chances of her having children were not as optional as presented though, fair enough, I was not up with the latest research. I longed for a deep well to open at my feet. Client L.'s intelligence is born of defensiveness and today, in her work clothes, she had all the armour she'd ever need. So instead of allowing her to dig us both into a depression, I decided to tell her, and perhaps myself, a story. She checked her watch, as if I were already boring her.

There was a reflective and respected Albanian man, Nuri Bey, who married a wife much younger than himself.

One evening, he returned home earlier than usual and a faithful servant came to him and said, Your wife, our mistress, is acting suspiciously. She has in her room a huge chest, large enough to hold a man, but she will not allow me, your oldest retainer, to look inside.

Nuri went to his wife's room and found her sitting beside the massive wooden box.

Will you show me what's in the chest, he asked?

Because of the suspicion of a servant, or because you do not trust me?

Why don't we just open it?

I do not think it possible, she said.

Is it locked?

Yes.

Where is the key?

She held it up. Dismiss the servant and I will give the key to you.

The servant was dismissed. The woman handed over the key and left the room, obviously troubled.

Nuri Bey thought for a long time. Then he called four gardeners from his estate. Together they carried the chest by night unopened to a distant part of the grounds, and buried it.

The matter was never referred to again.

I checked my watch, perhaps to show client L. the story was finished.

But if he doesn't make her happy then he could spend the rest of his life burying chests in the garden.

Maybe, I said, gently.

Later, I had coffee alone in the kitchen. I thought of the package on my kitchen table. Nuri Bey would go home and bury it in his garden. He was a family man, not a liberator of women. Yes, indeed, sometimes in life we must put our intelligence into preserving mysteries, not exposing them. With this thought I darted quickly up the stairs, quietly passed Helen's room, and couldn't help but wonder, as I entered my own, if Axel had remembered the Chorier.