Frances: who was she? If her life had had a meaning, what was it? Long gone – she was probably long gone. This note, in the midst of a pile of papers, in a cardboard box, in a chest, in an attic (so many interlocking Matryoshka doll spaces) was perhaps her life’s only remaining trace.

Charlotte had discovered it. Her mother had told her about this girl, Frances, who had had electroconvulsive therapy more than 11 times. Her mother had been her psychiatric nurse.

Charlotte’s father had said "Teeter-Totter-Little-Daughter," raising Charlotte high on a plank at the nether end of a see-saw. When they entered a car he would say “if you can’t get aboard, get a plank. “

What part did support play in a person’s life and what were the forms that it took, Charlotte wondered; how could it be undermined and subverted? She was someone who spent a great deal of time wondering, wandering. Her inner landscape, like anyone’s, was a watery globe filled with masses – islands – overlaid with atmospheres and stars –