The Spinning Heart

Kate owns a crèche—a childcare center—and has hired a Montessori teacher. She thinks this will impress potential clients and add to her success, but she’s hired Trevor, the character from Chapter 8 who has paranoid delusions about killing people. Trevor “arrived only two days after a girl called Réaltín called in with a lovely quiet child called Dylan” (99). Of course, Kate doesn’t know about Trevor’s paranoid delusions, or that he is attracted to Réaltín and only wants to work for Kate to get closer to Dylan.

Kate thinks her husband, Denis, is jealous that her business is thriving while he’s unable to find work:

Why has he to be so sensitive? We haven’t had sex in about four months. He better not get any ideas about having a look around for himself. I’ll cut it off of him. I’ll cut it. Clean. Off (100).

Along with worries about her husband, she’s also upset with Nuala, one of her employees, because Nuala was rough with one of the children in the daycare. She also secretly hates Nuala because Kate had a dream that Denis was cheating on her with Nuala.