Chapter 24 (Miri): Summary, Analysis, and Key Themes

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

Summary

The chapter opens in the early days of Miri and Leah's relationship. Leah took Miri to a bar, then another, then a late-night screening of a '60s B-movie about a mutineering crew adrift on a sea of carnivorous seaweed, beset by time-traveling conquistadors, giant hermit crabs, octopuses, and sharks. The two laughed at the obviously puppeteered monsters. In the dark, Miri kissed Leah and told her she was perfect. Coming out at midnight, Leah gave Miri her coat and pulled her close, laughing before she could kiss her. Leah mused about going into a cinema when it's still light and coming out in the dark, reflecting on how a city is never the same, how everything changes. Miri said it made no sense, and Leah kissed her in the street.

In the present, the therapist sends a bill for the session Leah missed, with a note that the Centre will cover attended sessions but not skipped or rescheduled ones. Leah is in the bath, the door unlocked—which Miri notes is new. When Miri enters, Leah's skin seems to shrink and reshape before her eyes. Miri asks what they should do about what's happening. Leah refuses a doctor, insisting she feels basically OK today. Miri senses this isn't the Leah of the previous night—the one who dipped her head into Miri's shoulder. She feels a cavernous terror at being left alone, sets it aside, and asks if Leah wants her hair washed.

A second flashback recalls moving into the flat with Toby and Sam. They carried boxes, drank wine, ate oven pizzas off mismatched plastic plates. Much of the furniture came from Miri's recently deceased mother—a Welsh dresser, a wine rack, and a large oval mirror that seemed to haunt Miri, reflecting her mother's empty house as though on a time delay. Sam offered a speech about love not being complicated, that people who think their love is harder are just waiting, not special. Toby asked if this was their forever place; Leah said nothing could be forever when it's only a rental. Too tired to assemble the bed, they slept on sofa cushions, Miri anxious in the dark, Leah locking her ankles around hers.

Back in the present, Miri fails to reach the Centre by phone. She brings Leah a glass of salt water; Leah drinks half and pours the rest into the bath. Miri sits in the spare room researching skin conditions on her phone until the battery dies.

The chapter closes with a flashback to their wedding at the town hall. It took twenty minutes. The registrar used battery-operated candles because a workman had drilled through the mains. Leah joked about mood lighting. They married in candle-dark, walked out into gentle rain with no plans, and shared burgers across the road, Leah's hand in Miri's like something obvious.

Key Events

Flashback: early courtship, the B-movie date, Leah's kiss in the street
Present: therapist bills for the missed session; Leah refuses a doctor
Leah's skin visibly shifts in the bath; Miri doubts this is the same Leah as the night before
Flashback: moving in with Toby and Sam; the mother's mirror; Sam's speech on love
Present: Miri can't reach the Centre; brings Leah salt water; researches skin conditions
Flashback: the town hall wedding, rain, burgers

Character Development

Miri emerges as the chapter's emotional anchor. She moves between caretaking gestures—offering to wash Leah's hair, bringing salt water—and a growing, unspoken dread. The terror of being left alone is named and then set aside, suggesting a pattern of suppressing her own needs to tend to Leah. Her research into skin conditions is described as more out of habit than anything, hinting at a ritualized helplessness.

Leah is presented in two registers. The flashback Leah is playful, affectionate, philosophical about change. The present Leah is hollowed out—reasonable but blank, with a chilly blank where the rest of her voice should be. The image of Miri being unsure whether Leah would bleed if cut crystallizes how far the transformation has gone.

Sam and Toby provide a counterpoint: their banter about love being uncomplicated stands in ironic contrast to the extraordinary situation Miri and Leah now face.

Themes, Symbols, or Motifs

Salt water / saline: Miri brings Leah salt water, which Leah drinks and pours into the bath—an echo of the sea that has claimed her.
The bath as liminal space: Leah's transformation is most visible in the bath, a boundary between land and sea.
Identity instability: Leah's skin shrinks and reshapes before Miri's eyes; Miri distinguishes between the Leah of the previous night and the one in the bath.
Carnivorous seaweed B-movie: The film's premise—a crew adrift on a sea of carnivorous seaweed—foreshadows Leah's own fate.
Change and impermanence: Leah's cinema speech about everything changing connects to the novel's larger meditation on loss.
The mother's mirror: The oval mirror that reflects Miri's mother's empty house links grief to the domestic space.
The Centre's bureaucracy: The bill for the missed session underscores the institutional indifference to Leah's condition.
Love as unexceptional: Sam's speech about love not being complicated contrasts with the extraordinary circumstances of Miri and Leah's marriage.

Why This Chapter Matters

This chapter is the novel's most concentrated juxtaposition of the ordinary and the uncanny. The three flashbacks—courtship, moving in, wedding—build a portrait of a love that was, in Sam's terms, uncomplicated. The present-day scenes show that love being tested by something beyond the ordinary. The B-movie about carnivorous seaweed is a dark foreshadowing of Leah's transformation. The mother's mirror connects Miri's grief to the haunting of the domestic space. The chapter also establishes the bureaucratic obstacle of the Centre, which will shape the couple's options going forward.

Study Questions

1. Why does Miri describe the Leah in the bath as almost certainly not the Leah of the previous night?

Miri distinguishes between two versions of Leah: the one who dipped her head into Miri's shoulder the night before, and the one who now speaks reasonably but blankly. The shift in Leah's skin—the squeeze and pulse of unnatural color—and the absence of feeling beneath her voice lead Miri to doubt whether this Leah would even bleed if cut. The question of whether Leah is still Leah is central to the novel's exploration of identity and transformation.

2. How does the flashback to moving in with Toby and Sam comment on the present crisis?

The moving-in scene establishes the domestic foundation of Miri and Leah's relationship—the combined books and spices, the smashed dishes, the unassembled bed. Sam's speech about love not being complicated, and Leah's remark that nothing can be a forever place when it's only a rental, both suggest a worldview in which change is expected and manageable. The present crisis, in which Leah is literally changing, tests that worldview. The mother's mirror, which reflects an empty house, foreshadows the emptiness Miri now faces.

3. What is the significance of the B-movie in the opening flashback?

The film—about a crew adrift on a sea of carnivorous seaweed—is a direct foreshadowing of Leah's fate. The couple laughs at the puppeteered monsters, but the premise of being consumed by the sea is exactly what happens to Leah. The scene also establishes the intimacy of their early relationship: the shared laughter, the kiss in the dark, Leah's musing about how everything changes. That musing, delivered as a drunken observation, becomes the novel's central theme.