When he had the room to himself, he’d do a couple of hours’ study first thing, then wander down Bethnal Green Road, looking but not buying from the market stalls, get a paper and sit in the small cafe on the corner and have a go at the crossword. But with Ray in residence, he doesn’t like to study in his room. He feels awkward about how much time he’s happy to spend with his tatty old Scudamore, how calming and reassuring he finds it to understand more and more about the internal workings of the human body. He’d never tell Ray how privileged he feels to walk around knowing what there is under people’s skin, a whole miraculous universe of efficiency and movement. As if he’s been entrusted with the secret of everyone’s insides. It pleases him, as he looks at someone in the street, that he’d know which is their external and which their internal carotid artery, that he could name every single bone in their skull. Yesterday, Arthur asked him if he’d ever considered medicine. He was pleased at the implication, but was sure he’d found his vocation. He’d like to share the thrill of this knowledge with someone, but he won’t with Ray. He feels himself closing down.

He’s polite with him as they sit squashed at their little table, which wobbles and creaks as they lean on it to write. William often finishes the half-hour tutoring with a headache. He has to flex his jaw and breathe in and out afterwards. Sometimes, he catches wafts of Gloria’s perfume on Ray’s clothes, and it’s all he can do not to tip him off his chair.

With William’s help, Ray’s written work has improved, and his physical presentation no longer causes offence. His dark hair is parted and combed, his nails clean and filed. But still he shows little aptitude for the work, which William finds infuriating. Sometimes, when it’s just the two of them carrying out a procedure, he simply intervenes, taking the instruments from Ray’s clumsy hands and doing it himself. Ray rarely complains, but yesterday, when William snatched the aneurysm hook off him, he muttered, ‘I know I’m useless, but why should you be so angry about it?’

William did not reply as he easily separated the neck tissue to find the vein that had eluded Ray.

The truth is, William thinks he’ll never stop resenting Ray for lying his way into the Finches’ home. He feels personally robbed, with the theft continuing day by day. He no longer ends the evening with a cup of cocoa and a chat with Gloria. She asks him, but she asks Ray too. As if he doesn’t spend enough time with Ray as it is.