Her credo. She used to say it the evenings when she had people round. The séances and tarot nights that descended into social orgies. She didn’t just have people round. She hosted, like a gigolo on a yacht. Those parties. All those people down in the lounge. There was Alan with his mesmerising tracheotomy, Donegan with her granite stare, Glynn with his glowing pate, luminous as the nose-cone of a rocket on re-entry, and old Miss Lunt who used to teach Latin and still came out with the odd phrase when she was startled (or possessed). It sounded like Hell itself. A gabble of voices. Catastrophic singing. I’d sit on my bed, trying to read, willing them all to leave. One time I got up and yelled ‘SPOONBENDER!!!!’ down the stairs. She shot up two flights like a rabbit, mojito muddler in hand. Other times, when they wouldn’t leave, I used to go to the bathroom, take her toothbrush out of the cup, pull down my pants and dab the bristles on my anus like it was giving it a little kiss. Mwa mwa mwa.

‘So, how is Unton?’ I ask cordially, to move things along.

‘Still the happiest small town in the world.’

Small town is right. After Hiroshima happened, the local rag, the Unton Chronicle, ran the headline: UNTON MAN INJURED IN JAPANESE BOMB BLAST. Which tells you everything you need to know. Unton’s other claim to fame is a tall black pole in the town square. I showed it to Art on one of the few times I brought him up to visit. ‘Is it a maypole?’ he said, eyes wide. Oh no, I explained, this was the ‘Meat Pole’ – so-called because in ye olden days it was the custom to annually grease the pole and fix a large piece of meat to the top, then watch members of the community attempt to scale it. Sort of like the Wicker Man, but without the craftsmanship. If the climber reached the top they could take the meat home as a prize. That’s my cultural heritage.