‘Well, you know what they say: don’t go to hospital if you want to keep in good health.’

‘But what happened?’

Her question was met by such a long silence that Em lifted her head again and saw that Norm was blushing red to the roots.

‘I don’t want to tell you,’ he said.

‘What d’you mean, you don’t want to tell me?’ she demanded indignantly.

‘I want to, sort of, ’cause I feel I ought to.’ He was stumbling over his words. ‘But there’s some things you’re maybe better off not knowing.’

She was fully alert now, still thinking he was joking. She sat up and pummelled his chest. ‘You can’t say that and not tell me – come on, out with it!’

‘OK, well, here goes. You won’t get cross, will you?’

‘I don’t know yet, do I?’ She started to feel worried. What on earth was he going to say?

‘Oh dear,’ Norm said. ‘Look – lie down again. I’ll tell you, but don’t keep looking at me!’

Obediently she settled in the crook of his arm again and waited.

‘Thing is,’ he said. ‘After I broke my leg – I mean, it’s not as if I was sick really, I just had my leg in plaster – they moved a couple of us into this other place. It had been a big house, just in a street, and they’d requisitioned it to use as a sort of convalescent rest home. I had a nice room looking out the back, over a little garden, more like a courtyard really, with a couple of trees, oranges and lemons – lovely, it was. Anyroad . . .’ Here she heard him sound more reluctant again. ‘My bed was by the window, so I could look out, and over the other side of the yard – well, I thought I was imagining it to start with, but then I knew I wasn’t – there was this girl – well, woman. She kept whistling and calling out to me, over and over, beckoning me, you know, all coy-like.’

Em stiffened, but didn’t interrupt.

‘Anyroad, this kept on, and course I was a bit bored by now and she never left me in peace, so . . . Well, I went over. I mean, I couldn’t just go, I had to sneak out: through the window . . .’

Her head shot up. ‘With a broken leg?’

‘Well, yeah. It weren’t easy, I can tell you. There was this big vine thing, growing up the wall . . . Don’t look at me!’ Firmly he pushed her head down again. ‘She came down and let me in and, well . . . The thing is, Em, it wasn’t anything – not that meant anything, not like you and me. I was just passing the time! And anyroad, I got what I deserved because she was a naughty girl, that one, I had to pay her a bit and give her my ciggies and’ – he finished in a rush – ‘whatever it was I caught, I got it off her.’