I’ve always worried that she pities John and now I’m sure she does.

Over coffee and liqueurs, John told me that he’s had the assessments and he’s decided to have the operations — the myringoplasty and implants. ‘The doctor said that even if I can’t hear, I can swim,’ he told me and smiled. ‘But I should be able to hear something. If it works, I’ll hear something.’ And his face was child-like in its amazement. ‘I keep trying to imagine it but I can’t.’

‘When are they going to do it? Do you have a date?’

‘January.’

‘Not long.’

‘No,’ said Sonja, ‘not long.’ I couldn’t work out the expression on her face — but, then, I’ve never been able to. If I had to describe it I would say it was the picture of abjection.

John and Ian wrestled Hercules and his column to the end of the garden this afternoon and now he’s brooding on his column among the ivy, watching me. I can’t begin to explain how much I want the operations to work, how much I want my son to hear again. It’s been twenty-nine years — exactly — which is penance enough. Penance for what I’ve never been sure.

13 November 1999

Ellen’s just phoned, very late. She’s asked me to house-sit for her because she has to begin a round of chemotherapy, and of course I’ll go. Lock up my house and leave. I know that she could do the same but if I’m in her house I can visit her in the Radcliffe, look after her dogs. It’s difficult to tell with Ellen how she’s feeling but her voice was tight, closed. This is the first time there’s been no warning, the first time she has called me and told me that she’s being admitted the next day. What would I do without her? Face facts: what will I do without her?

JOHN

Only Ian could have single-handedly stopped my savage rush towards the deli. He must have sprinted after me to grab me from behind, throwing me off balance. I stumbled and landed on hands and face on the wet tarmac of the road. He slammed on top of me as traffic braked inches away from us. I could taste petrol, see the tread of tyres inches away, knew the tarmac had grazed my cheek. I heaved, reared upwards, spilling Ian off my back and nearly managed to get to my feet when he hit my knees from behind. I crumpled and he grabbed my neck — still bruised from Jimmy’s fingers — and held me in a relentless arm-lock, dragging me back on my feet. I pushed backwards, slammed him into the side of a white van but he still held on. We reeled across the road, me yanking at his arm trying to shake him off so I could race over to the deli and do untold damage. I could see that drivers were shouting and shaking fists at us as we careered across the pavement, feet slipping on paving slabs made greasy by drizzle, and shoppers dropped their bags and scattered. No one intervened, no one tried to stop us — and I can’t say I blame them. I grabbed Ian’s wrist with both hands and dragged his arm away, spun round and his massive fist flew into my shoulder. I staggered backwards, crashed into the tables outside a café, shattering cups and plates, reaching to grab something, anything, to break my fall. Ian barrelled in, throwing me against the plate-glass window, which shuddered but didn’t break. The people inside, frozen in mid-swallow, darted away like a shoal of fish. As my head smacked against the paving, Ian sat on my chest, pinned my arms as my legs thrashed and I tried again to spill him. Throughout this, the whole time we’d been wrestling, I’d been roaring.