But if I could hear … I Would that make a difference?

The clouds part, blow away, and I am walking down Tyndalls Park Road with a sharp blue sky around me, leaves falling, wind biting and fresh. Surely, surely I can change, cease to be a silent curmudgeon (Ian’s word of the week) and become Sonja’s lover again? A group of slim-hipped students, toting bags and skateboards, reel out of Woodland Road, nearly crash into me as I walk. They shrink back, startled. Good Christ - I scare people I don’t even know. Was I talking to myself? I don’t know. I can’t hear.

I pass the BBC buildings, my mind thrashing in a thousand traps, and walk the length of Whiteladies until I find myself outside Sonja’s deli. I stand there, under the portico, my hands bagging the pockets I force them into, thumb and forefinger rubbing the worrystone. Labradors come to me, their slow legs stumping, tongues lolling, licking and smiling. I ignore them, worry Hyacinth’s stone. Sonja comes out, rubbing her upper arms in the cold.

‘What happened at the hospital?’

‘An infection. I’ve got antibiotics.’

‘So — are you going to work?’ She is bewildered. Doesn’t know what to do with her hulk of a husband. She glances again and again up and down Whiteladies. ‘John?’

So I’m not Special any more? I have reverted to a John. ‘They want to operate again.’ I’m shivering.

‘I’ll get my coat.’ Sonja goes back into the deli and shrugs on an old donkey jacket of mine. It reaches her knees and the arms are rolled back over and over but I love to see her wear it because I always feel as if it is me wrapped around her. I watch her write a long note, her brows creased, and hand it to one of the assistants, who shoves it into his jeans, nodding agreement with her instructions. I know now that she has been planning to meet the Blind Man, that I have scuppered her plans. I shiver again as I rub my thumb on the malachite, I THINK YOULL NEED THIS ONCE IN A WILE! A black Labrador licks my hanging hand and it is all I can do not to punch its stippled black snout. What is wrong with me?

Sonja comes out of the shop, looks at me and grabs my hanging hand, holds on to it. I looked down at her beautiful, troubled face.

‘Where do you want to go? Home? Out?’ she asks.

‘Out.’

We begin to walk, both her hands holding one of mine, awkward, but it’s fine by me. We walk along Whiteladies Road, up Blackboy Hill to the Port of Call, saying nothing of import. We settle at a table, food ordered, pints of Smiles’ Best in front us. Sonja looks at me and speaks. ‘Why do they want to operate?’

I tell her what Dr Laws has said. I try to be factual, try to be dry and medical about my options. But she, Sonja, the listener, is one of my options. It’s for her that I’d do it, have my ears sliced off again. But that is the dark part of the equation that I can’t tell her. The Port of Call is a dim, lamp-lit pub, a place of niches and bolt-holes, yet it isn’t dark enough, labyrinthine enough, for my choices to hide in.