Outside each of the resident’s rooms, a pinboard displayed photographs and sometimes a few lines of text. I’m Terry. I like football and motorbikes. I was born in Liddington. I was in the infantry in the war, then worked at Lloyds. My glasses are probably in my pocket! It was the photos that got you, the smiling wedding picture, the one of Terry valiantly digging sandcastles with a little girl on a windswept beach, then the ancient in an armchair wearing a party hat, a badge that said 80 TODAY!, and a mystified expression.

We arrived at Darren’s door. Darren went in, but I lingered for a moment. Someone had tried. There were lots of snaps: Darren at school in his football kit, with a mustache and his arm around Marcus’s mum, wearing trunks on a Spanish beach in the early ’80s, next to the bride and groom at Marcus’s wedding, in front of a shiny new Beamer with his dogs. A laminated note read, I’m Darren. I have early onset Alzheimer’s. I like watching sport. Sometimes, if I am confused, I get angry. If possible, I like to do things for myself.

Too right, I thought.

Darren’s room was large and bright with an en suite. He was sitting in the armchair and as I came in, he looked up.

“Andy,” he said, and my heart flooded to the brim with love.

“Yes, Darren?”

“You figured out that program yet?”

“I did.”

“That’s my girl.”

I picked up the remote control and flipped through the channels. There wasn’t much on but I found some golf in the end, one of the opens. I sat with him and we watched it together for a bit. I could hear the trolley coming down the hall.

There was a notebook on the side. A pen lay next to it. I picked it up and flipped through. Each page was divided into three columns, one for the time and date, the second for the visitor’s name, and the third for a message. It went back over a year. Marcus came Saturday mornings. His messages were to the point. Me and Darren went to the game. Went to mum’s for lunch. There were other visitors too—Marcus’s mother, whose lengthy entries in rounded hand screamed guilt; Brian, one of the site managers; a couple of names I didn’t recognize.

The last entry had today’s date. Mr. & Mrs. Wilde. Took Darren to a historic point of interest. Not a soul about. The time, 12, was underlined.

I knew the handwriting as well as I knew my own. It was a message from Peter.

Mr. & Mrs. Wilde. That was us, of course. And a historic point of interest was Saint Helen’s. That was how the vicar had always described it. At the heart of community, and a historic point of interest …