‘They need to be paid! I can’t let them—’

‘Mum, I’ll take care of it.’

‘Why do you always talk over the top of me?’

‘That’s right,’ Ron said. ‘Thinks he’s so smart, always talking over the top of you.’

‘Please,’ Gordon said.

‘Oh, you think you know it all,’ Norma moaned. ‘I’ll end up having to pay them myself.’

‘He’s hopeless,’ Ron said. ‘I kept telling you we got the wrong one back, and you always treated it as if I was making a joke.’

‘Okay, let’s go, Dad. Come on, Benny. See you later, Mum.’ Gordon bent over his mother to kiss her forehead. She turned her face away. When Ron came to kiss her, she offered him her tear-smudged cheek. They cuddled for a moment, burbling sweet nothings, urging each other to stay well. They shed tears: Norma predictably, Ron outrageously.

‘There, see?’ Ron said to Ben as Gordon wheeled him out. ‘Your father has some use after all. He’s the one problem your grandmother and I agree on.’

Ronald Grimes made it back in time for dinner. He shucked off Gordon and Ben without a thank you and tucked into his low-fat creamed potatoes with French beans and hard-boiled eggs. He would miss the cooking here; in his opinion it was a big improvement on Norma’s.

At the next table sat Neville Coyte, a buffer in blue blazer and club tie. Every single bloody meal. Above the table, Neville looked every bit the bowling club president and law firm partner Ron had kept at a safe distance for donkey’s years. Below the table, Ron knew, Neville was clad in stained pyjama pants and nappy. Poor old bugger. Eyes up!

The biggest headache about the nursing home residents, he’d found, was that you knew too many of them. For some reason his power of attaching faces to names was improving as the rest of him went down the crapper. But because they were familiar, he could also recall why he had never had anything to do with them. There was a woman from next door he couldn’t stand. There was a man he’d had a nodding feud with over a long-ago parking dispute. What he remembered with the greatest clarity was his lack of interest in their lives. Not before, even less at this late date.

Neville Coyte was, at least, a gentleman. Ron had retained him for a transaction once. No complaints about Neville, provided you didn’t mind closet poofters. And best of all, a heavy stroke had silenced him, so Ron didn’t have to put up with complaints, reminiscences or aimless observations. Neville just sat there, his rheumy eyes expressing a placid despondency that Ron found agreeable.

‘Do you like camping, Neville?’

Ron scooped up a mouthful of creamed potato. Even better if they’d allow him a sprinkle of salt.