I didn’t have a home to go to. I felt raw—I’d felt raw for weeks now, as if my skin had been stripped off. Though it was an obstruction, I felt grateful for the warmth of my enormous coach. I had only driven this one a few times before, in fact Bernie had stuck his Thank You For Not Smoking sticker on the windscreen because he drove it the most, but by now it already felt like home. And I’d only been in it a day. But I knew Costas wanted me out of his flat—he had some business contact he owed a favour to, and he wanted to rent it to him. Anyway, it had never felt like mine. I couldn’t even remember what its three rooms looked like.

Then I thought about Salim’s moustache. It had disturbed me. Were children growing up earlier nowadays? I wondered about my son; would he be more of a man than I had expected? I had presumed to find a little boy like myself. Eleven seemed a bit young for a moustache but it was common knowledge that childhood was shrinking. People put it down to the availability of blue videos and the threat of nuclear war. When I was eleven I’d had nothing on my mind. Children shouldn’t be troubled, should they? There was enough of that when they grew up.

Besides, the older he was the more I would have missed. I’d missed such a lot already. I thought of Butler’s languor, not to mention his language, and Salim’s facial hair; had I lost not only my son’s babyhood but his boyhood too? I had a stab of jealousy; the dungaree-ed and undeserving Lesley had had all that and she probably complained too. Perhaps she was telling Edward that just because he knew the Test Match results he was hopelessly male.

The foam man drove away in his van. I shifted into gear. Round the corner I found the Sheltered Housing—a modern building in a quiet and luckily wide street. There was room for my coach right outside the door. I drew up, my air brakes sighing.

Eight

Mrs Selwyn was sitting in her room watching the boxing on TV.

‘Come in,’ she called, so I came in.

She was very old, and seemed pleased to see me. This was a relief. All day I had felt like an intruder in other people’s lives—a dentist, an Indian, even the market, where I had blocked the vans. But old people welcomed visitors, didn’t they? She reminded me of my mother in her last years, when she had been at High Dean, surrounded by photos of me and my Dad, the electric fire on all day. She used to give me her strange rock cakes and tell me I was a blessing. Mrs Selwyn made me some tea, very slowly. It was nice to be offered something for a change. My spirits rose—not because she could help me but simply because I was warm.