There was a pause. He said: ‘Come again?’

I said: ‘If you try to find me I’ll phone your wife and tell her that for the past five years you’ve been knocking off Sonia.’

I had never spoken like this before. It wasn’t my style. It was more Eleni’s line.

I got into my stride. ‘Four gorgeous kids you’ve got, you big fat randy sod. You don’t deserve their—their little toes!’ In the hallway, a woman passed in a sequined jacket. She gave me a brilliant smile, like a teenager, and hobbled out of the front door. I shouted down the phone: ‘I’ll tell your wife about Bournemouth and Cliftonville. I’ll tell her about the Isle of Wight.’ My voice rose. ‘I’ll tell her about Sandwich! Dunkirk!’ I paused, panting. Then I said: ‘I’ll tell her about Copenhagen!’

That did it. There was a silence. I replaced the receiver.

I felt tired. It had been a long day. Outside it was dark. Nothing was as it seemed. Reg’s wife, I hoped, would never realize this; I wouldn’t wish it on anybody. Overnight your house could be blown down and you were out in the cold, shivering. It was so unjust. What had Reg done to deserve the raven-haired and adoring Sonia? What had I done to deserve nothing? There was no sense in it.

What could I trust? Even Mrs Selwyn—she had looked such a grandmother; she should have been one. But cats and fires are deceptive. To tell the truth, she’d shocked me. She’d had no grandchild but my own son, and that reluctantly. She hadn’t loved her husband. She had lived with him for years, and yet she thought he wasn’t up to much. Who could you rely on nowadays?

I needed a drink. I left the building and walked down the front path. Beside me, the handrail glinted in the light. I wasn’t exactly depressed; I was unsettled. In some way, though my limbs ached I felt more alive than I had felt for years. Shouting at Reg had invigorated me. The branches of the trees looked strong and soaring.

I was a few yards from the coach when I realized that something was wrong. For one thing, the door was open. There was something else changed about it too, but it took me a moment to take it in. I’d had so many shocks, and it was still Monday.

I leaped up the steps, into the coach, I stared down the aisle. Rows of faces gazed up at me. There was a pause.

I couldn’t see them too clearly in the gloom; they were mostly ladies and they looked settled in their seats, as if they had been there for months.

‘We had to get in all by ourselves,’ said one of them. ‘I don’t like to complain.’

Another voice said: ‘I’d like to be able to see my knitting.’

I switched on the light. Had I got onto the wrong coach? I swung round, but there were my two cassettes; glued to the side window were Bernie’s stickers for the Austrian Tyrol and the one saying We’ve Been To The Shire Horse Centre. There was his no smoking sign.