I looked down the aisle. They had come from the Sheltered Housing; they looked tidy and expectant. The sequined lady was there.

‘I think you’ve got on the wrong coach,’ I said.

‘It is a long coach,’ said the sequined lady. ‘But it’s clean.’

I looked around for help but the street was empty. All day I had been getting in people’s way; now, just when I needed them, there was nobody in sight.

‘She’s such a bossy-boots,’ said another voice. ‘I don’t know why I go.’

‘It makes a change,’ said another one.

I asked the nearest woman: ‘Where are you going?’

She chortled. ‘He asks, where are we going?’

An old man next to her said: ‘Can’t you see, he’s new? He’s not the one we had last week.’ He addressed me clearly, as if I didn’t know English. ‘Take us to the Community Centre, sir!’

There was a silence. I was just about to speak, then headlights swung around the far end of the street and I was saved. A moment later another coach pulled in behind me, and the slow business of extricating the old people began.

I helped them down the steps; they thanked me warmly. One wore a hairnet with little diamonds in it; as she nodded, they winked. Everyone was polite. Now they were leaving the coach it looked bigger than before, and emptier. I’ve noticed that before, when passengers have disembarked. All those dark, tartan seats.

A sing-song sounded cheerful; besides, I didn’t have any other plans for that evening. I imagined us linking arms. I’ve noticed in my job: it’s only the very old, and the very young, who can sing without getting pissed first.

I gripped one frail arm after another, helping them down. I thought: what about Windermere? Would I really go there? I couldn’t imagine any possible way of finding my son.

The last woman paused in the street and fumbled in her handbag. ‘I’m Winifred,’ she said. ‘I’d like you to know, this is not what I’m accustomed to.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Sorry about the muddle.’

‘I don’t mean that.’ She pointed to the people climbing into the other coach. ‘I mean, to them.’

She wore a fur-trimmed coat. There was a brooch pinned to her chest; it was a brass tree, upside down. She smiled, and pressed something into my hand. It was 10p.

Nine

I drove out of Leicester through the rush hour traffic. It always takes me by surprise, that other towns have rush hours. Where were they going? Streams of cars and buses were hurtling into the blackness. Where did everybody live? It unnerved me, to think of the number of people out there, in thousands of places I would never see. Did they know the secret of how to bring up a family? I’d read the divorce statistics, of course, and TV nowadays was full of weeping women—why is it only the women who weep?—but I still felt that the heart of England was doors closed on contentment. Car in the garage; everything safe. I’d once had a toy farmyard and I’d found it satisfying, to put the tractor into the barn and then, the next morning, to take it out again.