After twenty minutes I saw a pub ahead. It was strung with fairy lights. Slowing down, I saw that it was charmingly olde worlde, a Free House with rosy light through the curtains. When I was young I thought Free House meant you didn’t have to pay—how my Dad had chuckled; he was a chartered accountant.

But then I saw the sign. NO COACHES. I swerved back on to the road and drove on. This annoyed me. According to Lesley the world discriminated against women. What about coach drivers dying for a pee? I changed into second and steamed up a hill. What about ordinary blokes in anoraks who happened to be standing at school gates? Come to think of it, I’d had some funny looks in playgrounds too. Once when I’d asked a woman the age of her son she had moved to the next bench.

I found a motel near Derby and stopped for the night. It was a depressing place with muzak in the toilets. I was so tired that I nodded off over my gammon steak. Afterwards I tried to exorcise Eleni by having an Irish Coffee. It was her favourite tipple; if I drank it enough times it would no longer remind me of her.

The bar was empty except for a foursome in the adjoining cubicle. The women were talking about postnatal exercises. One of them said: ‘Connie tightens her pelvic muscles when she’s watching TV. She does it when the ads come on.’

At this point one of the men cleared his throat and asked the other: ‘So how does it feel, Dennis, to be driving the Car of the Year?’

I gave up on the Irish Coffees and switched to scotch. I looked at my watch: it was 9.15. When you’ve lost your wife something happens to time. It’s almost normal in the daylight hours, but once you get to the evening it stops. Well, it inches forward, but it never gets anywhere. Whenever you look at your watch there’s a whole evening ahead.

I gave in at 9.45 and went to bed. I looked at myself in the mirror: five foot nine, sandy hair—receding, a bit. Boyishness gone, for good. I’d hung on for years.

I had nothing to read except a local paper I’d found jamming the wardrobe door shut, so I gazed at tenders for farm machinery and fell asleep.

I dreamed I was sitting astride a roof. The sun was shining and the slates were hot; they scorched my groin. The next house along had an attic window and somebody was rattling its frame. I couldn’t see who it was but I knew it was urgent and I had to get to them. I worried that the window was loose and knew I should have fixed it but all my tools were packed up in a Transit van down in the street. I inched along the ridge of the roof; it took a long time, I was starting to panic and a burning sensation spread down my thighs and up my stomach. But however hard I tried I didn’t get any nearer, and for some reason I didn’t want to, I wanted to stay on my roof, and soon I realized that the rattling had stopped. Whoever it was had given up.