I couldn’t speak. My throat had closed. The door squeaked behind me; a customer had come in. I asked: ‘What was his name?’

‘Light as a feather. Couldn’t believe he was fourteen.’

He asked the customer what she wanted and she said two chump chops. I said: ‘Fourteen?’

He lifted a knife and started slicing. ‘His Mum had an account. That’s right—Terence. His name was Terence.’

I drove out of Windermere. I didn’t know where I was going; I had to move my coach, two waiters had been staring at it. I drove out of the town and found myself steaming up a narrow, winding lane with stone walls on either side; they nearly scraped my paintwork. I met a lorry and pulled in. The lorry was crammed with sheep; their grey wool bulged between the slats. They bleated like old women. I wound up the window; they smelt sour.

I was shivering. Should I drive back to London? My throat had narrowed and my eyes prickled. I drove on, up the hill, past a farmyard and a fir wood, past two bungalows with picture windows, past a muddy pony with its head lolling over a gate. I hadn’t changed my underwear for three days; this wasn’t like me. Nothing made sense any more. Why did they pull down that house? Why did everybody go away? Why did I confuse my son with another? I thought of the butcher lifting the boy, with his frail bones: did he put his arms around the butcher’s neck? Had he grown bigger now? Eat up your mince, my mother used to say, and you’ll be a nice big boy. You grew up, but what was the point?

I turned a corner and jolted to a halt. Suddenly I was face to face with the mountains. I had arrived at the top of a hill; the Lake District was spread out in front of me. The peaks were bathed in rosy light; it was the most beautiful view I had ever seen. I turned off the engine; my throat swelled and the mountains blurred. At first I thought I was having an attack of hiccups, but then I realized I was crying.

I didn’t have a handkerchief. I snuffled into the windscreen cloth, which smelt of oil. What was the matter with me? I jerked and shuddered. It was a shock, I suppose, hearing about the wheelchair; it could so easily have been my own son.

But really, what was the difference? My son might not be disabled, but another son was. It was just as bad. How could anybody bear a world this cruel? We fed our children mince: for what?

Sitting in my coach that afternoon, I don’t think I was crying for one boy, or even two. I was crying for all of them. And I suppose for me, too.

I felt emptied and sore afterwards, as if I’d vomited. I drove around for a while, looking for a pub, but then I realized it was 4.30. What had happened to the day? I drove back into Windermere and bought myself a hot pasty. A police car cruised past. I wondered if Reg had sent out my particulars, but I knew I was safe. Reg’s father-in-law ran the biggest travel agent’s in Peckham; Reg wouldn’t risk his marriage, let alone his business, for the sake of a coach.