She took away my clothes and I lay under the sheets, bare as a newborn baby. The room was warm. I felt whole, from my fingers to my toes. A delicious smell drifted in from the kitchen and I heard the murmur of a radio. No woman, since my mother, had really liked cooking for me. Women had made me meals, of course, but that was different. I mean cooking.

I closed my eyes and thought of Eleni. Dying, or one-day flu, had put her into another life and it alarmed me that I could remember so vaguely. She had liked nibbling things out of little tubs; we were usually out of tempo with each other and hardly ever sat down to a proper meal. Even then she’d be on some fad of her own—Lean Cuisine or something from a Jane Fonda book. She might buy me a pork chop but as she turned it under the grill she wore a preoccupied look, a bit distasteful, as if there was something flabby about it that reminded her of me. It was always undercooked.

You might ask: why didn’t I cook my own chop? Lesley would ask that. But that’s not what I’m talking about.

I lay, naked between my son’s sheets. I was enveloped in peace. Hilda demanded nothing of me; I had never met a woman like this. It suddenly seemed so simple. My past, in retrospect, had been one long obstacle course, sweetly turfed but with treacherous pits underneath, waiting to break my leg at the ankle.

She ran me a bubble-bath and I lay there, reading one of her paperbacks. It was the story of a shy nurse who won the heart of the world’s most distinguished surgeon; on the cover he had film star looks and a suntan. Hilda had a lot of books like that, but when I teased her she took offence and hid them in her bedroom.

I dressed in my clean clothes; they were warm. She tucked me up on the lounge settee. I realized that she had put on some lipstick; she wore a dress with a frill at the collar.

Now the nursing was over she was owed an explanation. I said: ‘I came here to find Lesley.’

She got up and went into the kitchen. I heard clatterings.

I raised my voice: ‘You know, Lesley.’

She came in. ‘Five more minutes, to crisp up the potatoes.’

‘Lesley Featherstone,’ I repeated.

‘I know. I heard you.’ She took away my ashtray and tipped its contents into the bin, rapping it against the sides. ‘That disaster area.’

‘Was she?’

‘You should know.’

‘Not really,’ I replied. ‘It’s only, well, an old business matter.’

She turned round. ‘Is it?’

I nodded. ‘She’s got something of mine. That’s all.’

She didn’t reply. Her face went pink; she looked quite pretty then.