‘Mustn’t keep those potatoes waiting,’ she said, and hurried into the kitchen.

Why had I lied? Well, half-lied. I don’t know.

Supper was wonderful: roast lamb, three sorts of vegetables, roast potatoes, the kind of rich dark gravy nobody makes anymore. She kept re-filling my plate. We sat side-by-side on the settee, watching an old film with Katharine Hepburn in it—the one where she plays a golf pro.

‘Isn’t she beautiful,’ Hilda kept sighing.

We ate the crumble and, after a brief struggle, she let me scrape out the bowl. Afterwards she suggested cocoa but I stood up.

‘I’m taking you out for a drink.’ The food had been lavish, but lacking an alcoholic dimension. Besides, I wanted to take her out.

She stood up, flustered. ‘Shall I change?’

‘You look lovely.’

She went pink again, and touched her crucifix—it was a tiny gold one she wore round her neck. She reapplied her lipstick and we went downstairs.

Time was still disjointed, as it had been all week, and my illness had shuffled it again, like jigsaw pieces that take longer to reassemble. Surprisingly, it was only 9.30. We walked past the fish and chip shop, all lights and people now. I showed her my coach. It looked strange, sitting in the empty car park, as if I’d never driven it. The closed curtains gave it a mysterious air. I told her that since Monday I must have driven a thousand miles.

‘Fancy that,’ was all she said.

We went to a pub at the end of the road. I was getting fond of this neighbourhood. It was a maze of little streets but she said it was all going to be pulled down to make a shopping mall, and she would have to find somewhere else to live.

I asked her about her parents. She said she saw them each Sunday but she had put tomorrow’s visit off, on account of me.

‘If I brought you along,’ she added, with a little laugh, ‘they’d get all the wrong ideas.’

I parked her in an alcove—‘parked’ was somehow the word—and went up to the bar to get the drinks. Beside me, a man was sitting on a stool. When I had ordered he turned to me and grinned.

‘How’s the hangover?’

‘Pardon?’ I said.

‘It was me who carried you upstairs.’

‘I wasn’t drunk,’ I protested. ‘I was ill.’

His face looked skinned, like corned beef and his eyes were bloodshot. They were sunk into his skin, like Reg’s. ‘Staying with our Hilda, then,’ he chuckled.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Our Hilda,’ he said. ‘Stuffing one end because nobody wants to stuff the other.’

It took a moment for this to sink in. I felt sick. Then I hit him.

Actually, I slapped his cheek. He wobbled on his stool, staring at me. Then he took out his handkerchief and wiped his mouth.