I looked at my watch. Six o’clock. I had to get up, thank Hilda, drive to London and pick up the pieces of some sort of life. Tomorrow was Monday. I must return the coach to Reg, get a bollocking, lose my job and start the long, long battle with my wife. Ex-wife. Face the washing-up, face the music, face the future. Stand in the shopping precinct and yell. Drink myself to oblivion. What did blokes in my position do?

‘Let’s have a waffle!’

I jerked awake. Hilda was standing in the kitchen doorway; she had changed into the dress with the frilly collar.

‘A waffle?’

‘Just for fun.’ She smiled at me, brightly. ‘Let’s! I haven’t used my waffle-maker for yonks.’

I paused. ‘I’m not hungry.’

She looked stricken. ‘Oh please!’

I suddenly sat up. ‘Stuff, stuff, stuff all day long!’ I shouted. ‘What’s that going to solve?’

There was a silence. Her eyes filled with tears. So did mine.

Her shoulders sagged. I jumped up and put my arms around her.

‘I’m sorry,’ I muttered. I hugged her. Her breasts pressed against me like small puddings; for some reason they surprised me.

‘Come on!’ I pulled away, and went into the kitchen. ‘Let’s!’

She blew her nose. Then she showed me how to make the batter. I put on an apron; she passed me the milk and the flour and I put them into the liquidiser.

‘Isn’t this a hoot!’ I chortled.

She was humming, so I started humming too. I hummed Poetry in Motion, and then I started singing.

‘Oh-a-tree in motion,’ I sang, pressing the shuddering liquidiser. ‘See her gentle sway …’

‘That’s wrong,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘It’s Poetry in Motion,’ she said.

‘You’re too young to remember that,’ I said gallantly.

She turned her back to me, opened the cupboard and pulled out the waffle-maker. ‘As a matter of fact, I’m forty-one.’

I paused. ‘Gosh.’

She plugged in the waffle-maker.

I said: ‘I didn’t mean gosh. I meant—gosh.’

‘Pour it in here,’ she told me, opening the machine.

It didn’t function. We both felt ridiculously upset, I don’t know why. It was half-past seven, a stupid time to be making waffles anyway, but by now a waffle seemed the only possible thing to do.

‘Bloody object!’ she cried. ‘Bloody, bloody object!’

We stood back, staring at it. Our fragile good cheer drained away. She kicked the fridge. I changed the fuse in the plug, but it still didn’t work. We gazed at what had become a useless lump of metal. I thought of the heaps of broken appliances in Costas’s shop; they all waited for me.

‘Where’s the instructions?’ she muttered, and went to a drawer. ‘With your guarantees, Hilda.’