‘So how? How do you go from buttering bread to sleeping for hours?’

‘Please, Dale.’ The towel slapped my stomach. ‘It’s freezing.’

‘But how can that even be? It doesn’t make sense to—’

‘Because I’m fucking ill.’ I pushed his hand away and pulled the duvet up to my face. ‘I made him a sandwich. He was in bed. I sat in the lounge while he ate it and I was overcome with tiredness. And now I know why.’ My voice cracked towards the end. The last few words barely audible and punctuated with a raw cough.

Dale dropped the towel to the floor as he sat on the bed. ‘Where does he live?’

I rolled to face the wall. ‘Edward?’

‘Yes. Who else could I possibly mean, Constance?’

An icy fear washed over my burning skin. ‘In Kensington. I’ve told you—’

‘Where in Kensington?’

‘You want his address?’

‘Yes.’

The peeking rainbow of wallpaper gone by stared at me. ‘Flat six, 25 Gregory Place.’

‘So if I went there tomorrow . . . instead of you, I’d find poor old man Edward, would I? And he’d tell me you visit him almost every day, would he?’

I sat up. My head throbbed. ‘No . . . you can’t do that.’

‘Why?’

‘Because he’d hate it, that’s why.’

‘That’s not why.’

His red-rimmed eyes bulged. A raised vein on his shiny temple. The worm that had burrowed into his head.

‘Fine. I’ll call him in the morning. Tell him you’re dropping off some food because I’m ill.’ I winced at the pain of creating so many words.

He covered his face with his hands and with a broken voice mumbled, ‘Thank you.’

Neither of us moved for some time. We were a tableau. Until he stood and pressed two paracetamols from the blister pack and handed them to me.

‘You’re due these. I’ll leave you to sleep. I need to get some myself or I’ll feel like shit tomorrow.’

He turned off the lamp, stroked my head. Then became a vague form within the black as he walked towards the door. The sound of the handle turning brought with it a wedge of light from the hall.

‘I love you, Constance. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you.’

As I was thinking of a reply, the door shut and I was once again in darkness.

In the morning, after I’d rung twattish Linda (‘Not again? You’ve been most unfortunate with your health, haven’t you, Constance?’), I reluctantly called Edward, as agreed.

‘I’m not having some bloody stranger in my flat.’

‘He’s not a stranger, and he’s only dropping off shopping, then he’ll go. Think of him as the man from Sainsbury’s.’

A coughing fit erupted, and I was unable to speak through the beeping of his dying handset.