‘Coming! I won’t be a minute.’

He addressed the envelope, peeled a stamp from the book and stuck it on the letter ready for posting.

‘It’s going cold, Doctor Devon!’ The tone was more insistent.

‘I’m on my way.’ He tramped down the stairs with the letter, wishing that he could be allowed to get his own lunch, rather than let Luisa make it for him. She was sixty-odd, Italian and irritable, and he really only wanted her to do a bit of cleaning, but she insisted on preparing him a plate of food every day when he was at home. Pasta. Always pasta, with something in it. He was never quite sure what. Today the bits were dark brown. They could be sun dried tomato. They could be sausage. Tasting them would give no greater clue; Luisa’s pasta always tasted the same. Glutinous and uninspiring. Food with a flavour bypass.

With any luck she would go before he had finished it and he could consign it to the bin and get a mini pork pie from the fridge and an apple from the bowl. That would do nicely. But Luisa was of the opinion that nourishment should be cooked and arranged into a mountain. How else could a man survive?

He sat down at the table and managed a weak smile. ‘Thank you, Mrs Bassani. Pasta. How nice.’

‘Your favourite!’ she beamed, handing him a spoon and fork.

‘Now, Doctor Devon,’–she pronounced his name with a rolling ‘r’ at the end of the doctor bit–‘I have some bad news for you.’

He looked up. ‘Oh dear.’

‘I am going away.’

He tried his best to look crestfallen. ‘Oh?’

‘Yes. I am going away for two weeks.’

‘Oh dear.’

‘But I make, how you say…provision?’

‘Provision, yes…’

‘To make sure you stay clean and well fed.’

‘Now, Mrs Bassani, there really is no need…I’m sure I can manage without any…provision.’

‘Oh yes? And who will wash and who will iron and who will make sure you eat?’

She stood with her hands on her broad hips, a white apron over her black cardigan and skirt, her tightly curled hair framing her stern-featured face. She was a caricature of the archetypal Italian momma, straight from central casting.

‘Mrs Bassani, if I can’t manage for two weeks…’

‘It may be more. I not sure.’

Christopher knew that this was his last hope of freedom. ‘You really mustn’t worry yourself, Mrs Bassani. I’ve been thinking about things and I think it’s probably for the best if we…’

But he was an amateur. As a doctor in his surgery he might be godlike to his patients and his nurses, but as a mere man in the kitchen of his own home he was putty in the hands of an Italian matriarch in full flood.

‘Is all sorted.’ Mrs Bassani made it clear that there was no room for further negotiation.