‘Glad you reminded me. I’ll be there next week anyway, and I’ll ask about it. But still, you should assume for the time being that there’s nothing seriously wrong with Hercules.’ He gets up from the floor again and grabs his bag. ‘So, I’ll be off now. You clearly have plans for tonight. You look as though you’ve just been having a little dress rehearsal here.’

Caroline laughs and stands up too. ‘You’re right. But if you like, you can stay for a glass of wine. After all, you gave up your evening for us, and I’d like to thank you for that.’

Wagner hesitates. Get going, Mister, take off – Caroline is just trying to be polite. The fact is that no one here wants you around!

‘But you surely have plans, and I don’t want to be in the way.’

Good thinking, Wagner. Bye!

‘Quite the contrary! I’d love you to stay. I’ve changed my plans for tonight anyway because of Hercules.’

‘Then I’ll be happy to fill in.’

Oh no! No sooner are we rid of one of them than we’re stuck with the next one! Well, all right, at least Wagner is not a danger for Daniel, but that is his only advantage. Caroline smiles at him. ‘My name is Caroline, by the way.’

‘Oh yes, thank you! I’m Marc.’

Caroline nods. ‘I know.’

They both laugh – somewhat shyly, it seems to me.

‘How about you go into the living room first? It’s right across from the front door. I’ll just change.’

‘Not on my account – I think you look enchanting.’

Caroline laughs in embarrassment. ‘Well, OK, if you can stand me in jeans and a baggy sweater, I’ll stay like this.’

‘I certainly can; no problem.’

And instead of Wagner taking his stupid medical bag and making himself scarce, there he is, not even two minutes later, sitting on our living room couch. Feeling out of sorts, I lie down right in front of it and watch Caroline get two glasses out of the cabinet. She’s just too nice. Why didn’t she let Wagner go? Instead, this ‘wine-drinking business’ is starting up again. I really hate to say this, but humans are sometimes just endlessly boring, for example when they drink wine. Here’s how it’ll go: Caroline will soon pour one bottle into another, then the two of them will pour the stuff from the second bottle into two glasses. With any luck, they’ll simply drink it up, and we’ll be rid of Dr Wagner in no time. Unfortunately, this outcome is extremely unlikely. What will happen, in all likelihood, is that they’ll spend an inordinate amount of time sitting on the couch and going on and on about things that are supposedly important in life. Bottom line, there’ll be talk instead of action. If Dr Wagner were Nina, most of this talk would be about men, which would at least be of some interest to me because I might find out more about how Daniel’s chances with Caroline stand. But with Wagner she’ll probably talk more about the other topic that’s always on humans’ minds: work. Another favourite subject is the old days. Yawn. Or they like to combine both topics and chat about work and the old days. They can easily fill an hour just exploring the question of when they were young, what they wanted to be when they grew up and why that choice didn’t work out. I don’t understand how people can be so deeply concerned about things that can no longer be changed anyway. But humans are true masters in the art of contemplating the what-ifs. No self-respecting dog would ever bother with issues like that. In other words: drinking wine is apparently a synonym for a highly inefficient method of killing an evening for people who can’t be bothered to go for a good run in the park – and most people are like this.