I made tactful noises. ‘Lucia di Lammermoor’ is what Sam calls his mother-in-law, who is about as affreuse as any mother-in-law can aspire to be. She dresses like a sixteen-year-old in dirndl skirts and little socks, her hair is long and gold and false and her face looks like an accident in a paint-factory. She is always in and out of expensive nursing homes for the nervously afflicted but whether this is just a rich woman’s hobby or whether she is a boozer who has to be dried out periodically or whether she really is barmy none of her family has ever decided – or much cared. When last heard-of she had taken wing to North Africa with an eighteen-year-old faith-healer who also happened to be a lift-attendant.

‘I gave Dr Wankel – yes, Golda Wankel – the names of the last two loony-bins she’s patronized and she rang them up straight away – said it could be important – but neither of them could find the case-history or whatever it’s called. Odd, that, don’t you think?’

‘Only fairly odd.’

‘Eh? Oh. I see. Well, then, she asked me all sorts of peculiar things about Violet – does she sort of tend to misinterpret things, does she muddle common turns of phrase – well, you know how we all tease her about saying things like “crafty as a door-nail” and “dead as a wagon-load of monkeys” – and I had to answer “yes” to an awful lot of them, which really made me quite worried.’

His speech was getting a little wobbly: I have a horror of seeing my fellow-men weep. I made him a monstrous drink and tried to change the subject. He took the drink and rallied, but he would not wear the change of subject.