‘Well I think you’re very sensible in that case,’ said Mrs Beale, ‘to think about your future. Acting is such a precarious profession, one can never tell how things will end up and of course for some reason there seems to be a disproportionate amount of single people in your profession. Long ago a group of actors decided that old people’s homes exclusively for actors might take some of the insecurity away from – unattached people. People here are the ones who aren’t actually ill but really can’t look after themselves any more, they’re mostly in their seventies or older, but occasionally... we have one lady here – you probably remember Alice Little?’

‘Alice Little? Oh, of course I do, I’ve even worked with her when I was younger. But – she can’t be old, she must be in her early sixties, no more.’

‘Very late sixties actually,’ said Mrs Beale smiling a little, ‘she lied about her age of course. She has Alzheimer’s.’

Harry saw in his mind Alice Little: tap dancing, shaking her curls.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘She should be in a hospital really, she gets very disturbed sometimes and we’ll have to move her soon but – I remember her dancing at the Adelphi when I was a little girl, and – I feel fond of her, silly really.’

Just then there was a cry, a cry of such distress that Harry stood up, alarmed.

‘It’s all right,’ said Mrs Beale but she too got up. ‘I’ll be back in a moment.’ The crying, the calling, continued; Harry at first thought he couldn’t make out any words, and yet at the same time he could: Mummy, the voice called, Mummy Mummy Mummy. The idea of an old old lady calling for her mother like a child so disturbed him that he turned quickly, knocking over his chair. The woman who had been asleep in the lounge began to shout.

‘Shut up!’ she shouted. ‘Shut up shut up shut up!’ Harry saw that the second woman still stared intently at the empty television screen.

‘Sorry,’ he said anxiously. He picked up the chair, looked out of the window, rattled some change in his pocket. Two women in pink overalls, obviously nurses or nursing aides, strolled past outside, both smoking, both laughing uproariously at some shared joke. The old lady with the zimmer frame stood motionless now beside the pond.

Mrs Beale came back. ‘Sorry about that,’ she said. ‘That’s Alice Little. She gets upset. I know we’ll have to move her from here soon.’ Mummy, called the voice, but softer.

‘Perhaps you’d like to ask me some questions?’ said Mrs Beale.

What am I doing here? thought Harry. I’m not going to be old anyway.