I felt a mild, tingling sensation as my lips came back to life; I touched them with my finger. And as I stood in the hallway I heard the faint, familiar hurrumpf as the boiler, too, awakened from its long slumber. The radiators started ticking as they warmed up.

Calvin came downstairs.

‘Gosh, that was quick,’ I said.

‘Easy for me, doll. Got the same model at home.’

‘Thanks so much, anyway.’

‘No problem. But you need a plumber to flush out the system.’

‘Huh, try finding a plumber round here.’

‘I’ve got a great guy, I’ll send him round.’

I told him my number and he tapped it into his mobile. It felt curiously intimate, tap tap tap, like a pulse in my blood.

He pocketed his mobile and looked at his watch. ‘Better go. Got to feed Angie’s horse.’

He laid his hand on my shoulder, and was gone.

To be honest, I was relieved he left. We seemed to have been plunged into familiarity at breakneck speed. I needed to catch up and have a think. Maybe, for Calvin, this wasn’t unusual behaviour. He was simply an impulsive man, bursting with energy, and easily bored. In the waiting room I’d briefly amused him and he’d fancied carrying on the conversation. Maybe he was lonely. His wife had died; he’d largely given up work. He might have been one of those talkative men who simply need an audience. After all, he hadn’t been flirting, just nattering. He probably did this with everyone. Maybe he’d simply been making phone calls in his car and had forgotten all about me until he saw me coming out of the surgery.

Besides, he was bound to have a girlfriend. She’d be half my age, too. A man like Calvin wouldn’t be alone for long. He wasn’t drop-dead handsome, he had questionable taste in clothes and he said ‘no worries’, but there was something magnetic about him. It was his confidence, his brashness. And something intimate, as if we were sharing secrets we’d told nobody else in the world. I can’t quite describe it. I guess it was charm.

He charmed me, anyway. Besides, he was fun. And I hadn’t had fun for a long time.

Maybe I was just desperate, and anyone would do.

Besides, all this was theoretical. In all probability I’d never see him again.

Six

Six

I didn’t hear anything for a week. Hope drained away as the days passed and the phone stayed silent. How could I have been so stupid? Of course nothing was going to happen.

And then a plumber arrived. He was a good-looking guy called Lamonte. He said he’d worked for Calvin for years and they’d become mates.