Tom appeared, or rather his hand did, snaking through the gap in the door, feeling for the light which he clicked on, only for the bulb to ping above my head putting everything back into darkness. He shuffled off and brought a replacement. ‘Bloody things,’ he said. ‘Don’t last two minutes.’ He brought a chair from outside the room and stood on it to replace the bulb. He gasped as if wearied by the effort of stretching, set the chair aside, then stood and smiled at me.

‘Well, Peter my boy,’ he said. ‘Getting used to us now are you? Us and our funny little ways? You’ll like it here, certain of it,’ he said as he drew the curtains behind me.

‘Now,’ he went on, ‘I’m meant to take you downstairs to meet the rest of the residents.’ He looked at his watch and shook his head. ‘I don’t know, though, it’s getting late you’ve probably had enough excitement for one day. What do you say? Yes? No? Am I right? Plenty of time for all that tomorrow. We don’t want to rush things, now, do we? Shouldn’t expect too much of you on your first day, though I can tell you’ve made quite an impression already, yes my boy, quite an impression indeed. Anyway, time you were thinking about sleep, you’ve another day ahead of you tomorrow.’

From outside the room he brought a newly procured syringe filled with warm milk which he allowed to trickle, too slowly this time, down my throat. I spluttered and he laid the syringe aside. Then he tried to get a toothbrush between my clenched teeth, but this too was unsuccessful and in a moment of pique he threw the brush across the room into the sink. He sighed and looked to the ceiling then, without comment, began undressing me, heaving at my shirt, dragging my trousers down to reveal a stain of dark urine on the pad and my leg, the only output I could recall since leaving the hospital that morning, that eternity ago.

When I was naked and he had wiped away my mess, he heaved me on to the bed and covered me with a cold sheet and heavy blankets. He turned out the light and closed the door.

It was early in the evening, I guessed, but he had been right in suggesting that the exertions of this day might have taken their toll on me. I lay in the darkness, tense and perplexed. He had left my shoulder exposed to the cold and tomorrow it would cause me pain.

There you have it, then, this day I have described, confessed out of sight, the bauble broken, though it will always remain, hidden, its cusps and its brilliance embedded somewhere, above, below, in my liver maybe, nicking and scorching some secret part of me till I bleed, and am once more obliged to recognize its presence in my memory. And would that this was the only day I might seek to forget.