The Major sat with his head in his hands then looked up into the last of the afternoon sun, wiping his cheeks once with his fingertips. ‘We’d better go,’ he said, ‘before the bastards send out a search party.’ He pushed me back through the thicket tunnel where darkness had already collected, even though the ceiling of the sky was yet the same icy blue as before.

When we arrived back at the house there was an air of mystery about those present. Someone nodded to the Major as we entered the front door. ‘Oh yes, of course,’ he said, sounding cheerful again. He wheeled me through to a cloakroom where he went about the awkward procedure of removing the coat I had been loaned, taking his time, relieving himself in the toilet, whistling. Then someone, one of the women, popped her head around the door. ‘All right,’ she said, ‘everything’s ready.’ ‘Good,’ said the Major and he wheeled me out of the gloomy room into the kitchen where all the residents were assembled together with John and Tom. They brought me forward to a table laden with brightly coloured things. In the centre was a cake. There was an awkward silence before someone cleared his throat and said, ‘Happy birthday, Peter.’ ‘Yes,’ chimed another, ‘happy birthday, Peter.’ ‘Happy birthday,’ they all said.

Another contrivance, I was certain of that. I could not really believe they had a record of my date of birth; it would all be guesswork. They began chattering nervously. ‘Cut the cake,’ called the Major. ‘Yes, cut the cake,’ said a triplet. Tom stepped forward and began slicing the yellow thing up. Hands reached for it. ‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘Birthday boy first.’ He brought me a piece on a silver knife and my mouth flapped crazily in anticipation.

‘Thirty-three today,’ someone called.

I couldn’t believe that. I couldn’t believe any of them. You never knew what was going to come out next in the kind of company I kept.

NINE

How nice it would have been to have some kind of order in my head; my mind sectioned off into compartments, little boxes on the dusty floor of my brain, here my grievances, in this one my fears, here the past, here the murky future. I should have visited each at will, or perhaps I should have left them all tightly locked, keeping the key of course, admiring and fussing over their security, pondering how I might make them even more innocuous. I should never have thrown the key away: that would never have done since I should always have been in deepest fear of someone finding it and undoing my work.