The door swung open with a bang, and a dark shape lumbered in. In the steamy air, Vidor couldn’t make out who it was, but as the shape moved closer his heart sank. It was that wretched German woman. The one terrified of draughts, and whose eyes had a way of goggling at you like a flounder.

As she removed her robe, he turned his head away and doggy paddled to the far side of the pool. He could sense her staring at his awkwardness. But it wasn’t his fault he’d never mastered the correct technique. Though his childhood city was full of thermal baths, and his mother fond of the water, the few times she’d tried to teach him he’d resisted. From the safety of the shallow end, he would watch her cleave the water in an effortless breaststroke, while he could barely stay afloat. The moment he stopped moving, he would sink straight to the bottom.

At the pool’s shallow end, he hauled himself onto the green-tiled ledge and wrapped himself in a fluffy white robe with the clinic’s name embroidered on the pocket. Tucked into an alcove off the pool area was a relaxation room with comfortable lounge chairs, potted palms, and a selection of lifestyle magazines. No news of the world, of course. Nothing to upset their fragile sensibilities. For all he knew, the world outside their little corner of Switzerland had been obliterated by a nuclear catastrophe, while their hardy band of six, now five, remained blissfully unaware of the carnage.

He lay back, arms over his chest, breathing in and out, as he listened to the slap of water against the sides of the pool. At the sound of vigorous splashing and the smack of bare feet on the tiles, he kept his eyes firmly shut as the chair next to him was scraped back. She snapped open a magazine and ruffled the pages with a noisy sigh. He tightened the belt on his robe and prepared to make his escape.

‘Not disturbing you, am I?’ Her smoker’s voice grated on his ears.

‘Not at all, I was just leaving.’

‘Don’t rush off on my account. I’ll be quiet as a mouse.’

He closed his eyes and tried to run through his newly developed mathematical model for the signal transduction of neurotrophic factor in the brain. But her incessant sighs and annoying tsks jabbed at him like a raft of hot needles.