‘I do not need help. I have told everyone that. They’re all so full of suggestions, goodwill, love. I just want to be allowed to … hate the world in peace.’

‘Fair enough,’ said the doctor. ‘That’s OK by me. I just don’t want you messing up Clara’s life.’

‘How could I do that? I hardly know the woman. She has been kind to me, yes. Given me and the dog a bit of comfort. Why would I mess up her life? She doesn’t think I’m mad although almost everyone else does. I’d have thought that as a doctor you would understand. You all talk about her as being post-operative … what the hell do you think I am? I’ve had half my life, my being hacked off, without a bloody anaesthetic. I live in constant raging pain.’

Laurence leant his elbows on the table and put his head in his hands. ‘There have been times when I haven’t wanted to go on living. There have been times when I have wanted to kill someone. You know, I have this picture of this man running over the hill. I know in my head exactly what he looks like and I swear to you, Doctor, that if I were to meet him in the street I would kill him.’

He looked up at the other man.

‘I bet you’d like to lock me up.’

The doctor shook his head.

‘We could do that, all right. Fill you with drugs – all that sort of thing. But people who don’t want to mend don’t mend. I expect you’ve listened to a lot of words over the last couple of years.’

‘Yes.’

‘I won’t add to them then.’

‘Thanks.’

A shaft of light through the window all of a sudden gilded half the room. The doctor sat, unaware, the cigarette in his hand; he looked newly lacquered, Lar thought, all golden but a bit forlorn.

‘Quick.’ It was Clara calling from the garden. ‘Oh, do come quickly.’

The two men and Pansy jumped to their feet and ran outside. Clara was standing by the gate.

The sun had bathed the garden and street in a fierce golden light. The sky was mostly black with clouds, but the low sun shone straight down the street through the trees like a golden spotlight. Everything it touched seemed magnified and quite still. Clara held out her golden hands towards the men. They stood by the gate as still as the trees and the little house and the golden mess of last year’s unkempt flowerbeds.

‘We are transformed,’ whispered Clara. ‘We have become angels.’ The sun was so dazzling that she had to close her eyes. A little wind rustled in the hedge and like a wolf the black clouds consumed the sun and everything was grey once more.

Clara opened her eyes. The three of them stood there holding hands and suddenly looking rather foolish.