“Dick, come on…” I held his arm as he hobbled away, aware how much stronger he was, like a wiry and determined old man. “You’re so much better—you may never move there. I can feel it.”

“I can feel it, all right…” He let me help him onto a settee in the patients’ dayroom, then pulled up a wooden chair for me. As he stared around the room I realised how much he had changed. He had lost all illusions about himself—he had always enjoyed being recognised in public, but no one now, neither the nursing staff nor his fellow patients, remembered the handsome presenter-psychologist who had fronted so many popular-science programmes. Dick appeared not to care. To show his indifference to his earlier self, he had selected an oversize golden wig, almost a caricature of his sandy hair.

“You’ll have time to read,” I commented. “Cleo has the keys to your house, she can pick anything you want from the shelves.”

“No—I’m too busy watching everyone here.” He pulled my arm and whispered: “You have to admire people. Most of them are far worse off than me—yards of gut cut out, half their jaws gone, ribs and God knows what. Yet they look like film extras ready to play a party scene.”

“Perhaps you should bring a camera in here?”

“It’s a thought. In fact”—Dick glanced at me, as if recognising me for the first time—“they say factory production always goes down after a film-crew visit. Here I’d expect the opposite effect. Perhaps there are too many TV screens in hospitals and too few cameras. Jim, tell me about Cleo and the children. It’s good to see you, by the way.”

My suggestion had taken root. He was rallying himself, trying to be interested in our inconsequential world. Looking at his long, jutting jaw, I sensed his gathering will, if not to survive, at least to impose himself on whatever time was left to him.

The following Sunday, when I visited the hospital, I learned that he had discharged himself and returned home.

*   *   *

“It looks as if I have three or four months, possibly six,” Dick explained as we sat in his computer room. “Omnibus and Horizon are both very interested…”

“Dick, are you sure?”

“They’ll set up the lights and equipment for me, and some kind of static video camera we can talk into. The idea is to show what actually happens as we approach the end, and break through all the taboos and preconceptions. No high-flown stuff about life and death, but as close to our ordinary talk as we can get. We’ll start with something easy to get the ball rolling, the ten best films ever made, our last trips to New York, Chomsky versus Skinner. Most of it will be taped down here, but we’ll move upstairs towards the end…”