‘I do wish you wouldn’t tell me these things,’ says the woman in the chair, shuddering. ‘Hands hurting, are they?’

Her friend scowls then looks down at her hands as if they are enemies. Her knuckles are twisted and swollen so that her fingers spread out and twist like the roots of an ancient hawthorn. ‘Anybody who tells you pain is all in the mind can take a running jump,’ says the woman. ‘Pain is in the bloody nerve endings.’

Despite the suffering they cause her, the woman still wears her rings. There is a diamond and a gold wedding band on the third finger of her left hand, and a modern, Aztec-style twist of silver on her thumb. She has long white hair and a thin, sharply angled face. Her eyes are lapis-blue. She wears a fitted white jacket over a clinging blue top and smart, neatly-pressed trousers. She is a handful of years younger than her friend but could easily pass for sixty. She looks younger still when she smiles.

‘I should have switched to a typewriter,’ she mutters, sighing. ‘Or a computer. Writing by hand will kill your joints. Damn things.’ She glances at her friend, an incongruous and impish smile chasing the anger and sadness from her face. ‘They’re not nearly as ghastly as your legs.’

‘Ooh, you’ve a nasty side to you,’ smiles her friend. ‘You could twang a raw nerve like a violin string, you could. My legs don’t hurt. They’re just annoying.’

‘They’re bloody horrible to look at.’

‘I know. Our John says they look like those sausages you get abroad.’

‘More like a pair of nylons stuffed with haggis.’

‘I’ve never liked haggis.’

‘You tried it?’

‘No.’

The silence stretches out for a moment. Neither feels compelled to talk. They have been friends for a long time.

The younger woman screws up her face. Tastes the air. ‘It’s supposed to smell of disinfectant and boiled cabbage in places like this. I can’t smell anything at all.’

‘It’s nice. I enjoyed my last stay.’

‘You’re not meant to enjoy it, Flick. It’s a hospital.’

‘Not really. It reminds me of that B and B where I stayed when I was down in Bournemouth. Nice people. Lots of chatter. A few people who don’t know what day it is …’

‘Sounds lovely.’

‘Aye well, it was good enough for us,’ says Flick. ‘I tried abroad. Didn’t like it.’

‘There’s a lot of it, I’ve told you that before.’

‘Well I didn’t like the bit I saw. We’ve been through this before, Cordelia.’

Cordelia rolls her eyes. She looks back at the small, frail figure in the bed. She fancies she could pick him up and carry him and he would weigh no more than a sack full of bones.