In the waiting room she tried to distract herself with magazines, but she looked at the words without connecting them into sentences. She was aware of couples like herself and Harold, sitting side by side, keeping one another company. The late-afternoon light was sprinkled with dust motes, swirling in the thick air as if it had been stirred with a spoon.

When a young man opened the consulting-room door and mumbled a patient’s name, Maureen sat waiting for someone to get up and wondering why they took so long, until she realized it was her own name and scrambled to her feet. The locum looked barely out of school, and his body didn’t fill his dark suit. His shoes were polished like conkers; an image came to her from nowhere of David’s school shoes, and she felt a twist of anguish. She wished she had not asked for her son’s help. She wished she had stayed at home.

“What can I do for you?” murmured the locum, as he folded into his chair. Words seemed to slip out of his mouth without noise, and she had to crane her head closer in order to catch them. If she wasn’t careful, he’d offer her a hearing test.

Maureen explained how her husband had set off to visit a woman he had not seen for twenty years, convinced he could save her from cancer. It was his eleventh day of walking, she said, rolling her handkerchief into a knot. “He can’t get to Berwick. He has no map. No proper shoes. When he left the house, he actually forgot his mobile.” Telling a stranger brought home the rawness of it, and she was afraid she would cry. She dared a glance at the locum’s face. It was as if someone had stepped over to him while she wasn’t looking and drawn in thick worry-lines with a black pen. Maybe she had said too much.

He spoke slowly, as if he were trying to remember the right words. “Your husband thinks he is going to save his former colleague?”

“Yes.”

“From cancer?”

“Yes.” She was beginning to feel impatient. She didn’t want to have to explain; she wanted him instinctively to understand. She was not here to defend Harold.

“How does he think he will save her?”

“He seems to believe the walking will do it.”

He scowled, creating further deep lines towards his jaw. “He thinks a walk will cure cancer?”

“A girl gave him the idea,” she said. “A girl in a garage. She made him a burger as well. Harold never eats burgers at home.”

“A girl told him he could cure cancer?” If this appointment continued for much longer, the poor boy’s face would be all over the place.

Maureen shook her head, trying to restore order. She was suddenly very tired. “I am worried about Harold’s health,” she said.

“Is he fit and well?”