Dear Harold, This may come to you as some surprise. I know it is a long time since we last met, but recently I have been thinking about the past. Last year I had an operation on a tumour, but the cancer has spread and there is nothing left to be done. I am at peace, and comfortable, but I would like to thank you for the friendship you showed me all those years ago. Please send my regards to your wife. I still think of David with fondness. With my best wishes.

He could hear her steady voice as clearly as if she were standing before him. But the shame. The shame of being the one who had let down a good woman, and never done anything about it.

“Harold. Harold.”

He must get there. He must get to Berwick. He must find her.

“Are you all right?”

He stirred himself. The voice wasn’t that of Queenie. It was the woman whose room he was using. It was Martina. He was finding it hard to distinguish the past from the present.

“Can I come in?” she called.

Harold tried to stand, but the door opened before he made it to his feet, so that she caught him in an odd crouched position, half on the bed and half not. She stood at the threshold, holding a washing-up bowl, and two towels over one arm. In the other hand she held a plastic first-aid box. “For your feet,” she said, nodding in the direction of his yachting shoes.

“You can’t wash my feet.” Harold was standing now.

“I’m not here to wash them, but you’re walking funny. I need to look.”

“They’re fine. There is no problem.”

She frowned impatiently, and slouched with the weight of the plastic bowl on her hip. “So how do you take care of them?”

“I put on plasters.”

Martina laughed but not in a way that suggested she was amused. “If you think you’re going to get to fucking Berwick, we need to get you right, Harold.”

It was the first time anyone had referred to his walk as a shared responsibility. He could have wept with gratitude, but instead he nodded and sat back down.

Martina knelt and retied her ponytail, and then she carefully spread one of her towels on the carpet, smoothing out the folds. The only sound came from the traffic and the rain and the wind, jamming the branches of the tree with shrill cries at the glass. The light was dimming, but she did not put on a lamp. She held out her cupped hands, waiting.