‘What’s a GB?’ asked Netta as she tried to keep pace with his long strides. ‘Slow down, there’s no bus to catch!’

‘Sorry! GB means going barmy, a B means you’re getting batty, and BM you’ve gone Bloody mental. Pardon my French.’

‘Then I was a BM, first class, I suppose. I had my baby and don’t remember much at all after that.’ Talking to a stranger was easy enough, she found, and noticed she told him the truth about Rae and the whole sorry tale, as if it had all happened to someone else.’

‘You poor sod! Nature can pull some cruel tricks on a woman. Sounds like post-partum dementia. Very rare. What rotten luck. Have they treated you well in here? I’m sure it gets better – eventually.’

‘How would you know? I have had the doubtful pleasure of experiencing the miracles of modern medicine: potions and pills and regular electrocution, bed rest and occupational therapy. At last something’s shifting. I have never stayed in one place long enough to draw a picture until now, and I can tell you this without bawling. No one has really bothered to explain it to me.

I thought, at first I had done something dreadfully wrong.’

Netta stopped in her tracks. He was her own height and abruptly pierced her gaze with his clear-eyed stare. ‘Believe me, you did nothing wrong. No one can explain it yet. Hormonal change after childbirth is as near as they’d probably get. You’re definitely OTM!’

‘What’s that?’

‘On the mend.’

‘Thank you, Doctor, and what is your fee?’ They had walked full circle back to the church. What a strange man, talking as if he knew something about her terrible experience. Netta decided it was better to humour him.

‘Call me Drew, and can we meet again? Do you go to the dance hall? I hear it’s pretty swish inside. Didn’t expect such a bevy of pretty patients and nurses around the place. You’re better than a G and T. Meet me tomorrow, promise? That’ll be my fee.’

‘Tomorrow it is but I’ll meet you inside.’

Netta paused to admire the pond and the late-autumn flowers in the rocky banks. An evening with Drew Stirling should be quite an experience; not quite the art therapy she had intended but it would pass the time, give her a chance to dress up and put a face on. She had not felt like doing that for months. Something was shifting inside her and she felt a leap of excitement. A bit of singing and dancing would do no harm.

Drew raised his arm instinctively to salute her then put it down and bowed. ‘Tomorrow at seven. I say, a date in the loony bin – how bizarre!’

*