‘I’m glad I’ve got the chance to talk to you,’ she said. ‘I was afraid – I want you to do something for me. I want you to talk to him.’

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘What about?’

‘His drinking. What else?’

I shifted uncomfortably. ‘Uh—’ I began and shifted again. ‘I don’t see—’

‘He wet his pants in the theater last week. We went to see – It’s a silly play, Barefoot in the Park, I don’t know why we went at all. It was a local production, not any good really. He just sat there and – I smelled it. That’s how I knew. I was so ashamed.’

‘Oh, Lord, I’m sorry—’

‘He wouldn’t even look at me. We didn’t know whether to stay sitting there or run or what.’ She laughed a little wildly. ‘What is the etiquette for wetting your pants during Barefoot in the Park?’

‘Probably nobody noticed,’ I said, not knowing what to say.

‘That’s not the point, is it?’

This tumor of mine isn’t cancer. It’s benign. If it were anywhere in soft tissue – gut, legs – they could just cut it out, and that would be that. But it chose to grow within the strict confines of my spinal column; it chose to fight for a territory that it could not fail to win – and in winning, it’s going to kill us both. You might say it’s a bond between me and my grandfather. He didn’t die of slavery – not directly – any more than I’m going to die of this tumor – not directly. It’s the secret strangulation of the nerves that counts. In some cases like mine you can operate. My surgeon, Dr Abbott of the large belly and shiny pate, was in favor of a try. I walked into the hospital. He operated. Three months later, they wheeled me out in this chair, where I’ve been ever since, the tumor still more or less intact, still growing, albeit more slowly. Atlas never liked Dr Abbott. He said Abbott had no feel for the flesh. I guess he was right, but he never said anything until it was too late, until the operation was long over and the damage irrevocable.

‘Will you talk to him?’ Claire asked again.

‘He’s thirty years older than I am,’ I said evasively. ‘Why should he listen to me?’

‘Balances do change.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘You’re what? Forty-five? The peak of your powers. He knows that and respects it. I’m just an old bag who fusses over ovens and dinner parties.’

‘It’s not really any of my—’

‘Try, that’s all I ask. Won’t you at least try? If the opportunity presents itself? What harm can it do to try?’

‘Claire, I—’

She got up angrily. ‘Is your self-absorption total? My husband’s killing himself, and all you can do is sit there. You’re so damned sorry for yourself you won’t even try to help.’ She slammed the door shut behind her.