‘Is it?’

‘Isn’t it? How many Percys do you know?’

He laughed, because it was funny.

‘I can’t think of a single one,’ he said. ‘It’s a nice name, I’m not saying it isn’t – and I wouldn’t tease him. But boys, you know – they can be very cruel. They can be very intolerant, and… I can just imagine them… You know – teasing him. No mercy for Percy. But – hopefully, he’d tell someone, wouldn’t he? They have all these helplines, now – counsellors. People believe you, I think, and… My closest friend was – well, it doesn’t matter, really.’

The man said nothing, and the woman had picked up her tablet.

‘Have you got any photographs?’ said Michael. ‘Of the new flat, I mean. Not of Percy, though… how old is he? Young, I imagine.’

She didn’t speak.

Michael sat and finished his drink. The silence seemed terribly, tragically heavy to him – for to not answer a direct question was quite a significant rejection, and it meant he couldn’t ask another. He had to be sensitive to the fact that the couple no longer wanted to talk, and that was because he was drunk and had been… Not invasive, but certainly lacking in the good manners he normally upheld in every situation. He had been tactless, and intrusive. He had been stupid, too.

He said, ‘I’m having a little bit of a problem.’

He said it quite quietly.

‘It’s not really a problem one can talk about. So I don’t. It’s not like… If it was cancer you might just say it. I suppose you wouldn’t. But… I don’t understand why you want me to visit you in Settle.’

‘We don’t,’ said the man.

‘You did.’

There was a silence.

‘A moment ago you did, but… I just don’t think it’s my kind of place, and I genuinely don’t think I could afford it. Unless things change, dramatically, and there’s not much chance of that. I’m… comfortable. Compared to so many. There was a picture in the paper—’

‘Look,’ said the man. ‘Please don’t take this the wrong way, but would you mind if we didn’t chat any more?’

‘Chat about what?’

‘Would you mind if we didn’t?’

‘Didn’t what?’

‘Talk.’

‘No. Not at all. I don’t think we were talking, really. I don’t think we were having a conversation. You seemed to want to tell me about your personal life—’

‘That’s not quite true, but—’

‘I don’t think I asked you if you had any grandchildren, and I don’t think I asked where this boy, Percy, went to school – or what his name was. Or if I did, it was because—’

‘Let’s drop it, please.’