Marcus took the card, slid it into his pocket; they turned and walked back up the hill towards the orchard.

‘But not unless you really feel you must; it would have to be pretty serious, you know. Not just a fit of sulks, know what I mean?’

Marcus nodded. ‘Yeah. I know what you mean. Don’t worry, but thanks very much all the same … it will be serious. Something’s got to give, one day.’

Six months later, sitting at a greasy table in the Café Positano in Goldhurst Road, Desmond dropped a lump of sugar into his espresso, and looked across at his exhausted guest who was eating his second egg-and-bacon sandwich.

‘You’ll feel a lot better after that,’ he said.

‘I feel a hell of a lot better already.’

‘You look swacked, old man.’

‘Walked all bloody night. It’s a long way, Dorking.’

‘There are trains.’

‘Not without lolly. End of the week, I was skint. She kept me pretty tight, you know. I had to ask.’

‘So you’re broke, I take it, too. As well as on the run, that it?’

‘That’s it. I’ve got ten pence, a change of jeans, and this anorak. A couple of shirts. I had to get out quickly and light.’ He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, smiled across at Desmond. ‘Sorry, Des. But you did say. And it was serious. Not a fit of the sulks.’

‘No. No. I can see that. The, umm, the LSD business. How long?’

‘Oh, I don’t know when she started. It’s been gradual: sobbing her heart out one minute and then suddenly all bright and gay and airy-fairy. I though it was just “bennies” at first – she was on them for ages – or Valium with the vodka. But it was more, I don’t know, sort of weird … freaky. She was banging about like Peter Pan all over the place. Floating. When she came down it was pretty grim.’ He picked up his coffee, held the hot cup tight against his cheek. ‘Sick, everywhere. I was cleaning up; scrubbing rush matting and vomit isn’t such a big deal. Then the tears; oh-what-will-you-think-of-me-I’m-ill, Marcus. All that shit.’

He drank his coffee, shrugged, set the cup into its saucer. ‘Then yesterday, another Sunday … the same crowd. In the evening she lost her head over something, I don’t know what … some argument about Vietnam being backed by Russia or something; nothing I listened to really … I was up in my room, reading.’ He took a dusty bread-stick from the glass on the table, snapped it into three pieces. ‘Harold Pinter. The Caretaker, do you know it?’

‘No … know what you mean. Never saw it.’