‘You keep saying that. Yes! It’s amazing news! I don’t know how…’

‘We’re doing everything we can to improve your diet, and your general health, so…’

I find this hard to swallow. I can see, I can think, I can talk, I can walk. I don’t think I’ve been doing much of these things lately, but maybe I have. I don’t know. I couldn’t see for ages. I do know that. And it can’t have been cured by a healthy diet.

I could quiz her further, but I feel so happy, so full of spring, I won’t. There’s something rather wooden about her today, anyway.

‘Please, open the window.’

Winifred touches the lock, and releases it. I don’t see how she did that. She pushes the window wide open. The room fills with cooler air.

‘Ah, smell that!’ I say. ‘Isn’t it lovely? Like champagne.’

Winifred draws the air into her nostrils.

‘I smell…’

‘Don’t tell me! Pheromones indeed. Bacteria I expect. Fox poo. I don’t want to know.’

‘Why don’t you want to know? Yes, pheromones. And birds. The females are preparing to breed. I can smell bumblebees – early queens, emerging from burrows and looking for nest sites, ready to lay their first eggs. Many other insects, too, communicating with each other using a few molecules, blown in the wind across the countryside. An owl, hidden somewhere nearby, and mice, running in the space under the floor, safe while the owl sleeps. Except I can smell a cat somewhere.’

I can’t believe she can smell all that. I have a pretty good sense of smell, but I can’t claim to smell insects. Or owls. Mice sometimes.

‘You’re making it up! Nobody can smell that well. The human nose isn’t capable of it.’

‘I don’t have a human nose, Margaret. I need to tell you about myself.’

And then she tells me something simply extraordinary.

I have to sit down now.

She stays with me. She takes my hand. Her hand feels human. I squeeze it.

‘I remember talk about robots before… back then. You’re not like the ones they showed us on TV.’

‘No, Margaret, it’s been a while since…’

How long? I want to ask her, but I’m afraid of the answer. I’ll save it for later.

‘Your skin is… I’m sorry. I am amazed, and I want to know so much, but it seems a little personal, you know.’

Winifred smiles, and says she has no feelings, and I can ask what I want without fear of hurting them, or embarrassment. I might feel embarrassed, I point out, and a look of puzzlement passes over her face.