We’re on the Tyne path, walking home together, before either of us says anything else. It’s as if Susan is waiting, but she’s not impatient. She could probably wait for days. She walks close enough to me that I can smell her appley hair.

‘Thank you,’ I say, eventually, after the silence has become too awkward for me. She nods and waits some more. ‘Why … why did you say all that?’ I ask. ‘You know, lie for me? I didn’t think you lied. Buddhism rules an’ that.’

‘It is not a rule, Malky. It is a guideline. And I lied because I am worried for you.’

‘You think I’ve gone mad?’

She pauses long enough for me to guess that ‘Yes’ is at least part of her answer. But instead, she shakes her head and says, ‘No,’ which is kind of her.

Then she adds a ‘but’, at which point we hear a voice behind us, and whatever the ‘but’ was going to be is left hanging.

‘Hello, you two! Kenneth – look who it is!’

We both spin round to see Andi pushing old Kenneth McKinley in a wheelchair, with Dennis ambling lazily by their side.

‘Kenneth. Do you see who it is?’

The old man lifts his chin from his chest and peers at us.

Andi says, ‘It’s the children from the weekend, Kenneth. Susan and Malcolm.’

At the mention of my name, his head straightens a bit more. He repeats what he had said the day I met him. ‘Malcolm? Good Scottish name that, eh, lad?’ His speech is soft and slurred.

‘He’s not having such a good day today, are you, Kenneth?’

The old man grunts in response and Andi leans over to zip up his thick fleecy top. I’m trying not to make eye contact with Dennis, who has flopped on to his belly at the first chance, but seems to be watching me suspiciously.

‘It’s nice to see you again, Mr McKinley,’ says Susan, loudly.

‘I’m not flamin’ deaf, lassie. Ninety yearsh old, but I can hear you fine.’ Seems like he’s back to being a grouchy old man.

Susan, though, is not put off. She crouches down next to his wheelchair and takes one of his bony hands in both of hers, looking at his face with her head tipped to one side. She says, ‘You began to tell us something the other day. Before your son – Uri – called. You were talking about the limits of the unconscious mind. I was hoping I might hear more.’

The old man shifts his eyes to look sideways at her. Then he reaches up and whips off his mauve-tinted glasses. Except that the arm of the specs gets caught on one of his big old-man’s ears, making it ping back against his head. It’s like he was trying to be dramatic, but didn’t quite pull it off.