Fred places the flowers in a small plastic vase on the bedside table. Then he takes the photograph he had in the hotel from his pocket and puts it beside the flowers. He sits down by the woman, who remains with her back to him.

He looks at the floor, overcome by an unfamiliar shyness, and says, “I waited until visiting hours to come and see you.”

He then stares at the woman’s back under the sheet.

There is no expression on Fred’s face.

There is no sound at all.

Then, in a flat voice without any emotion, he starts to speak slowly and simply.

“They have no idea, Melanie. Children have no idea. They can’t imagine what their parents are about. Yes, they know certain aspects, the exceptional things . . . those they know. And they know enough to takes sides against each other. They feel a need to simplify matters. And they’re right. But they don’t know. They can’t know. They don’t know how I trembled the first time I saw you on stage. And the orchestra, which had understood, was laughing behind my back about my falling in love, my unexpected fragility. They don’t know that you sold your mother’s jewels to allow me to finish my second work, when everyone was turning me down and saying I was an awkward and presumptuous composer. They don’t know that you too at the time – and you were right – thought I was an awkward and presumptuous composer, while you were crying day and night not because you’d sold some jewels, but because you felt you’d sold your mother. They don’t know how much you loved me and I loved you. Only we know. They don’t know what, despite everything, we’ve meant to each other. That ‘despite everything’ that has been so wearing, painful and evil. Melanie, they can never understand that we liked to think of ourselves, despite it all, as a simple song.”

He has finished. He gets up from the chair, stands on tiptoe as if to see his wife’s face, but gives up straightaway. Emotionally, he is not capable. So he contents himself with stretching out a hand and moving her arm a few centimetres to settle her in a position he thinks will be more comfortable.

70

Fred leaves the hospital. Behind him, on the mezzanine floor, his wife can be seen with her resting forehead against the glass, mouth open.

But from where he is she seems far away.

Fred has stopped, lost in thought. He is about to turn round and look up at his wife’s face, but cannot do it. He gives up the attempt and stares once more into the distance. He then takes a sweet from his pocket, unwraps it and slips it into his mouth.

He tries again to turn and look at his wife, who is still there, far away behind the pane of glass, looking out but seeing nothing. Once again, Fred cannot find the strength to look up at his wife’s face.