Outside John’s window are two enormous flowering yucca plants, bees bimbling drunkenly up and down the spikes.
‘Look at that lot,’ he says. ‘What d’you reckon?’
‘Pretty impressive.’
‘And they’re socially distanced, n’all. I was going to put a mask on ‘em, but I thought the bees would get annoyed.’
‘That’s a good one! I like that!’
‘Yeah!’ he says, ‘This bungalow, it’s the best plot in the street. It’s got the garden. It’s got somewhere to park the car. ‘Course, the garden was really Annie’s area of expertise. But she’s gone now and I’m not so good as I was on my pins. Still – can’t complain. Honestly, if I was a millionaire I couldn’t be any better set up. I’ve got everything to hand, look. The kitchen, the bathroom, the bed. I’ve got a TV. I’ve got my iPad for doing the email and putting a few quid on the horses. I’ve got friends next door who do my shopping and run the hoover over. I’ve got family who pop in when they can. So you tell me. What better life could a millionaire have than what I’ve got?’
‘I can’t think, John. It seems pretty great.’

And it’s true. It is.

John is ninety-two, but he’s been lucky with his health – that, and the fact he played a lot of sport and stayed active all his life. He never smoked, he says, and only drinks on special occasions, which is ‘any day with a D in it.’

He sits upright on the armchair, his gnarled hands restlessly moving, from a stroking kind of action on the ends of the arm rests, to a vigorous rubbing of his bulbous nose, to a dog-like scratching of his ear, then back to the arm rests. It’s like watching an old but well-maintained tractor, idling in the yard before rattling off down the lane.

But his demeanour suddenly changes when he tells me what happened with Annie.

‘Wa’aall,’ he says, batting the air. ‘They messed up the appointments and whatnot. There was a lot of toing and froing. Me ringing the surgery asking whether the blood results was back yet; the surgery saying ‘what blood results?’ and this and that. You get the picture. Till finally when they found out what she had it was too late. She got took by the cancer. It wasn’t easy. And then there was this in-quiry, see? But I tell you what – I was prepared. I had all the dates written down, all the lost appointments, all the tests they missed. And I sat up in that room in the hospital, with the consultant and all the rest of them sitting opposite me. And the consultant he said she would’ve died anyway. So I got a bit hot, I can tell you. And the woman from the wherever-she-was-from, she said I had to show a little respect. So I said where was the respect you showed my Annie? Where was the respect there? ‘Course, they went quiet at that.’

He shrugs, strokes the arms of the chair.

‘It’s all in the past now,’ he says. ‘I got a letter saying sorry, so there’s that.’

He looks out of the window, at the bright sunshine pouring down into the garden, the hedges looking a little ragged now, the shed leaning to the right.

‘What about them yuccas, though?’ he says. ‘Socially distanced! Hey?’

There’s an approximate number one with a crooked arrow beneath it, crudely painted in black, nailed to a board beneath the crappy intercom at the front of the house. I guess the Cartwells have a flat round the back, so I head in that direction.

Beside the front door to Flat One is a large electric button, so new it stands out from everything else. In fact, it’s such a contrast – the bright plastic box, the imposing but ramshackle old house – I’m surprised the whole thing didn’t cave in when they screwed it in. But then again, I’m guessing they took the safe option and used glue.

There’s a thick carpet of blue slug pellets scattered in front of the door. Two or three cartons worth. They must have a terrible slug problem. Or maybe they think it’s good for health visitors, too? Pellets crunching underfoot, I reach out, press the button and wait.

Nothing.

I’m not sure it rang anywhere, but sometimes it’s difficult to tell.
I look around. Waggle my feet experimentally on the pellets.
Press the button again.

Nothing.

Is that even a button? Maybe it’s a fancy design feature and the button’s somewhere else. Maybe it’s actually a camera. I lean in to look, and then lean out again, not wanting to scare them. Feel around the box. No – it must be the button. Why would you have a feature on a doorbell that looked like a button but wasn’t? That’d be crazy.
Maybe I just didn’t press hard enough.
I prod a little harder. A couple of times.

Whaaaat? cries a voice from deep inside the house. Why’d’ya keep pressing the fackin’ button? Who ARE you?
‘Oh! Sorry! It’s Jim – from the hospital. Come to see Mr Cartwell…’
I rap on the door with my knuckle and gently push it open.
‘Alright if I come in…?’

There’s a steep flight of stairs leading straight up to a landing. An elderly woman leaning over railings at the top, looking down. She looks insanely hostile – flaring white hair, wide eyes, and a great toothless mouth. She looks down at me with such a rapt expression, I’m worried she’s suddenly going to extend her neck down the stairs and snap me up – head, bags, lanyard and all – in one convulsive gulp. Luckily she stays where she is, gripping the bannisters.
‘Who sent you?’ she says.
‘I’m so sorry to disturb you. It was the hospital. When Mr Cartwell was discharged they asked us to come and see how we could help.’
‘Urgh,’ she says (or sounds like). ‘I suppose you’d better come up then.’
She lets go of the bannister and shouts ‘Eric! It’s someone from the hospital to see you.’
A voice from a room somewhere.
‘But I’ve only just got ‘ere.’
‘C’mon. Get up. He’s come to see you he says.’
‘What for?’
‘I don’t know. He’ll tell you.’
‘I was having a kip.’
‘Have it later.’
Inaudible curses.
‘C’mon, then if you’re coming.’

I walk up the stairs, scattering blue pellets behind me like a cat leaving a litter tray.

‘Sorry to be a nuisance,’ I say.
‘Go in the sitting room,’ says Mrs Cartwell. ‘He’ll see you in there.’
‘Okay. Lovely. Thanks.’

The flat is tiny, the narrow layout made worse by all the clutter. There’s just enough room to move from one place to another, and when Mrs Cartwell comes in we have to choreograph each move in advance to make it work.
‘So they obviously didn’t tell you who we were,’ I say, looking for somewhere to dump my bags but giving up.
‘No,’ she says. ‘Who are you?’

We’re interrupted by Mr Cartwell, wheezing and puffing and cursing as he comes down the corridor towards us. His belly is so distended, it reminds me of the spacehopper I used to have, bouncing round the garden, tugging on its ears. It’s such a squeeze for him, moving through the flat, and he fits the width of the corridor so perfectly, it’s hard to resist the idea that he made these walkways himself, just by moving around, and if he’d stayed in hospital a few months longer, the whole place would’ve closed back up again, and that would be that.

Mrs Cartwell waves me to the right, then she moves to the left; I move to where Mrs Cartwell was; Mr Cartwell rolls into the room, eventually easing himself into a decrepit computer chair that creaks and sags alarmingly.
‘What’s all this about?’ he wheezes, flapping the sides of his open dressing gown like wings. And when he turns to look in my direction, he doesn’t open his eyes.