When Lionel smiles it’s like the friendly gape of a wet-mouthed hound, the fleshy corners of his mouth a little sad and down.
‘Do come in!’ he says, but he doesn’t make quite enough room in the vestibule, especially as there’s another, inner door to open, and as I’m laden down with obs bag, weighing scales, folder and other things, we’re forced to do a little dance in the limited space available.
‘If you could just…’
‘Sorry…’
‘I tell you what, if you…’
‘Of course….’
‘That’s it!’
We manage to get the door closed, and stand together in the main hallway, an impressive room, with a geometrically tiled floor, an ornamental fireplace, and a chandelier hovering above our heads like some elaborate, crystalline spaceship.
‘If you’d like to come this way,’ he says. I follow him through into the living room.
‘You have a lovely house, Lionel.’
‘Thank you. That’s so kind. It’s just me now, of course. I rattle around somewhat. I’m thinking of downsizing.’
‘Really?’
‘Thinking about it! It’s hard to move when you’ve been in a place as long as we have. Sixty years, this autumn. But Gloria passed last year, so now it’s just me.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘Yes. Well.’
He sits in his armchair, and begins turning his wedding band round and round.
‘It’s supposed to get easier,’ he says. ‘Time the great healer and all that guff. But you know, I don’t think it does. If anything, it gets harder.’
‘In what way?’
‘Well you see, to begin with I was so busy. There was lots to do. People kept coming round, family and so on. How are you coping, Lionel? Do you have everything you need, Lionel? Taking me places and so on and so forth. But that can’t go on forever. People have their own lives. So it all falls away rather, and you’re left to your own devices. It’s the little things that take you by surprise. I’d just finished reading this…’
He picks up a book on Hollywood from the side table. ‘And it just happened to mention The Day the Earth Stood Still. Have you heard of it?’
‘Absolutely! It’s famous.’
‘Oh! Then you may be interested to know that Gloria knew the robot.’
‘Really?’
‘Or the man who played the robot, at least. When she was a student in California back in the fifties, she had a job selling tickets at Grauman’s Chinese Theater on Hollywood Boulevard, and the doorman there, a really tall chap, got hired to play Gort. I remember she said they were jealous as anything at first, but as it turned out, he didn’t have a nice time of it. Half suffocated to death in the rubber suit, by all accounts.’
He puts the book back on the table and folds his hands on his lap.
‘Now it’s just me, sitting on my own, thinking about robots.’

It’s started to rain.
I’ve left my jacket in the car.
I can’t open the keysafe.
‘Shit.’
I put my stuff down and have another go.
But no matter how hard I try, nothing works, no cunning combination of turns or taps or slaps.
Luckily, Eleanor’s lunchtime carer shows up.
‘Who you from?’ she says.
I show her my ID, pulling it out to her on its extendable line. She’s so ferocious, I imagine her grabbing the card, spinning me round and choking me to death with it, Bourne-style. Instead she just sniffs disparagingly and glares me out of the way.
‘What you do here?’ she says. I’m not sure whether she means the keysafe or why I’ve come, but by the way she attacks the keysafe, I guess it’s the former.
‘The numbers don’t work,’ I say, hopelessly.
‘What means numbers not work?’ she says, flipping the safe open and jangling the keys in my face. ‘Hmm?’
I pick up my stuff again and follow her in.
She calls up the stairs.
‘Elllliiiiiinnnnnooooooorrrrr! Is AAAhhhhnnnnnnaaaaahhhhh!’
Then she glances over her shoulder.
‘Eleanor upstairs,’ she says. ‘I go kitchen. You do what it is you do first.’

Eleanor is asleep in a high-backed armchair in the bedroom, both hands grasping the armrests, her face squashed up, as if she’s dreaming of riding in an open top sports car. When I touch her gently on the arm and say her name, she opens the eye nearest to me and fixes me with it.
‘What!’
‘Sorry to wake you, Eleanor. My name’s Jim. I’m with the Rapid Response Team at the hospital. I’ve come to see how you’re doing.’
She rolls about in the armchair, struggling to sit more upright. When I offer to help she bats me away, then carries on muttering and rolling until she’s worked herself into a better position.
‘Now then. Tell me again. What is it that you want?’

 *

 I chat to her whilst I write down the observations.
‘Did you work?’
‘Did I work? Of course I worked! I was a veterinary surgeon for fifty years. Why must one be treated like an imbecile? Not you, so much. I’m speaking generally.’
‘I have the greatest respect for vets,’ I tell her, wrapping the blood pressure cuff round her arm. ‘We have a cat and a dog. A lurcher.’
‘A lurcher you say?’
‘Yes.’
‘Ah-hum’
‘Yeah. She ran into some barbed wire a couple of years ago. Had some dreadful cuts down her front. Superficial, thank goodness, but they needed stitching. The vet was so lovely. She did a great job. I think it’s about as skilful branch of medicine as there is.’
‘Possibly. I couldn’t really say.’
‘It must be easier, though, treating people rather than animals. At least a person can tell you what’s wrong.’
‘No, no. I think it’s the other way round. I think people confuse the issue.’
‘Interesting!’
‘Very.’
I finish the exam and write out the ticket.
‘Have you opened your bowels today?’ I ask her.
‘No! I have not! I’m balled up, Jim! Balled up!’
‘Ah hah.’
‘Dry pellets! Acting somewhat in the manner of a bung! And that’s the problem, you see. I had two falls getting off the commode, because I was so long sitting on the damn thing, straining away, my legs went orf.’
‘I’m sorry to hear it.’
I make another note.
‘Do you take anything?’
‘Do I take anything, did y’say? For the constipation?’
‘Yes.’
She sighs and harrumphs, naming the usual treatments.
‘What on earth are we going to do, Jim?’ she says. ‘What do you recommend?’ Then lacing her fingers across her abdomen, she fixes me with her favourite eye again. ‘Take the old gel’ out and shoot her, I s’pose?’

For whatever reason, Peter isn’t answering the intercom. The tradesman’s button doesn’t work, either, and when I try Peter’s mobile it comes up not registered.  I’m just about to phone the office when someone else comes to the door. A red-faced guy in a parka, baseball cap and sweatpants, his eyes so close together at the bridge of his nose he looks like a rangy, inner city Cyclops. When I show him my ID he smiles in a grimacing kind of hunch, exposing a set of wire braces.
‘Okay, mate. In ya’go,’ he says, and flinging his hood over his cap, walks on.

When I knock on Peter’s door there’s a minute or two of silence and then a hesitant hello from deep inside.
‘It’s Jim, from the Rapid Response team. Come to see Peter.’
After a long pause a bolt draws back. Pete stands there, still in the hospital pyjamas he was discharged in almost a week ago, the top unbuttoned to the navel. He is so emaciated, his ribs flare from his sternum in furrows.
‘Oh. Jim. I see. Jim. Yes. From the hospital? Right. And you’ve come to see me? Okay. Right. Got it. And you want to come in? Okay. So – just to re-cap. You’re Jim. You’re from the hospital. And you’ve come to see how I am? Is that right?’
He holds his right hand up to his mouth now and again, the index finger crooked, focusing with such intensity on our interaction  the words buckle under the strain. I find myself talking with elaborate simplicity, like someone trying to speak in a language they don’t really know.
‘I’m a nurse, Peter. From the hospital. I’ve come to see how you are.’
I show him my card. He holds it so long I have to gently take it back again.
‘Is it okay if I come in?’
‘So – basically, basically, you want to come inside, because you’re a nurse from the hospital, and you want to see how I am?’
‘Yes.’
He lets go of the door and slowly retreats back into the flat.

It’s smotheringly hot. Hardly any furniture in the front room, just a sofa and an office chair. To the side of the sofa are half a dozen neat piles of WWF wrestling magazines, I would guess a year to a pile; opposite, a shrine-like arrangement around a radio on the floor of four cuddly toys and a couple of plastic figures, (the kind you get with fast food sometimes). On the deep windowsill opposite are several orderly stacks of letters, bank statements, hospital reminders, all meticulously laid out in a grid, with a black copy of the bible in the bottom left hand corner.

‘Is it okay if I sit here?’ I ask him, pointing to the office chair.
‘Do you want to sit there?’
‘This looks fine.’
‘You can sit on the sofa if you want.’
‘I’m happy with the chair.’
‘The only thing is – the only thing is – I usually sit on the sofa.’
‘I know what you mean. Everyone’s got their favourite spot.’
‘Yes. Everyone’s got their favourite spot. My favourite spot is the sofa. But you’re all right on the chair?’
‘The chair’s fine.’
I put my bag down.
‘Do you have a yellow folder, Peter?’
‘A yellow folder? Yes. A yellow folder.’
I look around.
‘Would you mind if I had a look? Only it’ll have all your bits and pieces in it – you know, notes and things. It’ll be useful to see them.’
He stares at me with a compressed smile.
‘Stuff the nurses have written,’ I add.
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘And you want to read it?’
‘Yes. I don’t mind getting it.’
He stands up. He’s so emaciated, the pyjamas hang in a line from the angular projections of his shoulders.
‘I know where it is,’ he says, and walks out.
Whilst he’s gone I check my watch and rearrange my caseload.

*

Peter has shown me into his kitchen. To look at it, you’d hardly think anyone lived here. The aluminium sink and drainer are bleach clean. On the work surface to the side of the sink are two boxes of own-brand powdered milk and two catering-size packets of instant coffee, and that’s it. No toaster. No microwave. Just an old-fashioned oven with a flip-down hob, and an empty fridge opposite. Peter seems to be existing on a single delivery of oven-ready meals a day. If it wasn’t for that, he’d be dead by now.
It’s difficult and not a little depressing to think it ever came to this. The only interaction the yellow folder describes is a recent admission to hospital with an ulcerated ankle, and this latest referral to us. Surely he must be known to other services?
‘The ready meals are very good,’ he says, showing me half a pudding left over from yesterday. ‘Yes, they’re very good. I put them in the oven to heat them up. The man comes every day about twelve o’clock with a main course and a pudding. Yes, they’re very delicious.’
‘One thing I really need to do is weigh you,’ I tell him. ‘Would that be all right?’
‘You want to weigh me? Yes. Okay. Weigh me. Fine. I think I might have lost a bit.’
‘Yes. I would think so. You look a little thin to me. For your height.’
‘I’m five foot ten. Is that what you mean? My height?’
‘Yes.’
I work out his BMI as fifteen.
‘You’ll need some special drinks,’ I tell him as he steps off. ‘Fortisip, they’re called. In some really nice flavours. Orange, Vanilla. Like milkshakes, you know. I’ll talk to your GP to get them delivered.’
‘Like the ready meals.’
‘Yes, like the ready meals. But they’re only a supplement, Peter. To build you up in the meantime. All the vitamins and minerals you’re missing at the minute. The thing is, though, Peter, we’ve really got to get you eating properly again. And make sure you’re looked after.’
‘I see. Right. Yes. So – just to recap. You’re a nurse. You’ve come from the hospital. I’m not eating properly. You want me to have special drinks. Milk shake drinks. Some of them are orange, some of them are vanilla. The doctor is delivering them. I’ve got to eat more.’
‘Yes. How does that sound?’
He crooks his finger to his mouth.

‘Normally I’d be outside, soaking up the rays,’ says Jack, nodding at the patio window. Outside in the middle of a rough patch of grass are two white plastic chairs and a rickety white plastic table.
‘That looks like a sunny spot.’
‘It is!’ he says, and resting his walking stick against the side of the armchair, stretches both arms out and turns them this way and that. ‘I bet you’ve never seen such a healthy-looking invalid!’
Jack’s house has that warm but slightly muffled air of a family home that was once filled with people but now has only one. As it happens, my visit has coincided with the district nurses, and I think Jack’s enjoying all the fuss.
‘Jean died a few years ago,’ he says. ‘And I’ll tell you what – this’ll shock you…. Just a couple of days after she’d gone, I got a phone call from an undertakers, not the one I was using, just someone chasing business. What arrangements had I made for the funeral? they said, because they had a space or some such nonsense. After I’d got over the shock of it I thought right, I’ll play ‘em at their own game. I said I didn’t have any money, and I couldn’t afford the usual kind of thing. Oh don’t worry about that, they said. We’ve got some very good deals. How much were you thinking of spending? Not much, I said. As little as possible. In fact I’d been in touch with the council to ask if I could bury her in the garden. In the garden? Yes, I said. The council said that was fine, so long as they provided the gravedigger, because it had to be a certain width and depth. Oh the woman on the phone said. And how much did that cost? Sixty quid all in, I said. Oh! she said. So….is that what you did? You buried your wife in the garden? Don’t be daft, I said. I’m not stupid. I buried her in the garden next door. And she hung up!’
Jack laughs, jabbing his walking stick up and down on the carpet.
‘Jean would’ve appreciated that,’ he says. ‘But look at me! You’ve been here five minutes and I haven’t asked if you want a cup of tea.’

‘So what happened with your leg? I never did get the story.’
‘You want the whole thing?’
I backtrack a little.
‘Maybe just the highlights.’
Malcolm adjusts his position in the chair. He has to use both his hands to help with his left leg, the boot cast is so heavy.
‘I’ve been keeping an eye on the house next door,’ he says. ‘Bill and Angela’s. They’re away on a trip. One of those round the world tickets. They’re doing Thailand at the moment.’
I’m glad I didn’t ask for the long version – but there’s something rehearsed and kind of ominous about the way he’s started to lay the whole thing out. Malcolm has obviously told this story a few times already. I’m intrigued to hear it.
‘Wow,’ I say. ‘Thailand, eh? Great.’
‘So I’ve been taking care of things, looking after the garden. Not a full-on caretaker’s job, but not far off. Anyway, the first evening I was out the back looking over the fence checking everything was okay, when I saw this big old badger heading our way. You get them round here now and again. I’ve always liked badgers. I think they’ve had a lot on their plate, lately. A lot of bad press. So I went back inside to fetch some nuts. He’d gone when I came out again, but a few hours later, so had the nuts.’
‘What sort of nuts?’
‘Mixed. I took out the raisins. I wasn’t sure.’
‘Lovely.’
‘Anyway, I told Jack and Lindsay the other side and they said Oh, I wouldn’t do that. Badgers are real pests. You shouldn’t encourage them. And I must admit at the time I thought What are they talking about! Badgers? But of course, when I went out to look the next evening, there was a big hole in the fence, the flower beds were dug up and the bulbs all thrown about. So I hopped over to put them all back, smoothed the beds over, fixed the fence, added a few bricks to weigh it all down, and hopped back. And I thought that was that. The next day, there was an even bigger hole in the fence, and the bulbs were all over the place again!’
‘What are they using, wire cutters?’
He shrugs.
‘Wouldn’t surprise me. Anyway, I felt a bit guilty, seeing as how I’d led them on with my nuts. So I thought I’d better sort it out for good. I got a roll of heavy wire out the shed, dragged that over, and made a proper job of fixing the hole, plenty going into the ground to stop them digging down. Short of posting sentries I couldn’t think what else to do.’
‘Bloody badgers.’
‘Yeah, well. So anyway. Job done. That was that. I threw the rest of the wire back into my garden and hopped back over the fence. And that’s when it happened.’
He moves his leg again and winces with the ache of it.
‘D’you know how many times I’ve hopped over that fence?’ he says, gasping.
‘I don’t know. Three?’
‘Hundreds, over the years. It’s quicker than going back and round. There’s a rockery there, which makes it easier. Except this time, my foot slipped between two boulders, and stayed pointing one way whilst I went the other. I ended up with a spiral fracture of the tib and fib. A thorough-going job, the orthopaedic surgeon said. I was conscious when he did the op. He put a block in, so I wouldn’t feel it. I can’t have a general, you see. Anyway, the surgeon – lovely man – he wasn’t half swearing.’
‘Blimey.’
‘And the rest. Here – look at the card Jack and Lindsay made me.’
He reaches over and hands me a homemade thing, a photo of two cute but sharp looking badgers on the front, peering out of a hole. There are speech bubbles over the top. One is saying: Are you sure this is going to work? The other one: Watch and learn, my friend. Watch and learn.

In the corner of the kitchen, a white plastic globe bubbles with a milky fluid, wisps of vapour venting at the top.
‘What’s that?’ I ask Sandra.
‘I’m very conscious of the air I breathe,’ she says. ‘Every time I have a cigarette I turn the machine on to take out the impurities. Watch what happens when I do this…’
She presses a switch. The lighting changes in the globe, green, to purple, to red, to blue.
‘It’s like being in a club,’ I say.
‘I wouldn’t know.’
She sits back down on her stool and glumly surveys her husband. The red quilted silk dressing gown with its velvet cuffs and sash cord should make him a spit for Noel Coward; instead, it only serves to emphasise his pallor, his frailty and his strangely passive demeanour.
‘How do you feel, Stan?’
He lays his sad eyes on me.
‘With these,’ he says, lifting his hands.
‘Answer the man’s questions properly, Stanley,’ says Sandra. ‘He hasn’t got time for your messing about.’
It’s been a fraught interview so far. Some barbed shtick about money for the swear box, leaving the toilet seat up, a barney Sandra had with the doctor, the consultant, what happened when, who turned round and said what to whom. I thought a lot of it was probably bravado, fireworks you put on when you want to show off to visitors. But then I wasn’t sure. I couldn’t figure them out. I felt I had to choose my words carefully, especially with Sandra. I was over-compensating. Sweating, in the over-heated kitchen.
‘I’m afraid I’ve got to take some blood as well,’ I tell Stan. ‘How does that sound?’
‘How much shall I charge him, Sandy?’
‘Just roll up your sleeve.’
‘Righto.’
‘He bruises easy. Don’t you Stan?’
‘I have the skin of a peach. And the face of a coconut.’
He speaks slowly, and without his teeth there’s the trace of a sibilant whistle.
‘We normally see Lily for bloods,’ says Sandra, sighing, picking up her fag packet, giving it a speculative shake and then putting it down again. ‘You know, the nurse at the drop-in. She’s good, is our Lil. Very good. You’d hardly know she’d been there when you see his arm after. Some of them you’d think they got his arm and slammed it in a door. But with Lil, well! He said it was like a butterfly landing on his arm. Didn’t you, Stan?’
‘I did. A lovely, colourful butterfly. Not like those other bloodsuckers.’
‘And she’s funny, too. She could be on the stage. Last time she went on about how she met this fella on holiday and all this and that. Doesn’t she, Stan? She’s hilarious!’
‘She had me in stitches. And not the kind you’re thinking.’
Meanwhile I’m laying out my kit. Sandra comes and sits next to me; Stan gazes down on it all from a great, sad distance.
‘I felt that!’ he says, when I enter the vein.
‘Sorry.’
Sandra tuts.
‘You’ll be black and blue come the morning,’ she says.
Behind her, the globe bubbles red.

For a ninety-year-old suffering from AF and shortness of breath, Sofia is remarkably chatty.
‘I walk up,’ she says.
‘But this is the fifth floor!
‘Of course! What you wan’I should do? Fly?’
She’s been referred to us by the discharge team at the hospital, who wanted to reassure themselves she’s safe at home. I’ve dropped by to make sure her obs are okay; Christine the OT is also here to find out what equipment she might need.
‘I lie onna the bed like this…’ says Sofia, when Chris asks her about her sleeping arrangements. Sofia plonks herself down on the bed, then pitches dramatically to the left and curls her legs up. ‘Some times I find itta bit of a difficulty to get myself back up again…’
She flaps around, but before we can help she’s managed to sit up again, and starts bouncing. ‘It’s a bit a-soft, you see? But I quite like-a the spring. It is like sleeping on the clouds. And I don’ make-a the sheets until the night time because I like everything to be fresh and cold. You know what ah’m saying to you?’
The assessment is almost superfluous. Sofia has everything she needs, her flat bright and tidy. A little cool perhaps, but she says she prefers it that way. A few religious icons, framed pictures, ceramic animals, a portrait of the Pope – everything just so. A heavily-carved mahogany cabinet turns out to be full of different dried beans and pulses, and a pack of fresh coffee.
‘I like to have a small, strong cup for breakfast, with a little roll to dip in and out. I don’t eat much midday, but in the evening, of course I like to cook myself something nice and saucy.’
Even though she’s lived in the UK for seventy years, she still has a strong Italian accent. She met her late husband when he was a soldier in Rome; they came over together just after the war.
‘I remember standing on the top deck of that liner when we came in to Sout’ampton. I had a tight-a grip of that rail, and I was-a holding on, and I was-a holding on, like un piccolo polpo, you understand me? Because I was just a little girl, and I didn’t know what-a my life was gonna be like no more. I didn’t know what my life was gonna be like with this strange and ‘andsome man standin’ next to me. But – I knew. Deep down. I knew he was good.’
She closes her eyes and shakes a bony finger gravely in the air.
‘Not-a like the firs’ one!’

At first I wonder if the house numbers skip straight from twenty to twenty-four until I realise there’s actually a building behind that colossal hedge and tree. Without the benefit of a machete I make my way up crumbling concrete steps to the front door of number twenty-two, past masses of empty wine bottles half a dozen to a bag, tied at the top in neat little bundles I can only imagine delivered and collected by an alcoholic stork.
I knock on the door and wait.
Eventually, after a great deal of unbolting and unlocking, the door cracks and an elderly woman peers out.
‘Hello. I’m Jim from the Rapid Response team. At the hospital. Come to see Milly.’
‘What for?’
‘To see how you’re doing. The doctor referred us.’
‘Why?’
It’s difficult to tell her exactly what the doctor wrote. ETOH, Not coping at home. Self-neglect. Unsanitary living conditions.
‘Is it all right if I come in?’
‘You’ll have to wait in the hall. I’ve got to go to the toilet.’
‘Of course. You carry on. If there’s anything you want me to help you with…’
I want to go to the toilet and you’re stopping me! she says, pitching into such a wild tone it takes me by surprise.
‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘I’ll wait here whilst you go. I don’t want to get in the way.’
Well you are in the way!
‘If you’d rather I came back later…’
‘No, no. You’re here now,’ she says, easing back into a more settled voice. ‘I know you’re only doing your job.’
‘Look. You go to the loo and I’ll wait here, in the hall. Is that all right?’
She doesn’t answer, but shuffles back through the hallway to the bathroom. She doesn’t shut the door. I turn the other way, facing into the sitting room.
I’ve wet myself! she cries. I haven’t got any clean!
‘Would you like me to find you something? Some dry trousers…?’
What are you SAYING? You don’t know where anything is!
‘I could look.’
She doesn’t answer, but continues to swear and curse.
From where I stand the living room is as dreadful as the hallway.  It’s as if instead of a snowstorm, a fierce and prolonged trash blizzard has ripped through the place, obliterating the normal surface of things, the TV, the table, the sofa, the floor – every domestic profile distorted beneath a swollen and stratifiable layer of crap.
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ I say, to prove to Milly I’m here to help, in a practical and non-threatening way, and to try to normalise an otherwise stressful situation.
Tea? she screams. TEA? A cup of TEA? What are you SAYING?
‘Well – it’s just – whether you’d like a cup of tea…’
You wouldn’t know where to start!
She wasn’t wrong.

Geoffrey is watching a creepy black and white film. There’s a corpse on a gurney covered in a white cloth, two scientists bunched up excitedly on one side with an enormous syringe.
‘How are you feeling, Geoffrey?’ I ask him, putting down my bag.
It’s difficult to concentrate, what with the corpse about to sit up, and, unbeknownst to the scientists (unbeknownst?) a car-load of policemen bristling with Tommy guns rolling quietly up the drive.
‘Terrible,’ he says, wobbling back towards his chair. ‘Absolutely bloody awful.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘I’m sorry, too.’
‘Have a seat and tell me all about it.’
‘Ah!’
He shoots the TV with the remote, lowers himself into his recliner, and starts a long and impenetrable story that I try to supplement on the sly with info from the folder.
‘So what are you going to do about it?’ he says when he’s finished.
‘I don’t know. It must be very frustrating, living with such a long-term condition. But I’m not sure what I can add, other than to follow up the last referral and make sure it goes through okay.’
‘I get so fed up,’ he says. ‘People say they’re going to do something, and they never do. And anyway – it’s not as if they’re really interested. I don’t get any help. Just a minute. There’s someone at the door.’
‘No, no! I’ll get it.’
Unbeknownst to the Rapid Response Team, Ray, a nurse from a different department, has been sent round to take blood.
‘I could’ve done that!’ I tell him.
‘Never mind.’
Ray sets his stuff out.
Geoffrey laughs.
‘I don’t mind the company. It’s the waste I can’t abide. No wonder the NHS is on its knees. They sent me a box of catheter supplies through the other day. I haven’t had one of them in since Christmas.’
‘Oh. Well, I’ll let them know to take it back.’
‘You do that.’
Ray starts tapping up a vein.
‘Shall I make you some tea?’ I say.
‘That’d be grand!’ says Geoffrey. ‘Nice n’strong. Two sweeteners.’ He hands me his mug – a vase-sized affair with two faded Hula Hula girls dancing round the side of it.
In the kitchen I hear him talking to Ray.
‘No – no family. Just me, on my Jack Jones. The wife died last year. The second wife, I mean. Although the first wife died as well. Then I married the second. Then she died. I had two wives and they both died. And here we are!’ He sighs loudly and heavily, a conversational re-boot. ‘What I don’t get, Ray, is – what I just don’t understand – for years I volunteered, helping out with the old folk who lived near me. Making them dinners. Taking them shopping. Taking them places. And now it’s my turn, suddenly there’s no-one….’
I bring the tea through.
‘There you go!’ I say.
The mug is so heavy I’m worried about putting it on his side-table.  The table is piled with junk, and leans at a precarious angle.
‘Will it be all right on there, Geoffrey?’
‘This old thing?’ he says, tapping it lightly. ‘I think so. It’s made it this far. I don’t suppose one more mug of tea will make a difference.’

Gloria Ellery welcomes me like a son, even though we’ve never met.
‘Richard! Look who’s here!’ she cries, clapping her hands together, her eyes shining. ‘Come in! Come in! He’s upstairs, if you’d like to follow me…’
She turns and starts to climb, pulling herself forwards on the handrail, cheating the swing of her arthritic left hip as much as the stairs will allow, her support stockings swishing and creaking like someone in a wet suit.
‘I’m afraid he’s not the easiest of patients,’ she wheezes. ‘We’re all finding it a bit much. That bloomin’ cast – it makes everything so damned awkward.’
‘Language..’ says a voice above us.
‘Well it does,’ she says.
I get the story on the way up. How Richard fell in the supermarket a few days ago. (He slipped on a grape. There was a kid riding in a trolley tucking into a bag of them. Gloria wondered whether it was one of hers. Not that it mattered, of course. These things happen). Richard fell onto his outstretched hand. They knew straightaway he’d broken his arm.
‘You could see the dip,’ she says, stopping just long enough to describe an elegant swoosh in the air.
‘Oh dear.’

Richard is standing waiting for us in the middle of the bedroom, his arm in a sling.
‘Wounded soldier, reporting for duty,’ he says, saluting with his good arm. ‘Pleased to meet you.’ And he holds out his hand for me to squeeze.
I tell him I’ve come to take his blood pressure and so on, and also to see if he needs any help with washing or getting ready for bed.
‘Oh, I think I can manage well enough,’ he says.
‘Now, Richard,’ says Gloria. ‘We both know that’s not true. You’ve had terrible trouble with that cast and I think it’s about time you accepted some help.’
‘Yes but – I don’t like to put anybody out.’
‘It’s no trouble, Richard. I know you might find it a bit embarrassing to begin with, but everyone needs a little help now and again. Don’t worry on my account. I’m used to it.’
‘Put him in his boxers and dressing gown for now,’ says Gloria, shaking out some fresh clothes from the laundry basket. ‘And a little shave wouldn’t go amiss.’
Richard still struggles with the idea that someone should help him dress.
‘Don’t worry,’ I say. ‘Just close your eyes and imagine you’re Louis Fourteenth of France. Or is it Sixteen? I lose count. Anyway – that guy – the Sun King – the guy who held out his arms and had everything done.’
‘We’ll go with fourteen,’ says Richard. ‘Sixteen was – you know – grrrccch…!’ He raises his cast and makes a little sawing motion in the general direction of his neck.
‘Or King Farouk!’ he says, following me into the bathroom.
‘I’ve not heard of him.’
‘Egypt,’ he says, ‘World War Two. Look him up.’
He stares at himself in the bathroom mirror whilst I run some water.
‘Equally useless,’ he says.