I shake my head. I don’t like these sorts of talks. I prefer the ‘Do you love me?/Do you love me?’ kind, because they can go on for ever, and they never achieve anything, and nobody ever says anything worth thinking about ever again.

We make love that night, our first time for ages. We both agree afterwards that it’s nice to feel some warmth, even if that warmth is located in the genitalia rather than the soul. But maybe something will catch.

‘How passionately do you believe in our marriage?’ I ask him just before I fall asleep. It’s the right time for the question: my head is on his chest, and I’m asking because I want to know, not because I’m trying to get out of answering something he’s asked me.

‘Do you really want to talk about this now?’

‘Is it a long answer?’

‘No, not really. OK. I can’t think of any good reason for giving up on it. Just like I can’t think of any good reason for giving up the other stuff.’

‘So I’m a charity case?’

‘You’re not, no. But the marriage is. The marriage is like one of those dogs you see in RSPCA posters. Thin. Pathetic.’

‘Patches of skin showing through the fur. Pus-filled eyes. Cigarette burns.’

‘Precisely.’

I was attempting to be frivolous, and for a moment I ache for David to share in the frivolity, to pick up the daft image and run with it, but he doesn’t. Of course he doesn’t.

‘Anyway. That’s what I think of the marriage.’

‘What? It should be put down? Its owners should be prosecuted?’

‘No, no. I mean, you know. I couldn’t leave it in this state.’

‘So you’re going to nurse it back to health and then go.’

‘Oh, no. I wouldn’t do that. Because if it was healthy…’

‘It’s OK. I was joking.’

‘Oh. I’m not very good at spotting that sort of thing any more, am I?’

‘Not great, no.’

‘I’m sorry.’

It’s funny, but of all the apologies made over the last few months, this one seems the most pitiful, and the crime the least forgivable.

Brian has been moved to sheltered accommodation, which he hates.

‘It’s all full of old dears. They’ve got these emergency buzzers and they go off every five minutes. Every time they fall over. And they’re always falling over. I shouldn’t be in there. I don’t fall over hardly ever. I mean, I have done. Everyone has, haven’t they?’

I tell him that, yes, everybody has fallen over at some time.

‘I mean, I’ll bet you’ve fallen over, and you’re a doctor. You’ve probably been to college and all that.’

I tell him that, yes, I’ve been to college, and even seven years of further education has not prevented me from losing my footing occasionally—thus confirming his suspicion, that it is age rather than intelligence which tends to govern the ability to stand upright, and even though he was never university material, he shouldn’t be in sheltered accommodation with a lot of faller-overs.

‘Well, there you are.’

‘But you’re eating better.’

‘The food’s all right. They send it round. Meals on Wheels. So they know what should be hot and so on and so forth.’

‘Good.’

We lapse into silence. At the last count, I had fifteen patients waiting outside, but it is as if we are both waiting for a bus. Brian looks up at the ceiling and begins to whistle.

‘Is there anything else?’ The ‘else’ is a kindness on my part. It is my way of pretending that there was a good reason for Brian’s visit in the first place, that he wasn’t just wasting my time.

‘Not really.’ He goes back to whistling his tune.

‘Well. It was nice to see you again. And I’m glad to hear that you’re feeling better.’

I stand up, for added emphasis, and smile.

‘I’ve come for my dinner,’ says Brian matter-of-factly. ‘You said.’

‘Yes, but…’ It’s eleven o’clock in the morning. ‘I meant an evening meal. Some time.’

‘I’ll wait. I won’t get in the way.’

‘Brian, you can’t wait in here. People won’t want you in here if I ask them to get undressed.’

‘Oh. Yes. I never thought of that. I wouldn’t want to see them undressed either. You’ve got fat people, haven’t you? I don’t like them very much. I’ll wait outside.’

‘Brian… I’m not going to finish work until six.’

‘That’s OK.’

So he waits for seven hours in the waiting area, and then comes home with me.

I have already called David to warn him, and when Brian and I get home there is a chicken in the oven, and several vegetables steaming away on the hotplates, and the table is laid, and there are even flowers. All my nearest and dearest know who Barmy Brian is, just as they know the names of every one of my heartsink patients, and I have told David that if either of my children attach an adjective, any adjective, to his first name in his presence, then he or she will not be eating en famille for a statutory minimum two years, including Christmas Day and birthdays.

Brian takes off his coat, sits down and watches Sabrina the Teenage Witch with the children, while I make the gravy.

‘What’s going on here, then?’

‘It’s Sabrina the Teenage Witch,’ Tom mumbles.

‘How d’you mean?’

Tom looks at me nervously.

‘That’s the name of the programme,’ I tell him.

‘Oh, I see. Say it again.’

‘Sabrina the Teenage Witch,’ Tom enunciates.

Brian laughs, long and hard.

‘Haven’t you ever heard of it?’ I ask him.

‘Nooooo,’ he says, as if even now he doubts whether such a programme really exists. ‘But she’s only a teenager?’

‘Yes.’

‘And she’s already a witch? Blimey.’

We all smile politely.

‘That’s too young. Don’t you think?’

‘That’s sort of the point of the programme,’ says Tom. ‘ ’Cos most witches aren’t teenagers.’

‘How d’you mean?’

‘Let them watch the programme, Brian.’

‘I’m so sorry. Just wanted to get a couple of things straight in my head before I settle down to it.’

And settle down to it he does, with enormous if occasionally addled appreciation. Unfortunately the programme only lasts another thirty minutes, and then it is time to eat.

GoodNews joins us just as we are serving up.

‘Hi,’ he says to Brian. ‘I’m GoodNews.’

‘How d’you mean?’ Brian asks nervously.

‘How do you mean?’ says GoodNews with great formality, and he shakes Brian’s hand. GoodNews, who has also been informed that he will be spending the evening with an eccentric, is clearly under the misapprehension that ‘How d’you mean?’ is Brian’s eccentric salutation, a weirdo’s version of ‘How do you do?’

‘No!’ Tom shouts. ‘He doesn’t understand your name!’

‘He doesn’t understand it?’

‘You’ve got to have a name like Tom or Brian or David or Dr Carr,’ says Brian. ‘What’s your name like that?’

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘What is your name like that?’

‘It doesn’t really matter,’ GoodNews tells Brian. ‘GoodNews is my name now. Because that’s what I want to bring, see.’

‘Well, I want to bring Brian,’ says Brian firmly. ‘So Brian can have his dinner.’

‘Good for you,’ says David.

We eat in silence, and, in Brian’s case, with enormous speed. I have just finished pouring my gravy when he puts his knife and fork together on an empty plate.

‘That’, he says, ‘was the best meal I’ve ever had in my whole life.’

‘Really?’ says Molly.

‘Yeah. Course. How could I have ever had a better meal than that? My mum couldn’t have cooked that.’

‘What about you?’

‘No. See, I don’t know what should be cooked and what shouldn’t. I get muddled.’

‘Really?’

‘Oh, yeah. Muddled as anything.’

‘Can I test you?’ Molly asks.

‘If you want, but I won’t know the answer.’

‘Just eat your dinner, Mol,’ I tell her. ‘Do you want some more, Brian?’

‘There isn’t usually any more.’

‘There is here, so you can have some if you like.’

‘And it doesn’t cost any extra?’