‘We are worried about you, Mr Obd. We have not seen you since Sunday.’

‘Go away, Nurse Clock. Tome Obd is planning things out on paper.’

‘I have a tray here for you, Mr Obd. Fish fingers and salad, a cup of strong tea.’

‘Tome Obd will eat nothing till his people are freed.’

‘Come on, Mr Obd.’

‘No, no, I will not come on.’

‘There is a good play on the television, Mr Obd.’

‘Please to be on your way. It wearies this old African to talk.’

‘You are not old, Mr Obd.’ She thought immediately that this might be the trouble, that Mr Obd might feel that he was getting on too fast, that his youth was past and had been wasted. Women with the menopause often had this complaint. ‘I have never thought of you as old, my dear. Somehow, you know, I always looked upon you – well, next to Miss Clerricot – as the baby of the boarding-house.’

‘I am forty-four. Is it my skin that makes me look younger? How can a man of forty-four be a baby? Make sense, woman.’