TWENTY

STOKE MANDEVILLE—MAY

“Morning, Roger! How’s things today?” The coloured nurse enquired.

“Fine. The children are coming today with their mother.”

“I am sorry, but I’m afraid I have a phone message to give you.” She handed him a blue slip of paper. Roger read:

“Mrs Goodhart telephoned to say that due to a heavy cold she wasn’t well enough to bring the children up from Hastings. She was sorry, but she would write.”

“Thank you, Nurse. That’s a blow, isn’t it?” he said quietly towards his lap. She nodded gently. He wheeled himself down the ward, not knowing what to think.

In fact, Alice Goodhart’s message had resulted from a chance meeting with Neil Masters, a pharmaceutical representative friend of Roger’s. She had met him in the street and he had asked her out for dinner on Saturday night “to cheer her up.” She had hesitated—not because of Roger, and even less because she found the idea abhorrent. She wanted to be discreet. The children might ask awkward questions. However, as she looked at the rugged face, bronzed by the Teneriffe sun, she found herself accepting. Roger would just have to wait. “Things,” she decided “are looking up at last.”