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extreme, had had to do with himself, as if he were one of those victims in the French Revolution who were tied to a dead body and thrown into the river to drown. He had been sacrificed, in helpless attendance on someone who had in many ways already passed out of this life.
    Herz wondered if all old people came to such knowledge when there was nothing to be done to remedy the damage. He wondered if the people he passed in the street ruminated on lost causes, as he did. There was little value in such reflections; they were a function of the passing of time, and so beyond applicability. What control could he exercise even now on those sad Saturdays, except to recognize that he was their legatee? Try as he might to divert himself he could never escape the suspicion that he should be elsewhere, that he should not be shopping in Marks & Spencer but walking resignedly along an empty road, his collar turned up against the wind from the sea. It was only when Saturday was over, and he was sitting in front of his own undoubted television, in his own verifiable flat, that he could relax. Yet even then he was half prepared to go out again, to see Mrs Frank to the bus stop, postponing his life once again in the vain hope that someone would restore it to him.
    Freddy had died in a hospice, with only himself in attendance. As he had hoped, the parents had died before him. Julius had wondered whether to tell Freddy that these deaths had taken place, and had finally done so. Freddy was by that stage very weak, drifting in and out of consciousness, but he had appeared to understand. As if united in family piety they had held hands. It was when their hands grew cold, in unison, that Julius knew that Freddy’s life was over. Once again he had not seemed discontented. His features had taken on the strange remote fascination that he had manifested when he was playing. It was as if death itself had made its presence felt in the remote days of his success. Only this time it was clear that he felt no fear.

3
    Late in the afternoon Herz telephoned the garden centre where his former wife now worked and asked for Mrs Burns. Josie had reverted to her maiden name after the divorce but had kept the married style. He found this perfectly acceptable; he could appreciate that marriage, even a defunct marriage, conferred a certain dignity on a woman, and women nowadays were, or seemed to be, rather anxious to define their status. Besides, she was to all intents and purposes a married woman, comfortable with her condition, perhaps even more so than she had ever been as a wife. And she was of an age when dignity counted: the single state, despite all propaganda to the contrary, still had something sad about it. Widows were in a different category. He suspected that Josie would have been quite contented as a widow, but was still sufficiently attached to him to have alighted on what she saw as an ideal definition. He knew that their divorce had separated them; he also knew that they would remain friends. Indeed they had always been friends, even more so than husband and wife. Their marriage had lasted a bare two and a half years and they had parted without rancour. He still looked forward to seeing her from time to time, in the relaxed manner which had become habitual to them both. They met occasionally, without undue anticipation on either side, but took some kind of reassurance from the unchanging nature of such meetings. Nothing had been lost; they remained more than acquaintances, allies in fact, with the sort of familiarity gained from intense though brief physical proximity.
    â€˜Josie? Julius here. I wondered if you could manage lunch next week?’
    â€˜Love to. Monday’s my best day. We’re not busy on Mondays.’
    â€˜Next Monday, then. Sheekey’s at twelve forty-five.’
    â€˜See you then. Goodbye, Julius.’
    He liked her businesslike tone on the telephone. She was a woman without prevarication, one who spoke her mind