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Ralph panted. ‘let’s do it the other way.’ Swiftly he withdrew, arranged her on her hands and knees and knelt above her on the bed. It was even better that way – tighter, more exciting. She cupped his pin-striped balls, felt him thrust more urgently in response.
    â€˜Oh yes!’ she shouted, screwing up her face in concentration, tossing back her hair. ‘Yes, oh Malcolm, yes !’
    â€˜Christ! What’s that?’ The engine had begun to stutter ominously and then suddenly cut out. Ralph punched the hazard-lights button and yelled to Lorna to stick her hand out of the window. He wrenched the car to the left, narrowly missing a van which swerved round them with a furious blast on the horn.
    There was a further volley of hooting from the traffic roaring past. Lorna hardly dared to look as Ralph somehow managed to steer the car into the nearside lane before it slid to a halt. Cursing again, he opened his door and got out.
    â€˜Careful!’ Lorna warned, as cars and lorries thundered by, within inches. There was little he could do, she feared, in the way of a major repair, dressed in his best suit and cashmere coat. To make matters worse, it was minus two outside and a malicious flurry of snow was already settling on his back and shoulders as he lifted the bonnet and peered inside.
    Having tinkered vainly for some minutes, he made his precarious way back to the driver’s seat. ‘God knows what’s wrong. It could be anything. I’ll have to get the AA.’
    â€˜But they’ll be ages.’
    â€˜Not if we’re stuck in the middle of the A3. We’re a hazard to other drivers.’
    â€˜I’ll be late, Ralph, even so. My operation’s scheduled first on the list.’
    â€˜You’d better take a cab then.’
    â€˜Go … alone, you mean?’
    â€˜Well, I can’t abandon the car – not here.’ He grabbed his mobile. ‘Let me try the AA. They may be able to fix it.’
    While he phoned, she checked the time. They were already running late, thanks to broken traffic lights at Tolworth Broadway.
    â€˜They’ll be twenty minutes minimum,’ he muttered. ‘And they said we must get out of the car. It’s not safe in this traffic.’
    â€˜Oh no!’ In her sunshine-yellow jacket she was even less prepared for snow than Ralph. She had worn it specially, to counteract the inner and outer gloom, but the wretched thing was only waist-length and far from waterproof. ‘Look, let me order a cab first.’ Please, God, she prayed, as she dialled. Although if there was a God He would hardly have got them into this mess. ‘Shit! The soonest they can do is eleven.’ That was the time she was due at the hospital. ‘They blame it on the weather.’
    â€˜Lorna, we must get out.’ Ralph winced as a forty-ton lorry rumbled past, all but taking off their wing-mirror.
    Reluctantly she opened her door and stepped into the snow. Surely someone would stop to help. But there was no let-up in the heedless stream of traffic.
    â€˜I suppose I could always walk to the hospital!’ she shouted above the din, gamely attempting a joke and gesturing at her gaping slip-ons, chosen for bunion-ease rather than a twenty-mile hike in a snowstorm.
    â€˜Get off the road,’ Ralph bellowed, taking her arm and helping her over the barrier. ‘You won’t need an operation if you land up in the mortuary.’
    They stood disconsolately side by side, heads bowed against the snow. She glanced at her watch again in dismay. Much as she dreaded the operation, postponing it would be worse still. Since September, hardly a day had gone by without her thinking about the ordeal to come. Not that the last two weeks had left much time for thinking. She felt as if she’d been running a marathon, working all hours to leave everything in good order for Ralph, as well as battling with crowds (and panic) to do the