It was in Elgin, upstairs in my study, gazing at the sea and reflecting. I remember, on a line of Goethe when Mrs Gregor tapped at the door that Saturday and said there was a young man to see me in the surgery, a pilot. You know how she talks 'A pilot, Mrs Gregor?' I murmured. I hate being disturbed on my Saturday afternoons, especially if Spike is playing up, as he was that day, but of course I limped out on to the landing and made my way downstairs. And you know what that looks like - pathetic bloody display that is, the first good leg, then the bad leg, then the stick, good leg, bad leg, stick, but down I came, down the stairs, old beyond my years and my skin a grey so cachectic it must have suggested even to you that I was in pain, chronic pain, but oh dear boy not pain like yours, just wait now and we'll make it all - go - away -

I crossed the hall, you'd have heard the floorboards, and opened the surgery door. Always full of shadows that room, no matter how bright the day, and stinking of ether, but there on the far side, over by the cabinet, a figure. And the figure turned. And it was, indeed, a pilot, this I could now see clearly, a dark-haired young man of eighteen or nineteen in a blue uniform with wings over the left breast. You approached me rather formally and held out your hand. 'Dr Haggard?' you said.

What did I do, nod? Sigh?

'My name is James Vaughan,' you said. You didn't falter.

You said: 'I believe you knew my mother.'

Oh God. I believe you knew my mother - had you any idea the effect those words would have on me? I don't believe you did. I don't believe you did.

I closed the door and limped over to my chair. You sank gracefully into the chair on the other side of the desk and crossed them, in the exact same way that she'd always crossed her legs, with one ankle pulled in close to the other and the foot pointing at the floor. I could hear nothing but the throbbing of my blood in my head and the cry of a gull from cliffs. As calmly as I could I offered you a cigarette but was unable to light it, for my hands were shaking. You half rose from your seat and lit both cigarettes with a small flat silver-plated lighter. 'Tea?' I said.