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did not look like a child ripped untimely from the womb, though she was very red and in the middle of her head was a huge area of softness like bread taken out too early that seemed to pulse and he was afraid to touch. Even the nurses said they had rarely seen a fontanelle so open, and the doctor came and took a look at it and handed Alessia back to her mother with the assurance that all was perfectly as it should be.
    ‘You had a stroke, didn’t you?’ Dr Bernardini interrupted his thoughts.
    ‘A panic attack, according to you.’
    ‘No, I meant before now. I have been watching you. We need to get you into a larger hospital. A real one. You are now in Casa di Cura Madonna della Misericordia. We’re too small to have a hospital.’
    Blume folded his arms, and scowled at the doctor. ‘I don’t know what you’ve been seeing, Doctor, but I did not have a stroke.’
    ‘Lift up both arms.’
    ‘Fuck off. You lift up both arms.’
    To his surprise, the doctor did. ‘ Et voila! Look, Blume, may I ask an awkward question? Have you consumed certain illegal drugs?’
    Blume looked suitably disgusted at the suggestion.
    ‘All right, so I return to this question of prescribed drugs, perhaps improperly renewed?’
    ‘I hardly even drink any more,’ said Blume.
    ‘No? That was going to be my next conjecture.’
    Blume looked around at the flaking green paint on the walls, at the wheeled table with a piece of equipment that looked like it might have had a purpose in the mid-1950s, then glanced back quickly at the friendly red face.
    ‘Nystagmus,’ said the doctor. ‘No one noticed that?’
    ‘First I have heard of it,’ said Blume, glancing over to the corner of the room where a minor commotion seemed to be unfolding between two colourful – no, nothing. It was just a mop and the way the sunlight gleamed on the steel table leg. The mop seemed to sway a little as he watched it. ‘What is it?’
    ‘Your left eye tends to wander. Do you experience dizziness?’
    ‘Not as a rule, no. Wander where?’
    ‘To the side and back again, slowly, like it’s scanning for something. Nice and smooth, with the occasional saccadic jerk. It’s quite noticeable. It’s as if you’re looking for something to the side, then you snap out of it and focus your attention on whatever is before you.’
    ‘This is a bad thing?’
    ‘Well, I see it as a medical issue,’ said Bernardini. ‘For others, it might give the impression that you’re not quite paying attention, or don’t quite trust them or the people around them. For all I know you have always had it. But, looking at you now, seeing this, and considering the way your bottom lip curves down a little strangely  on your left – I would say you are recovering from a stroke.’
    ‘A transient ischaemic attack,’ said Blume quietly, as if afraid someone might overhear. ‘It’s not the same as a stroke.’
    ‘How long ago?’
    ‘Five weeks.’
    ‘How long were you in hospital?’
    ‘Two days,’ said Blume, his voice low with shame.
    ‘What brought you in?’
    ‘I was shaving . . .’
    ‘And your arm grew heavy?’
    ‘No. My arm is and was perfectly fine.’
    ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have interrupted.’
    ‘Interrupted what? There is no story. I looked into the mirror, and there was this sort of tragic-comic mask looking back at me. I checked in, but it was all over already. I came here . . .’
    ‘To hide from someone?’
    ‘I beg your pardon?’ said Blume.
    ‘Sorry, there I go leaping to conclusions again. You came here to get quite better. Relax, get some exercise done, go back to Rome, looking perfectly normal, and perhaps a little fitter, apart from the nystagmus, which you may have always had. Admirable. What about your clients?’
    ‘What clients?’
    ‘You’re a tax accountant, remember?’
    ‘Oh, them. That’s all taken care of. I have a junior partner . . . Alessia. Yes, quite right. I was trying to relax. Herbal remedies, flowers. And look