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when tomorrow arrived I discovered that even though my fingers were no longer cold and unwieldy, my mind remained stiff, and all melody eluded me.
    Lucy took my hand in hers: warm and small – pretty yet useless for a piano player, but then neither of my daughters had ever shown the slightest inclination towards music. No, that’s not true. When Clara was fifteen we had a handsome young trumpeter staying with us for the July concert series, and Clara declared that she wanted to learn the trumpet. Her passion for both boy and trumpet waned with the long summer nights.
    It would have been nice if the girls had displayed even an amateur interest, a casual talent. I had offered each of them lessons upon a variety of instruments. Always more willing to please than her sister, Lucy had worked her way through the entire woodwind section with utterly astonishing ineptitude until neither I nor her teacher could stand any more. One Saturday morning when she was about twelve, instead of dropping her at the music teacher’s house, I deposited her at tennis lessons at which, to everyone’s profound relief, she was rather better.
    It was Clara’s turn to fix me with a steady look.
    â€˜Well, Papa, if you’re not writing and you’re not playing, then it’s even more important for you to have a hobby.’
    The thing is that I did have a hobby of sorts, although probably not one my daughters had in mind. I’d taken to visiting doctors. I’d seen all different kinds. I’d tried each of the partners at my own practice and I’d gone up to town to see a specialist on Harley Street at great expense (I told the girls I was going to the opera, which would have been significantly cheaper). I needed a diagnosis. There was clearly something very wrong. I was always cold even when I sat huddled in front of the fire. I couldn’t eat. I could neither write nor play. If they’d only give me a pill, then maybe I’d be whole again. However, every doctor had said the same thing – I was perfectly fine, nothing was physically wrong. I should eat a little more and drink a little less, and at that I’d known each one was yet another quack. The blasted doctors knew nothing.
    In the end I’d gone to see a new partner at the local practice. I tried to explain.
    â€˜A huge piece of me is missing,’ I wanted to say. ‘I’m more holes than man.’ But it had come out all wrong. ‘I’m a Jarlsberg,’ I declared. The young, weary-looking doctor stared at me. Starting to sweat, I’d tried again. ‘I’m full of holes like a Jarlsberg.’
    The doctor smiled and sat back in his chair with a practised air of patience. ‘Ah, yes, that Swiss cheese. I know. My daughter has it in her lunch box. My wife buys it in slices from Marks and Spencer.’
    I’d stared at the doctor for a moment, then reached for my hat, wondering how it was that we were now talking about cheese instead of whatever cataclysmic ailment I had. Surely it was cancer. At that moment I’d been quite sure of it and had decided it wouldn’t be such a terrible thing. I couldn’t have fought it for long, not without Edie. It would be hard on the girls, but they were grown up and in the end it would be for thebest, although I preferred not to suffer. I was definitely against suffering. I was about to start considering the most suitable pieces for my funeral – Bach, there would definitely have to be Bach – when the doctor put down his pen and removed his spectacles. He had pale blue eyes and he looked to be about the same age as Clara.
    â€˜You’re not ill, Mr Fox-Talbot. You’re sad.’
    I’d inhaled sharply, affronted. ‘Sad’ was the wrong word. Sad was watching an old weepie when it was raining outside or taking down the Christmas tree on the first day of January or listening to the last concert of the season knowing that