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afterwards all the musicians would depart and the house would be much too quiet. I’d wanted to rise to my feet and inform the young doctor that I took offence at his most inappropriate use of language but for some reason my legs wouldn’t move, and my tongue was dry and fat, and it stuck to the roof of my mouth.
    All I’d managed was, ‘This wasn’t the plan. Women live longer than men. Everyone knows that. This wasn’t the plan at all.’
    â€˜No, of course not,’ agreed the doctor.
    He sat patiently for a few minutes while, to my profound dismay, I wept noisily and inelegantly. When my tears slowed, silently he passed me a tissue. I blew my nose, disgruntled and unnerved by my display; it appeared that I had no control over anything at all, not even myself.
    He’d asked, ‘Have you tried writing anything down about—?’
    â€˜Edie. Her name was Edie.’
    â€˜Have you tried writing down some things about her?’
    I shook my head. ‘I’m going to write her a symphony. Well, I’ve been meaning to. I’m a bit stuck.’
    â€˜How about starting with something a little less ambitious? You could jot down a memory.’
    I frowned. ‘That’s all rather personal.’
    â€˜So what? No one else needs to read it.’
    â€˜No, thank you.’
    He’d gone back to scrawling notes on his pad. ‘As you like. Some people find it helps.’
    He’d offered no sympathy, for which I was grateful, and I’d left shortly afterwards with a prescription for sleeping tablets – although I observed that he wouldn’t give me too many in case I did something rash. As I’d walked through reception the secretary hailed me.
    â€˜Mr Fox-Talbot? Can I just update your details?’
    I’d waited at the counter while she fumbled with her computer.
    â€˜We don’t seem to have a recent phone number, Mr Fox-Talbot.’
    â€˜Yes, of course. It’s—’
    And I found I couldn’t remember. I’m a half-decent mathematician – most musicians are. But I couldn’t recall my own telephone number. I could remember our very first, the one we were given when we had the telephone installed in the house in 1952, but our present number had disappeared.
    â€˜It’s all right, take a minute,’ said the secretary.
    I’d looked at her with her orange lipstick and her too many earrings as she suddenly became very busy, tapping at her keyboard, and I understood that she pitied me. I’d become that old man who’d lost both his wife and his telephone number.
    A few days later, as I sat in my armchair facing my daughters, I wondered for a second whether the surgery receptionist had called them but I supposed she couldn’t have done – confidentiality and all that. For a second I saw them not as they were then, but as they’d once been. Clara, stern and immaculately attired in her party frock, patent shoes shining and her long blonde hair in two perfectly gleaming plaitswhich she twirled as she spoke. Lucy, tiny and quiet, dressed in an identical blue frock but somehow contriving to be as untidy as her sister was neat, her dark hair sprouting from the ends of her pigtails and her small feet stuck out before her, revealing two odd socks and no shoes.
    I blinked and my grown-up daughters replaced the apparitions. I pushed the biscuits at Clara, who declined, and at Lucy, who took two.
    â€˜Stop fretting. I’ll be all right,’ I said, not because I believed it but because they wanted it to be true.
    â€˜Will you go to this dance then? It’s for OAPs. They always need men.’
    â€˜No, darling, I won’t. I’m not going to foxtrot with strangers in the village hall.’
    â€˜When will you start arranging this year’s music festival?’ asked Lucy.
    â€˜I thought I might take this year off. I’m a little tired,’ I said, not looking at