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the form and underlined a third.
    ‘Put a magazine under that,’ said Mrs Catchprice. ‘I don’t want to read my death warrant gouged into the cedar table.’
    A Hare Krishna emerged from the gloom with some newspaper which he slid under the doctor’s papers.
    ‘The situation,’ said the doctor, ‘is that you are incapable of looking after yourself.’
    ‘This is my home,’ said Mrs Catchprice, and began to cry. She clung on to Maria’s arm. ‘I own this business.’
    Cathy sighed loudly, ‘No you don’t, Frieda,’ she said. ‘You are a shareholder just like me.’
    ‘I will not be locked up,’ said Mrs Catchprice. She dug her hands into Maria’s arm and looked her in the face.
    Maria patted the old woman’s shoulder. She had joined the Taxation Office for bigger, grander, truer things than this. She knew already what she would find if she audited this business: little bits of crookedness, amateurish, easily found. The unpaid tax and the fines would then bankrupt the business.
    The kindest thing she could do for this old woman would be to let her be committed. Two doctors attesting to the informant’s senility might be enough to persuade Sally Ho to stop this investigation. Sally could then use her ASO 7 status to find something equally humiliating for Maria to do, and this particular business could be left to limp along and support this old woman in her old age.
    But Mrs Catchprice was digging her (very sharp) nails into Maria’s forearm and her face was folding in on itself, and her shoulders were rounding, and an unbearable sound was emerging from her lips.
    ‘Oh don’t,’ Maria whispered to the old woman. ‘Oh don’t, please, don’t.’
    The Hare Krishna knelt on Mrs Catchprice’s other side. He had great thick arms. He smelt of carrots and patchouli oil.
    ‘What will happen to you when you’re too old to be productive?’ he asked the doctor. His voice was high and breathless, trembling with emotion.
    ‘For Christ’s sake,’ Cathy McPherson said. ‘For Christ’s sake, just keep out of this, Johnny.’
    ‘Christ?’ the boy said. ‘Would Christ want this?’
    Cathy McPherson groaned. She closed her eyes and patted the air with the palms of her hands. ‘I can’t handle this …’
    ‘Krishna wouldn’t want this.’
    ‘Johnny, please, this is very hard for me.’
    ‘In the Vedic age the old people were the most respected.’
    ‘Fuck you.’ Cathy McPherson slapped the Hare Krishna across his naked head. The Hare Krishna did not move except to squeeze shut his eyes.
    ‘Stop it,’ said Maria. She struggled to her feet.
    ‘I think you should stop it,’ the doctor said, pointing a pen at Maria. ‘I think you should just make your appointment for another time, Mrs …’
    ‘Ms,’ Maria told the doctor.
    The doctor rolled his eyes and went back to his form.
    ‘Ms Takis,’ said Maria, who had determined that Mrs Catchprice would not be committed, not today at least. ‘Perhaps you did not hear where I am from.’
    ‘You are a little Hitler from the Tax Department.’
    ‘Then you are a Jew,’ said Maria.
    ‘I am a what?’ said the doctor, rising from his seat, so affronted that Maria burst out laughing. The Hare Krishna had begun chanting softly.
    ‘Oh dear,’ she laughed. ‘Oh dear, I really have offended you.’
    The doctor’s face was now burning. Freckles showed in the red.
    ‘What exactly do you mean by that?’
    ‘I meant no offence to Jews.’
    ‘But I am not a Jew, obviously.’
    ‘Oh, obviously,’ she smiled.
    ‘Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna.’
    ‘Shush darling,’ said Mrs Catchprice, who was straining towards the doctor so that she might miss none of this.
    ‘I meant that if I were a doctor with a good practice I would be very careful of attracting the attention of the Taxation Officer.’
    ‘Hell and Tommy,’ exclaimed Mrs Catchprice and blew her nose loudly.
    ‘I have an accountant.’
    Mrs Catchprice snorted.
    ‘I bet you do,’ said Maria. ‘Do