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alone.’
    Pointedly excluding Ada, he said to Rose, ‘I suggest if you want to meet her that you come back this afternoon. She visits her husband every day between two and four. See me first and I’ll introduce you.’
    Progress at last.
    ‘There’s something else, Doctor.’ Rose spoke up for herself. ‘I’m puzzled about this head injury. I’ve examined my head. I can’t find any cuts or bruising.’
    ‘Neither did I,’ said Dr Whitfield.
    She frowned, unable to understand.
    ‘It doesn’t follow that you had a crack on the skull at all,’ he went on. ‘You get concussion from a shaking of the brain. A jolt to the neck would do it just as easily.’
    ‘You mean if I was struck by a car and my head rocked back?’
    ‘That’s exactly what I had in mind.’
    Rose prepared to leave.
    ‘There’s something else I should mention,’ the doctor said. ‘When you get your memory back it’s quite on the cards that you still won’t remember anything about the accident. It may be a mystery forever.’
    ‘I hope not.’
    ‘It’s a common effect known as retrograde amnesia. The patient has no recall of the events immediately before the concussion happened.’
    ‘I could accept that, if I could only get back the rest of my memory. This has gone on for three days already. Are you sure there isn’t permanent damage to my brain?’
    He put his hand supportively over hers. ‘Nobody fully understands how the memory works, but it has a wonderful capacity for recovery. Something will make a connection soon, and you’ll know it’s coming back.’
    She and Ada went downstairs and walked in the grounds. Through the trees they could hear the steady drone of traffic on the motorway.
    Rose felt deeply disheartened. ‘What am I going to do, Ada?’
    ‘Talk to this old biddy who found you.’
    ‘I’m not pinning my hopes on her.’
    ‘She’s your best bet, ducky. Like he said, something will make a connection. Who knows what talking to her might do?’
    ‘Of course I’ll talk to her now it’s been arranged. All I’m saying is that I don’t expect a breakthrough. What do I do if I draw a blank with Mrs Thornton?’
    ‘Talk to the press and get your picture in the paper along the lines of CAN YOU HELP THIS WOMAN? With looks like yours, you’ll get some offers, but I won’t say what kind.’
    ‘I don’t want that.’ They strolled past some patients in wheelchairs. She told Ada, ‘I’m sorry to be a misery-guts. It’s become very clear to me how much we all rely on our memories. You’d think what’s past is finished, but it isn’t. It makes us what we are. Without a memory, you don’t have any experience to support you. You can’t trust yourself to make decisions, to reason, to stand up for your rights. My past started on Tuesday morning. That’s the whole of my experience, Ada. I don’t have anything else to work with.’
    ‘There’s lunch,’ suggested Ada.

Five
    Meals-on-Wheels is a system as near foolproof as any arrangement can be that relies on volunteers. A couple of days before someone’s turn to deliver the meals, she (the volunteers are usually women) will be handed (by the previous person on the rota) a white box about the size of a ballot box. It is made of expanded polystyrene, for insulation, and fitted with a shoulder strap. Being so large and conspicuous when left in a private house, the box is a useful reminder of the duty to be done.
    On either a Tuesday or a Thursday, at a few minutes before noon, the volunteer reports to a local school canteen where lunch is ready for serving. Piping hot foil containers are loaded into the box by the dinner ladies. The box is carried to the car. With the meals aboard, the wheels take over.
    ‘Now begins the tricky part,’ Susan Dowsett explained to Joan Hanks, who was about to join the Acton Turville and District team and had come along to learn how it was done. Mrs Dowsett was the mainstay of the service, one of those admirable, well-to-do