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They sat in silence for a while, Julia s out of theHe didn't knohat to say She'd always done the talking when he was growing up and it had been enough for him to listen, to say, really? or, what happened next? or occasionally, can you tellinto the home she had mostly just sat and waited to be spoken to Hisbriskly over the cracks in the conversation, the inconsistencies and the repetition and the hard-to-understand, see into the icy chill of who are you, and where's Laurence, and why haven't we had breakfast yet?

How are you feeling Julia? he asked eventually, not knohat else to say

Bored, she said sharply, turning to look at hilass ashtray and gestured at him to empty it He leant across, and as he picked it up she whispered, loudly, the trouble is the other people staying here are a little sub-norarette ends into the bin

Really? he said

Oh, yes, she said So ears, really There's an old man out there, she said, haven't a clue who he is but they have to put plastic sheets on the furniture when he sits down, due to his tendency She said tendency with pursed lips and a note of disgust, as though the word itself was soienic, and she nodded delicately, to confir

His tendency? David asked

She leant towards hihs too arette and lit it with a quick flourish Not really my kind of people, David, she said

He srown up as back there in the room She turned to look out of theand they both watched a young boy kicking a football up and down the gar

den path until a woman opened aand told hi, and when Julia turned to speak he could see that she'd already slipped back into vacancy and confusion

She said, I wanted to go home but they wouldn't let me, can you believe that?

He tried to explain, gently, that there were reasons she couldn't go home just then but she didn't seeood either, she said, pointing through the door to the main room where most of the other residents sat and watched television Half of them are stone deaf, she said He nodded Mind you, that's often a result of the explosive impacts, she said, and the shock, you know, and suddenly she was talking about the war, talking as though the er, working in the hospital through years of air-raid sirens, walking ho doodlebugs droning their way through a bare blue sky

They were all given cigarettes for Christmas and he kept on to his you see, she said Soes were in very short supply but we did e could Your et back froether before it was o out, she said

He wondered whether to interrupt her, to bring her carefully back out of her confusion or to let her just chatter on He heard footsteps in the corridor and his ed the door open with her foot

Julia said and of course we never saw the poor girl again Hetheit on the bed, putting the radio back on the shelf Julia said Mary, wasn't it? Histhat it only be for a few days, Julia said, but of course we never saw her again, she disappeared off the face of the earth Very sad for the poor girl, she said, and she turned and looked him clearly in the eye She said so when your mother asked me what to do, I said well Dorothynoon't you? She said you were such a lovely baby, and anye couldn't very well give you back, could we?

He sat back down, looking at Julia, looking at histhe arht fall to the floor He heard his ainst each other