“Is she suffering, do you think?” He gripped her hand, brown holding white.

“No,” I said. I couldn’t look in his eyes; instead I glanced at his lank black hair; at his narrow forehead; at his lips, made even thinner than usual by gnawing teeth; and at his long fingers with their carefully trimmed nails. Anywhere except his eyes.

“Can you be sure?”

“Could she sleep like that if she were suffering?”

“No, I suppose not.”

She shuddered, and a strand of hair fell forward and stuck to her cheek, red against the fish-white skin. He eased it away.

“I would not want her to suffer. I never did. You know that.”

“Yes,” I said. A pity she didn’t mind about him suffering.

“Even when she walked out on me, I never wanted her to suffer.” I was startled – it was as if he’d read my mind.

“She isn’t suffering,” I said. “She’s past that now. And that wasn’t your fault.”

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“No?”

“No. I’m sure you’re feeling a bit guilty – everyone does. That’s natural.” I tried to sound bracing. “It’s just emotional overflow. Sorrow overflowing into any space it can find.”

“She blamed me.”

“No, she didn’t!” I spoke too loud; there were shocked looks around the ward. “No, she didn’t,” I repeated quietly. “I know what she said – I heard a lot of it, remember – but it wasn’t true.”

“She–“ But suddenly his eyes filled with tears. He snatched his handkerchief out in time to blow his nose.

“You can cry.” I put my hand on his – white on brown.

“Thank you.” He smiled, and blew his nose again. “But I will be British. Stiff upper lip – that is what we used to say. We saw all those old films together, you know. There were not many places we could go in those days, not without trouble. An English girl with a Pakistani boy.”

“Irish girl.”

“Yes, but that was not what people said. We did not dare to go into town. But the Regal, just down the road, there we could go.”

“You will stay in England now, won’t you?”

“Oh yes. I stayed for her originally, but now it is my home. For the time I have left. And anyway, how could I leave my children?”

He smiled at me, and I smiled back.

“And your grandchildren,” I replied. “Not to mention your daughter-in-law.”

“Daughter,” he answered, and held my hand for a moment. “Thank you.”

I smiled. He looked at her again, and we fell silent. She slipped deeper into sleep – then her face emptied.

At last I looked him in the eye. “She’s gone.”

He nodded.

He kissed the cheek that had been hers, and murmured something I didn’t catch.

“Enough,” he said.

I pressed the bell. A nurse came, checked, nodded, and laid a hand on his shoulder. Then we walked away. We stared forward, so that we could not see each other’s tears.