'I'm honoured to be asked. What's the best way of arranging it? If you gave the bank a ring on Monday to let them know, I could pick the form up on Tuesday lunchtime and we can sort out the signatures in the evening. You're sure there's nothing else?'
'No, Tom gets me everything I need, don't you worry.' He smiled and pushed himself a little higher onto the pillows. Only fifteen minutes had passed and already we seemed to have run out of conversation. Unable to think of something better I said, 'This is quite a novel experience for me. I've only been into hospitals two or three times in my whole life.'
'You've never been seriously ill? You're lucky. Another advantage in life?' He sometimes liked to remind me that, whilst he had been born into a poor family, my circumstances had cushioned me from hardship.
'No. Sprained my ankle once, but they didn't keep me in. Other than that, been to visit someone in hospital a couple of times.' To make my good health seem less exceptional I added, 'Tom has never been seriously ill either.'
'Your parents, you mentioned a car crash...?'
'My sister and I were taken to the hospital, but they'd been killed outright; they had no need for visitors.'
'I'm sorry, don't mean to...'
'It was so long ago. I was still at school at the time, studying A-levels. An aunt and uncle on my mother's side took us in. They did their best for us, but they had a child of their own. We had a miserable couple of years. You can imagine how we felt. Their little girl put up with us and we put up with her, treading carefully all the time, avoiding arguments, being artificially nice to each other. I suppose she didn't want us in her house any more than we wanted to be there. The alternative, had they not taken us in, would probably have been a children's home of some kind, so we had reason to be grateful.'
'But not like being with your own Mum and Dad. Quite a setback at the age of what - seventeen?'
'Fortunately money wasn't a problem. My father worked for an insurance company and had taken out maximum cover. They were tough times for us even so; my life has not been all ice cream and expensive toys. I don't think I stopped feeling miserable until I went to university. In a way life started for me again there.' Andrew was looking towards me, but although his eyes were fully open they seemed unfocused, giving the impression that he was no longer listening but engaged on some other theme or memory of his own. 'Sorry, I must have told you all this before.'