The programme that unfolded on the television was called Jason King. If you're of a certain age and lacked a social life on Friday evenings in the early Seventies, you may recall that it involved a ridiculous rake in a poofy kaftan whom women unaccountably appeared to find alluring. I couldn't decide whether to take hope from this or be depressed by it. The most remarkable thing about the programme was that, though I saw it only once more than twenty years ago, I have never lost the desire to work the fellow over with a baseball bat studded with nails.
Towards the end of the programme another resident came in, carrying a bowl of steaming water and a towel. He said, 'Oh!' in surprise when he saw me and took a seat by the window. He was thin and redfaced and filled the room with a smell of liniment. He looked like someone with unhealthy sexual ambitions, the sort of person your PE teacher warned that you would turn into if you masturbated too extravagantly (someone, in short, like your PE teacher). I couldn't be sure, but I would almost have sworn that I had seen him buying a packet of fruit gums at Suburban WifeSwap that afternoon. He looked stealthily at me, possibly thinking something along the same lines, then covered his head with the towel and lowered his face to the bowl, where it remained for much of the rest of the evening.
A few minutes later a baldheaded, middleaged guy a shoe salesman, I would have guessed came in, said, 'Hullo!' to me and 'Evening, Richard,' to the towelled head and took a seat beside me.