His long-term memory was fine. Playing seven tiles in his Byculla home as a teenager back in the'40s, every minute detail of Hitler's invasion of Europe on the radio, all that was crystal clear — as if it had happened yesterday. But what had actually happened yesterday, he was blank. Couldn't fully remember what he'd had for lunch.

He was fit and sort of fine, not fully in the pink of health but there was nothing specifically wrong with him — it wasn't like he had cancer, or a coronary ailment, or even needed constant care. But there was this uncomfortable feeling in the back of his head, the pit of his stomach, a bit like an old car, well past its sell by date — you never knew what would give, every day there was something small going wrong — the knees did bother him in December, for example. And the creaks were getting louder... nothing hospital worthy, but there it was.