Therapy

bench, hunched inside his overcoat, with his hands in the pockets. I felt a bit embarrassed, walking past him on my way out. I assumed they were having some kind of row. I didn’t dream for a moment that it had anything to do with me.
    A few days after that, the phone calls started. The phone would ring, I’d pick it up and say “Hallo?” and no one would reply. After a while there would be a click, as the caller put the receiver down. The calls came at all hours, sometimes in the middle of the night. I reported them to BT, but they said there was nothing they could do. They advised me to disconnect my bedside phone at night, so I did, and left the answerphone on downstairs. Next morning, there were two calls recorded, but no messages. One evening about nine o’clock I answered the phone and a high falsetto voice said, “Can I speak to Sally, please? This is her mother.” I said I thought she must have the wrong number. She didn’t seem to hear me, and asked again to speak to Sally, saying it was urgent. I said there was nobody called Sally at my address. I didn’t make the connection with Mrs Passmore, even though we are on first-name terms. And although the voice sounded rather strange, it never crossed my mind that it was an impersonation.
    A few nights after that I was woken in the middle of the night by a noise. You know what it’s like when that happens: by the time you’re fully awake, the noise has stopped and you have no idea where it came from, or whether the whole thing was a dream. I put on a tracksuit, because I always sleep in the nude, and went downstairs to check, but there was no sign of anyone trying to break in. I heard a car starting up in the street outside and went to the front door just in time to see a white car turning the corner at the end of the street. Well, it looked white under the street-lighting, but it could have been silver. I didn’t have a good enough view to identify the make. The next morning I discovered that someone had been in the back garden. They’d got in by the side way and knocked over some panes of glass that were leaning up against the tool-shed — I’m in the middle of building a cold-frame. Three of the panes were broken. That must have been the noise I heard.
    Two days later I got up in the morning and found my ladder leaning up against the wall of the house under my bedroom window. Someone had taken it from the space between the garage and the garden fence where I keep it. There was no sign of any attempt to break in, but I was alarmed. That was when I first reported the incidents to your station. Police Constable Roberts came round. He advised me to have a burglar-alarm system fitted. I was in the process of getting quotes when I lost my house keys. I keep them in my tennis bag usually during the day, because they’re rather heavy in the pocket of my tracksuit, but last Friday they disappeared. I was beginning to get seriously worried, by now, that someone was trying to burgle my house. I thought I knew who it was too — a member of the Club’s groundstaff. I’d rather not say who. I have a number of trophies at home, you see, and this person once asked me about them, and what they were worth. I made an arrangement with a locksmith to have the locks changed the next day.
    That night — it was about three o’clock — I was woken by Nigel squeezing my arm and whispering in my ear, “I think there’s someone in the room.” He was shaking with fear. I turned on the bedside lamp, and there was Mr Passmore standing on the rug on my side of the bed, with a torch in one hand and a large pair of scissors in the other. I didn’t like the look of the scissors — they were big, dangerous-looking things, like drapers’ shears. As I said, I always sleep naked, and so does Nigel, and there was nothing within reach I could have used to defend us with. I tried to keep calm. I asked Mr Passmore what he thought he was doing. He didn’t answer. He was staring at Nigel, completely gobsmacked. Nigel, who was nearest the door, jumped out of bed and ran downstairs to phone 999. Mr Passmore looked round the room in a dazed sort of way and said, “I seem to have made a mistake.” I said, “I think you have.” He said, “I was looking for my wife.” I said, “Well, she’s not here. She’s never been here.” Suddenly it all fell into place, and I realized what had been going on, in his head I mean. I couldn’t help laughing, partly in relief, partly