Mark was our house mate in Station Road Birmingham. His Marcus minimus tag was down to his overt poshness (he attended the upper crust public school, Berkhamsted. His father, he claimed, was a contemporary at the school of Graham Greene). He’d say things like “God was an Englishman” and he’d wear a cravat on Sundays. His sister was a dentist and he strangely referred to Cliff Richard as “Richard Cliff”. At night, he would sit in his favourite Parker Knoll recliner arm chair, drinking Scotch and dry ginger from a tumbler (no ice) and he would smoke Dunhill cigarettes almost non-stop, lining the butts up very neatly in a very big ashtray. When I got home at night, he’d say things like “Some chap telephoned for you”, and I’d say “who” and he’d say “no idea, old boy, he didn’t say”. In the mornings, we had a very strange routine before heading off to the office. Giles (the other house mate) would iron my shirts and then Mark (who we always called Foster, as that was his surname) would put my shirt on, pressing the warm collar against my neck (which was very nice on chilly mornings). Paradoxically, he seemed to relish the role of batman. Although Clare was very charming and lovely, they split up. Then Mark left the house for the South and after I waved him off in his military green Mini clubman (which he was clearly too big for), I never saw or heard from him again. If ever I hear the song “What Do You Want the Girl to Do” by Lowell George, I think of Mark since it seemed to be the only popular song he liked (he couldn’t operate the hi-fi, so he’d say to me “play that apple pie thing again” in reference to the only line in the song he seemed to remember, which was “she’s good for you, like apple pie”). Him never getting in touch again made me wonder whether I’d somehow offended him, as he would never have said so, as that would have been contrary to his gentlemanly ethos.