“Jeremiah lowered himself into his chair, turned to the first page of The Phantom of the Opera, and started to read aloud. “The Opera ghost really existed. He was not, as long believed, a creature of the imagination . . .” He read to himself the next few lines and expressed the following. “Yes, he existed in flesh and blood, although he assumed the complete appearance of a real phantom; that is to say of a spectral shade.” Jeremiah thought for a moment. It’s rather like me. It could have been an apt description of him before Miss Herman walked into his life with a plate of strawberry scones and a jug of lemonade. He had walked around like a phantom. Yes, he had been alive, but it had been a grim, lonely sort of life where he had shut people out. Funny what a little kindness can do, he told himself and went back to reading.”