Each day I went out walking. The river was racing, the streams and ditches bright and overflowing with water. Then there were three warm days in a row, and as though responding to a blare of trumpets, spring broke like a wave surging up a beach, foaming into blossom and bud, rippling into green. I climbed up Liddington Hill and stared at it. A part of me that was not my mind cried Green! Green! and pressed to the front of my eyes. I watched the cows being let out to pasture after their long winter in the sheds, watched them run, udders flying, tails whisking, across the fields, and I understood. And part of me said, Go on, have a catatonic breakdown. You’ve earned one. But another part said, I want to feel.

Peter called one night, after dinner, and the three of us huddled around the phone taking it in turns to talk to him, although he would not say where he was or what he was doing, only that he was going to travel, to do something for them, as he put it, and then he would not be in touch for a month or two.

“Then we’ll do something together, Andy. A trip. We’ll go somewhere beautiful and fox-trot round a fountain.” But his tone was compensatory as it had been when we were younger and he’d had access to a treat—a visit to some puppies, an excursion to London to see a show—to which I wasn’t invited. I sensed he’d found a new game, one I wasn’t allowed to join in.

I did the washing up while Patricia hovered. Would I like a glass of sherry? The vicar wouldn’t, but she would have one if I had one. The questions trickled, and then poured. She was so hungry to know her son.

“We were surprised that he chose law in the end. Because,” she cast me a sidelong glance, “he was so artistic.”

She wanted to know about Peter’s special friends.

“Karsten?”

“Karsten von Kloss.”

“Von,” she mused. An evangelical light shone in her eyes. “You know, Andy, the Gospels say very little about, well … sex. Much, much more about money, about helping one’s neighbor, succoring the poor and weak.” And then, “Because the Bible was written by man, inspired by God but written by man, so it’s flawed.” Till it burst out of her, “Peter can love who he wants. No one is better than Peter, no one has the right to think they’re better than Peter!”