He’ll be home at the end of July. I can’t wait but I must. Writing this helps me when I start missing him too badly. And I tell myself—and I tell Mabel— that I mustn’t be a fool, he’s not in any danger, he has had too many inoculations to catch anything, and he won’t be kidnapped. Those poor people are too enfeebled from want to try hostage-taking. And I have my work and good friends and this place high up in the sky.

By the way, I should clear something up now. If you thought Mabel was the same cat as I had at old Mrs. Fisherton’s, I’m afraid you’re wrong. She’s not. This one is also a tortoiseshell but she’s only three and she’s the second cat I’ve had called Mabel. She looks very much like her predecessor and she’s just as affectionate but she has quite a different personality and, of course, she can’t go out hunting. I must say, she has never shown any desire to do so. When my parents come here, Mum always says, “The first Mabel you had, I often think she might be alive today if your father hadn’t been so obstinate.”

And I always say, “It’s past and gone and it’s no use regretting.”

They never talk about the pylon now. They never mention Daniel’s name. Not long ago, when I was down there spending the day with them, Mum was full of a story she had read in the paper about two boys who were killed climbing a pylon in Wales. She told me about it artlessly as if it had no parallel in my own experience. I think she has forgotten it ever happened. She and Dad are proud of me now. I make quite a lot of money, you see, and I’m married with a home of my own. Whatever they thought of him once, they are extremely fond of their son-in-law, whom they regard as entirely selfless and a kind of saint. To their friends they refer to me as an “electronics expert.” My virtual expulsion from the Grand Union Polytechnic, my banishment from Max’s house, my subsequent disappearance, rooftop escapades, and all the rest of it, have gone the way of the pylon, into oblivion.