“Shoulders of giants, Uncle Jim,” offered Oliver with what I thought might have been unnecessary kindness.

Another longish silence followed. The fine rain on the roof sounded like an endless bag of rice being emptied into a pan that somehow never filled.

At last, Uncle Jim turned back to us. “Caught me once, you know. At school. I remember…I remember he didn’t say anything. But the look on his face was… I mean, in the man’s defence, it had only been legal a few years at that point… I don’t think I ever quite got over it. Then when you… Well, he didn’t say anything then either. Not to me.”

“To me”—Oliver’s voice was almost impossibly gentle, certainly gentler than I’d have managed with a man who had been happily joining in with jokes at Oliver’s expense the last time we’d met—“he said, ‘As long as you don’t start wearing dresses.’ Mother said, ‘But what about AIDS?’”

Uncle Jim gave another gazebo-shaking sigh. “At least that was something. Still, it’s too late now. He’s gone and I’m…”

“Not?” Oliver finished for him.

“Old,” corrected Uncle Jim. “I’m an old, bald, fat man who left it all too late. From telling his brother to go fuck himself to…to everything else.”

Hoping I wasn’t treading on too many toes and that this fell under the broader category of LGBTQ+ community rather than the Blackwoods specifically, I stuck my oar in. “I mean,” I told him, “I suppose it is too late to tell David to go fuck himself unless you wanted to do it to his ashes. But as for the…the everything else bit…there’s still time on that.”

Uncle Jim gave a snort. “What, should I buy myself a pair of those leather trousers with the bum cut out and go strolling around St. James’s Park?”

Aaaand there was the Uncle Jim we knew and loathed.

“For what it’s worth,” said Oliver with a level of patience that I was at once in awe of and a little worried I took for granted, “I’ve never worn leather trousers with the bum cut out in my life—meaning no disrespect to people who have. Most people prefer to go cruising on the internet these days. Or Hampstead Heath if you’d rather.”

“I still don’t…” Uncle Jim began, but apparently he still wasn’t sure what he still didn’t, so he let the thought trail away into nothing.

Oliver stood and went to crouch by his uncle. “And you don’t have to. There’s no”—he looked at me—“no right or wrong way to be who you are. If you’re happy being…”

“A fat, bald bachelor in his sixties?” suggested Jim.