A sod to live with, Helen said. Helen was right. I admit that. Why, if I appeared uncaring of my own children, was I apparently so good with other people’s? I had a splendid reputation for my avuncular benevolence. ‘The children adore it when William is here!’ This, with reason, usually drew a look of smouldering resentment from Helen. Why great with other people’s kids and not the home-grown variety? Why? Lack of responsibility? Showing off? Guilt? Possible. Helen, in time, had erected a subtle barrier between herself, the kids and me. With true concern at first: ‘Don’t make so much row, darling. Think of Daddy, he’s having a difficult day.’ Later the admonishments grew terser, colder, irritable. ‘Don’t bang about, for God’s sake!’ Gradually I felt the coolness of her icy disdain as it grew, frankly, into dislike. ’Your father is not just sitting in a heap. Not sulking. Thinking. He says.’

That was slung around pretty often, so I kept out of the way. And then the children pulled away. Why not? I’m not a bit proud of the fact. It just happened. I state this in all humility so that you will remember what I have said later. Annie was all right. She and Helen were like sisters. Whispering, giggling, having secrets. I didn’t figure in her life. Giles? He was a very contented child. Read a great deal, nose in a book all the time, scribbled a bit too. He had his mice, rats, tree-frogs, lizards, and so on. Contented, I’d say. Helen filled any gap I might have caused. Unwittingly. Giles had never asked to be born. He was a desperate attempt to save a failing marriage.

Poor Giles. Perhaps he made me feel guilty? I was far more at ease with Thomas than my own child. An uncomfortable feeling. Odd.

Well, well. Great, old boy. But too bloody late now to reassess your life and misdemeanours.

My two families – that is to say, that one which I came with and the one which I made all-by-myself-no-hands-were really a couple of self-destruct units.

Consider: on the one hand, Ma and Pa, Elpie and James and me. On the other, me, followed by Helen, followed by a gloriously impetuous surge of lust which produced, in time, Annie, and followed, a bit later when the brasses began to tarnish, by the poor old bicycle patch, the effort at a ‘quick mend’, Giles.

And Bob’s your uncle.

The light, as light does, had begun to fade. The room was growing dark. A thin red line, like a skein of scarlet silk, crept across the blush in the sky of the after-light. The day died as I watched.

A saffron sky, one star bright and hard above the branches of a tree, like a mourning frame, frilled with motionless ebony leaves.