Happier than mine? Maybe. I was OK. Me and Sarah had our ups and downs, but we were still together. Teaching was hard work, but it was good when you saw some snotty‑nosed scamp in Year 7 growing up and getting four A levels and going off to uni.

Kenny opened his eyes again. This time they focused on me, rather than into the world beyond.

“Did Tina really go to the farm to be a sheepdog?” Kenny said, his voice just a sigh.

I hadn’t thought about our little Jack Russell for years. I thought about lying to Kenny now, but I couldn’t, not at the end.

“No, Kenny,” I said. “Tina kept me warm until the mountain rescue team found us. She gave up all her warmth for me.”

Kenny’s breathing carried on for a while.

“You shouldn’t have told me a lie, Nicky.”

“I know, brother,” I said. “But I didn’t want you to be sad.”

Breathing, breathing.

“Will Tina be in heaven?” Kenny asked.

“I think she will, yeah.”

“And will I see her there?”

“Course you will, Kenny.”

“How will I find her?”

“You won’t have to,” I said. “She’ll come and sniff you out when you get there.”

Breathing, breathing. Softer. Kenny’s eyes were almost closed.

“Nicky?” he murmured.

“Yeah?”

“All our adventures … Snuffy and Rooky, and when we got that watch off that man who was drowned …”

“Yeah. I remember,” I said. “I remember all of them. They’re not the sort of things you forget.”

“You always said you’d write them down. Get them made into a book.”

I had said that. I’d told my kids all about the stuff we’d got up to, me and their uncle Kenny. But I’d never had the time to sit down and write it all out.

“I’ve been … busy, Kenny. Life gets filled up with stuff.”

“Promise me you will,” Kenny said.

“What?”

“Write it all.”

“Aye, Kenny, I will.”

“You’ve got to promise.”

“I promise.”

Kenny’s eyes were closed now, but he nodded.

And then his last words, so faint I could hardly hear them. Yet in another way so loud that they rang out like the ecstatic song of the lark in the endless blue sky.

“Tell me a story.”

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

My thanks, as ever, to the brilliant Barrington Stoke team, most particularly Ailsa Bathgate and Jane Walker.

Thanks also to Charlie Campbell for doing my deals.