‘But not a very good one,’ Ted said. ‘You’ve been very indulgent, and I’ve let you take care of a lot of things I should have taken care of myself. Both Mary and I have gone on being children in ways we shouldn’t. Jack was fairly rough on me, you know. Everyone else talked about how Mary should pull herself together, but Jack said I should stop acting like a sulky kid who could walk away from my family as if they were a bunch of toys I’d got bored with and face up to the fact that I was a husband and father with problems to solve. He’s right. And Mary does know that I don’t think of walking out as one of my options. Since it isn’t, we’ve both been making some real progress.’

‘Good,’ David said.

‘It’s been easier for Mary in some ways than it has been for me.’

David waited.

‘I’ve seen the eaves trough,’ Ted said. ‘And I know you’re not going to fix it, and I know why. Every day I don’t do it myself, I feel guiltier, and then I get mad at you, wondering why the hell an eaves trough is so important anyway.’

‘I’d be glad to fix it if you’d like me to,’ David said. ‘It isn’t all that important.’

‘If you do it, you’re fixing your own house. If I do it, I’m doing a boy’s chore,’ Ted said.

‘Would you like to move, Ted?’

‘No,’ Ted said. ‘I’d like you to.’

‘I see,’ David said, blinking.

‘We could rent this space and add it to what we pay you, and I could add a couple of hundred more to that. I know it’s not a realistic offer for this house, but at least you could rent a real apartment for yourself and stop living as if you were a poor relation. I can’t buy it from you, Dad, even with the money from our other house, not for what it’s worth. Maybe down the way a few years I could, but that’s the best I can do now.’

‘Let me think about it,’ David said.

‘This isn’t Mary’s idea,’ Ted said.

‘But she’s agreeable to it?’

‘Yes, if you are. You know, from the beginning everybody thought it was, well, sort of undignified for you to live in the basement of your own house and then turn yourself into a kind of built-in, unpaid servant.’

‘It hasn’t really felt to me like that,’ David said.

‘But it’s been like that for us. And we just let you do it.’