‘All’s well that ends well then, I suppose,’ he says. I look hard back at him and I think, Well, how about that. You like me, Ray.

When I smile at him (a proper one, no ulterior motives), he looks away and pretends to be fiddling with his camera dials, then lets out a very soft pfft.

Ray feels like an achievement that’s all mine and I don’t want to let it go.

‘Pfft to you too, Ray.’

For some reason, it feels good to have this small secret in my back pocket when I push open the door and hear my uncle’s voice down in Lou’s room.

31

Danny

Those letters had got me good.

The more time I spent wrestling with the tangle of words and emotions needed to come up with the right thing to say to all those strangers, the more important they’d become to me. Because in the search for the kindest and most decent way to help them, the voice of encouragement and wisdom I’d heard most often in my head was my father’s. And the strangest thing was how clear it was, how real, even more than when he was alive, because now I was really listening.

The surprise of that had come gently and beautifully very early one morning, when I’d woken in the dark, still too early to give Gentleman a nudge. I think the old boy had grudgingly come to enjoy our dawn walks as much as me, but I didn’t want to push my luck, so I made myself a cup of tea and sat down on the bed to read a letter.

When I’d finished, instead of the usual twenty-minute mind wander, followed by half an hour of procrastination and another hour of thinking time, I reached for my pen straight away. I started jotting down phrases, words, half-paragraphs, snatches of ideas, until without even thinking I had almost four pages of notes.

I swigged the cold dregs from my mug and read through the surprisingly articulate musings. The writing was peppered with humour and warmth and even, I fancied, a touch of wisdom. And as I gradually realised just how much of my messy, impatient scrawl had been guided by the tender hand of a man I thought I’d wasted, I couldn’t help but feel grateful that these letters, these strangers, were giving me a second chance with him.

My old man died well and quietly, just as he’d lived. Sitting in his favourite comfy chair with a still-warm cup of tea and an untouched piece of buttered banana cake that he’d made himself that very morning beside him. I always felt a bit sad that he hadn’t got to enjoy that last little treat. The kitchen was spotless, though, which kind of summed him up.

His cleaner, Glenda, who’d let herself in at eleven as usual, said that when she’d poked her head into the front room she thought he was just sleeping. People always say that, don’t they? ‘He looked like he was sleeping peacefully.’ Maybe it’s a way of trying to make ourselves feel better about death, by making out it’s just a big old extended kip with no alarm clock at the end of it. Happy days.