Blizzard, thaw, brief sunlight, and then gloom again. A cloud as tall as England had just crossed the sun. Under bare branches and through the daggers of pruned bushes, the soil was piling up. Amy didn’t recognize the limousine that had come for her that very morning; nor was she expecting me to come out when the chauffeur opened the door. In my low but coherent voice (a lifelong training in articulate but deferential speech: I myself would be reluctant to trust a man who spoke as I did), I explained what Sigmund Adletsky had arranged. ‘It was his idea,’ I said. Her look was silent and reserved, even a little bleak. Looking beyond me, she glanced here and there, trying to put it all together. Considering the circumstances, I couldn’t blame her. She was unable to guess how much I had told Adletsky about her. And I could readily picture what she was seeing – my hair still thick, straight and black, and my narrow forehead, incurved like a low bluff, then black Chink eyes, on the small side, in what is probably the densest part of my face. And, finally, my mother’s thick mouth – even thicker than hers. My hands were in my coat pockets, thumbs on the outside.

‘This driver is here to take your car back,’ I said. ‘I’ll keep you company in the limo …’

‘It’s kind of Mr Adletsky,’ she said.

I was about to say that at ninety-two, Adletsky was pioneering in compassion, a new field for him. But I held back.

‘Let’s tell the driver to park this glamorous machine. Then we can sit down, get out of the cold air. It’s still got a wicked sting, even late in March. If I lower the window a bit, we can keep an eye on things.’

So she and I sat in the luxurious swivel chairs – silent at first, but presently quite a conversation developed.

‘What’s with your old father?’ I said.

‘Alzheimer’s disease has pretty well swallowed up his mind. These last years, he does recognize me on and off.’

It followed that he was expected to die soon. If she had had to store or bury him temporarily, while Jay was moved, the complications would have been unpleasant.

‘My mother expected to have Dad lie alongside.’

‘She didn’t care for Jay, did she?’

‘She said the Wustrins were common and Jay made crude jokes. He was almost too much for her to bear.’

‘Well, it was his idea of a joke to buy the grave from your dad – like getting into a double bed with his mother-in-law. Poor Jay was obviously dying. If it was clear to you and me, it was even more clear to him. I’d meet him around town and he’d smile, but he didn’t force his company on me. He became self-effacing. He went from a fat man to a thin boy. And when he gave up his office, his practice, he gave up on neatness.’