The boy had observed his father’s entreaty to me, and my graceless response. I could not guess his feelings. I wanted to beseech him, blameless in it all: to take his hand and tell him all would be well. But again, I did nothing. Distracted, preoccupied with myself, I rose and walked back the way I had come. My father was still in the chair where I had left him, holding a cloth to his mouth as though to cough or sneeze. I barely recognised the knuckles; his were the hands of an ancient man. I drew a cup of water and took it to him but he remained fixed in the position I’d first seen. I gently took the cloth from his hands and found it stained with blood. His hands were weak and shuddering.

‘Father?’

He groaned. I could not see any injury to him that might be the source of the blood. I looked around, feeling panic rising in me. Maynard came forward, face betraying no reaction to this wretched spectacle. We lifted my father by the armpits and draped his arms over our shoulders. His legs made the faintest of effort at walking but we were dragging him, and there was so little of him that it was no great challenge. How had he wasted so, under my supposed care? We took him to his bed and laid him down. I covered his body with the blanket and I swept the hair back from his forehead.

‘Do you have a razor?’ I asked Maynard.

‘No. I ken git you a good blade. Might do it.’

He went off and I held my father’s hand. When he returned with the blade, a cake of rough soap and a bowl of water, we tucked a towel under his chin and I worked up a thin lather and began to scrape at his cheeks with the blade. It was crude, but I could see an improvement.

He awoke as I was angling the blade under his jaw. He was frightened and cried out and I found myself explaining why I was hovering over him with a knife at his throat. I was aware that all certainties were erased now: such was the effect that the man had had upon us. Anything could be a deception, a murderous sleight of hand. I wept inside not just that my father might be nearing the end of his days, but that he might do so doubting my love.