“Oh.” Taken aback, she looked at her laptop, then tried a smile. “Of course, I . . . I used to tell you about him, Alex. When you were small. All the time. But once you got a bit older, I don’t know, I thought it was upsetting you. You didn’t seem to want . . . I always planned to tell you more one day, but . . . You know. Time just goes away.”

Alex nodded. “Later, I mean. And about you, too.”

They smiled at each other, a little embarrassed. “What’re you doing?” Alex nodded at her computer and the teetering stack of papers beside it.

“Usual glamour.” She rolled her eyes. “Reading through a million spreadsheets so I can tell the idiots who sent them to me what they mean.”

“Fancy stopping for a cup of tea?”

“Almost always.”

“I brought us this back,” Alex said, and opened the box.

His mum’s eyes widened in delight.

“Black Forest gateau? I’ve not had that in ages.”

XXXVIII.

ALEX

Four weeks later, Alex was walking through London.

They had traveled down for his mum’s birthday. Carl had bought them all tickets for her favorite musical. He and Alex had sworn a solemn pact that they would join in singing along. Harmonize, even.

It was midmorning. Alex had left them in the hotel, telling Carl he was going out to pick up a present for his mum, even though his present to her was already wrapped and hidden in his rucksack. The city bustled around him, not yet at full roar. Alex was nervous. He had an appointment to keep.

Hard rain had fallen through the night, but it had stopped and now the sun blazed over the bright world. Roads shone and buildings gleamed and the river glinted blue brown as it tumbled toward the sea. One of those washed-clean mornings when everything seems new.

He found them by the river, at the café Harry had specified, two old men and one large dog, sitting at an outside table. Alex’s grandfather smiled up as Alex joined them, then turned back to watching the boats on the glittering Thames. His hair shone very white in the sunlight. A heat haze rose in rippling waves from the water, giving the day a slightly unreal look around the edges.

“You know, I quite fancy a bowl of chips,” the old man said.

“You’ve just ’ad a bowl of chips,” Harry replied.

“I have not.”

“Righto.” Harry raised his eyebrows at Alex. “I’ll get some chips, then.”

“Splendid.”

Alex’s grandfather hummed an odd little tune as Harry headed inside, then caught Alex’s eye. “Hello.”

“Hi.”

“You know, you look very like my son?” The old man glanced off around them with a distracted look. “He’s around here somewhere. What’s your name?”

“Alex,” said Alex.

“Oh! That’s his name, too. He was here just a minute ago. . . . Wonder where he could have got to.”