Chapter 24: The First Warm Day

"Mr Ferrier," Alistair said.

"Gethin."

"Gethin." He did not look at me. "I'm told you sat on the hospital steps for three hours."

"Three and a half."

"Thank you."

Gethin put the kettle down on the stove.

"I didn't do it for you," he said.

"I know. Thank you anyway."

Margaret lowered herself into a chair at my mother's table and began to unpack a basket of scones.

The kitchen was very small for three people who did not know where to stand.

"I came to drive my mother, and nothing else," Alistair said to the floor.

"I'll wait in the lane. I only thought, if you'd let me, that I should see you once with my own eyes."

"To see what?"

"That you're all right."

I looked at the man I had married.

He was thinner, and there was grey at his temples that had not been there at Christmas.

His hands hung by his sides, with nothing in them.

He had not once asked for anything since the day in Lincoln's Inn.

"I'm all right," I said.

"I can see that."

"Come outside, Alistair," I said. "I'll say this once, and then you can go."

We went out into the garden.

Gethin stayed in the kitchen by the stove with his back very straight.

Alistair stood in front of me on the path, beside the half-painted door.

"Here is what you are," I said. "You're Margaret's son. That's all."

He nodded slowly.

"You'll sit at her table when I do, at the far end, and you'll pass the gravy.

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