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had been diagnosed with cancer of the liver. It was a hereditary condition, apparently, but both couldn’t help wondering whether it had been accelerated by the excesses of the past few years. They kept it very quiet and hoped desperately that Leonard would live as long as possible.
    Leonard spent his days inside armed with a history book and a bottle of wine or whisky. Whenever Tom, who had only the vaguest notion of his father’s fragility, came in Leonard would look at him with a sparkle and challenge him to a game of chess or backgammon, or tell him to sit next to him as he read him passages from histories of the crusades and the fall of Byzantium. Tom didn’t fully understand but was enthralled by the exciting names and the thought of entire cities being sacked.
    When the end came it was swift. Seven year after his diagnosis, Leonard deteriorated in a couple of weeks; finally his immune system abandoned its long rearguard action. Tomwas woken one morning at eight o’clock not by Constance crying but by the silence from downstairs. He tiptoed out of bed and down to the kitchen. It was all quiet; nothing had been touched. He felt the kettle. It was cold. Then he heard broken sobs from upstairs, and his fear vanished and numb realization hit him. He knew as surely then as he did a minute later when he opened the door to the bedroom that his father was dead.
    The next week they buried him, Tom walking with Constance behind the coffin. There were no more tears from Constance; she had long known this was coming, and after the first shock, save for dabbing her eyes occasionally at the funeral more out of form than necessity, she did not weep. She still squeezed Tom’s hand though, all the way through the service.
    ‘Stop it, Mummy, you’re hurting my hand,’ he whispered.
    ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Tommy.’ She smiled at him and relaxed her grip, but only for a moment before unconsciously squeezing it again, even more tightly this time.
    After the wake, Constance ushered everyone out of the house and she and Tom sat forlornly in the kitchen, slowly getting used to the unwelcome quiet. Breaking the empty silence, as if seized with a sudden idea, Constance leaped up, went to her bedroom for a moment and came down with a letter in her hand.
    ‘Now Tommy, your father wanted me to give you this when you were fourteen or fifteen, but I’d like you to read it now. You should read it now, I think. You’re old enough. Daddy wrote it to you just last week. Would you like to read it by yourself? If you want to I don’t mind, but if you want me to be with you then of course I will.’
    Tom’s heart felt light as she handed him the stiff ivory-white envelope, bare save for ‘To My Darling Boy’ in his father’s beautiful spidery handwriting. He gulped.
    ‘Um, don’t worry, Mummy. I’ll read it outside.’
    Tom walked outside and Constance shut the door after him, ruffling his hair as he passed her. The letter felt heavy, heavier than the paper in it. He climbed over the fence and walked to his den, cut out of the middle of a large rhododendron. The setting sun bounced off the undersides of the leaves in yellow and gold. He fingered the envelope for some minutes, before gently prising it open. He unfolded the letter.
My Dear Tom,
    Please forgive this letter. I so very much wish that I could have said all of the following to you in person. Face to face is so much better than the cold written word, but at least you will, should you want to, be able to keep this letter for a while. I am afraid that I did not talk to you before I died for two reasons. First, aged eight you are too young, I think, to deal with the concept of speaking to a man about to die, and I want to keep you young for as long as possible. You will be annoyed with me for not treating you as a grown-up, but I hope you will understand. The second reason is that I could not have brought myself to have spoken to you; I simply would not have been able to witness your