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“I’m really sorry”, said my father, and he meant it. He knew
what abandonment felt like. This was an issue as serious
and painful as the question of the meaning of life, about
which he was not willing to talk, not yet. But he
understood, and Fergus nodded gratefully. We all pondered
the matter for a while. Paul straightened me in the sling;
Max wiped his hands on the tea towel he’d thrown over his
shoulder; Irene moistened her cigarette paper with the tip
of the tongue. Fergus kept sucking on the half-eaten wine-
gum dwarf.
“Yes”, he finally summed up, because silence, too, has a
beginning, a middle and an end.
“Yes”, said Paul.
“Wow”, Irene chimed in.
Fergus sighed. “You wouldn’t have a place for me to kip
down?” he asked at precisely the same time as Paul asked,
“Why don’t you stay a while with us?”
They laughed. It was nice that Paul had the same idea.
Maybe it was just a hunch, but at least it also showed
presence of mind and it was a happy chance for him to
express his gratitude to Fergus at last. There was no
question about helping him. It was a fact. I mean it was like
when I was at Grandma’s and Grandpa’s and I didn’t have
to ask for a woodruff-flavoured popsicle but was simply