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be,” he replied, his eyes studying me carefully
while flickering towards the notes I’d been taking. “You haven’t pasted the new
page in yet?”
    “What?”
I gawped, before realising what he was talking about. “No, not yet. I didn’t
know I was supposed to.”
    My
father walked to the kettle. “What do you think I left it out for?”
    I
didn’t know, and I didn’t particularly want to hazard a guess for fear of provoking
a mortal rebuke from the strangler. He looked at me as he turned the gas on
underneath the kettle.
    “Paste
it in,” he told me.
    “Yes
father,” I agreed, daubing the back of the article with paper paste and
slapping it in.
    My
father glanced at my handiwork over my shoulder. “It’s not straight,” he
scowled, as if this was the most deplorable misdemeanour likely to be found
between this album’s sleeves. “Pull it out and do it properly before it dries,”
he ordered, so I peeled the page out again and relayed it, this time with the
precision of a veteran draftsman. “Very good,” my father grunted.
    He
refilled the pot with boiling water and brought it over to the table, before
pulling up a chair for himself.
    “So,
you’re probably wondering what all this is about,” he speculated.
    “Umm…”
I ummed, unsure just how stupid to play this one. In the event I realised
unswerving respect and obedience would serve me better and give me a greater
chance of seeing my nineteenth birthday, so I puckered up my reverence and gave
my father’s accord the kissing of its life. “I was rather, father. I can’t seem
to make head nor tail of it,” I twittered like a right royal nit.
    My
father nodded. “Well as I say my father was responsible for the first girls.”
    “The
Reverend?”
    “Yes,
he was a sublime hunter, taught me everything I know. In fact, if it hadn’t
been for the skills I learnt from him, I might not have come back from the war
at all,” he said, waiting for me to pip in with “Good old Grandpappa” before
continuing when it became clear I wasn’t about to.
    “Anyway,
yes, he introduced me to the sport shortly before the war and showed me how to
play it.”
    “The
sport?” I finally said.
    “Yes,
the sport. I have to say, I didn’t take to it particularly well at first, you
were much more game than I ever was,” he commended, pouring himself a cup of
tea from the pot when it was brewed.
    “Yes,
well… er… I didn’t know it was a sport,” I felt I had to admit.
    “Of
course not, and neither did I. Not until I’d smelt a few hares at any rate.”
    I
didn’t even go there.
    “Your
grandfather chose me carefully. He gave me the love and understanding the bitch
who’d borne me never had and he educated me to the ways of womenkind ,” he said, almost spitting this last word out before I saw
he was actually trying to rid himself of a loose tealeaf.
    “The
ways of womenkind?”
    My
father didn’t respond immediately. He merely took another sip of his tea, then
set the cup down very carefully. “You’ll see,” he eventually answered. His
actions were deliberate and calculated, much like his actions throughout the
last couple of weeks. He was grooming me, just as the Reverend had groomed him
before.
    “But
I couldn’t do it,” he admitted. “I didn’t have it in me. At least I didn’t
think I had until the war came along, then I found strengths I never knew I
possessed.”
    My
father flicked a speck of dust from his lapel and straightened his tie. It was
his regimental tie, I noticed. I wondered if his alibi from the previous
evening had involved some sort of reunion of the chaps, but I didn’t have time
to dwell on this as my father was rapidly reaching the cake and balloons part
of the evening.
    “You
have these same strengths, John. I saw it in you from that very first evening.
And tonight, you’ve demonstrated beyond all doubt that you are indeed my son.”
My father cast a glowing eye over me and even allowed a smile to filter