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Caramba, Yes, it was just an ordinary wooden chair with four legs and a back, a chair of the cheap, plain, functional kind that you saw in garden sheds all over the country. Because of its strong ironical content, it is cheaper to buy certain new cars than Caramba, Yes.
    Devonshire signed me for an exhibition on the strength ofone piece which he displayed and immediately sold: the love chair, which consisted of two ash seats with splayed legs connected by a mutual arm. Calling the piece the love chair was Devonshire’s idea, not mine, but I was happy to go along with his suggestion – what could be wrong with love? Pa’s favourite work of mine, though, is the pew, a kneeling-stool attached to a small desk where the supplicant might rest the elbows: a prie-dieu. I finished it about eight months ago and to my surprise he expressed a liking for it.
    â€˜I like it,’ he said. ‘I really do. I think it’s the best thing you’ve done.’ He circled it slowly, examining it. ‘I could use a chair like this,’ he said. ‘I could use it when I say my prayers.’
    I smiled. I was pleased that someone like Pa, who actually prayed to God, saw practical value in the chair. I was surprised, too. I had not foreseen that someone might appreciate the object so literally.
    â€˜I could put it in the spare bedroom upstairs,’ Pa said. ‘I could go up there when I needed some peace and quiet, some time for myself.’
    Pa could not have the pew, though, because I had promised it to Angela as a gift. There it is over there, next to the fireplace. She uses it as a platform for her plants. It does not look particularly good that way, obscured by the fern, but it’s hers now, and if that’s what she wants to do with it, that’s fine by me. That’s the great thing about Angela: everything she does is fine by me.
    â€˜Well, anyway,’ Pa said, lifting his glass, ‘here’s to the exhibition. You’ve earned it, son. You’ve worked hard and you’ve gotten what you’ve deserved.’
    I returned the gesture with a hollow smile. I did not say anything to Pa about the exhibition because I did not want to upset him, not now. I’d wait a while. I’d wait till things started looking up for him.
    Things looking up: how was I supposed to know what was going to happen?

4
    Let me say this: Angela’s place is not an easy place to cool your heels. This is a studio apartment. Aside from a small bathroom and a kitchen, there is only one room – the living/bedroom, which as a place of entertainment is a dead loss. The television is broken, I have read the books and heard all the records. The kitchen is no better: the bread is stale, the cupboards are empty and there’s nothing in the fridge. Usually you can count on finding some ruby orange juice or a tub of pasta salad from the delicatessen, but not tonight. There isn’t even any milk. You’d think that Steve had dropped in.
    Angela must be pretty busy at work to allow things to get this way. They really drive her hard at Bear Elias, and if she does not go into the office at the weekend it is only because she has brought work home. When she gets back in the evenings, the first thing she does is head straight for the sofa and bed down for an hour. Only then, when I have brought her a cup of tea and rubbed her feet and warmed her toes, does she have the energy to talk. And, as if her job were not demanding enough, she has taken to going to the gym. At least three evenings a week she works out at the local fitness club, courtesy of her corporate membership. I’m not complaining, she has never looked better. But just lately arranging to see her has almost become a question of booking an appointment.
    She is now forty-five minutes late.
    There will be a perfectly reasonable explanation for her absence. As occurs in a million appointments every day, an innocent delay has arisen. She is