Hector put on the kettle for his mother. His father had already left for the shop, but he would close at lunch time: it was a Saturday. Alice and Hector were getting married the next day. Opening the notebook he’d used to keep newspaper cuttings about his Uncle William, Hector rifled through the loose cuttings he hadn’t yet stuck into the book. Putting them in date order, he was sticking them when his mother came into the kitchen.
‘What are you doing, Hector? I thought you’d finished following your Uncle’s pursuits and recording them in your notebook.’
‘I kept cutting them out, but not sticking them in the book. This is the last time I’ll do it, and because Uncle William is so unwell with emphysema, I thought it might cheer him up. I’ll give it to him at the wedding tomorrow.’
While his
