"Love it."

 

"Me too. Settled then?" he asked and smiled his soft smile.

 

It didn't surprise me that I nodded.

 

After the reading and the curry¹ dinner, I went into Malcolm's sitting room where there were more books than I'd ever seen on anyone's shelves. I began to read the titles.

 

"Help yourself," said Malcolm.

 

"Thanks. But if I read a book, I have add it to my collection."

 

"Strange, same here." He waved his arms towards the shelves. "But look where it's got me."

 

"I'd hate to be without books. They're ... friends."

 

"That sounds like lonely," said Malcolm.

 

I turned and pulled out a book.

 

"Are you?"

 

"Am I what?"

 

"Lonely?"

 

I shrugged².

 

"Not really."

 

"Not really but what?"

 

My voice came from a distance as I tried to answer him.

 

"I'm choosy about my friends. Don't have a great many."

 

"I'm listening," said Malcolm and sat down, indicating the armchair opposite him.

 

"My childhood was ... I mean, my mother loved moving around. She had no trouble putting down roots all over the place. I hated it! Books were the constant things, so I buried myself in them."

 

"Hell, sounds familiar."

 

I sat down in the armchair.

 

"I had very academic parents," said Malcolm. "Was an afterthought, perhaps a mistake even. They loved me in their vague intellectual way but left me alone to get on with growing up. Hence the books."

 

"That's lonely, too," I said.

 

When I left, I took along a couple of Malcolm's books.

 

My friendship with Malcolm grew but my curiousity remained. Who did I remind him of? My mother? If so, could he be my father? Although Mom had never bothered with books, our physical similarities, apart from my tallness, were undeniable. She had never told me much about the man who had fathered me. Clever, was all she had usually said. Once though, when I had been ill with chicken pox, and hot and scratchy, she had relented.

 

"What was he like?"

 

"Skinniest man you ever saw."

 

"Where'd you meet him?"

 

"In a park. I was catching³ a suntan and these papers started blowin' in my face. I was a bit cheesed off at them blowin' all over me and then this man comes runnin'. He grabbed⁴ and grabbed but couldn't catch them all. So he jus' stood still, a helpless look on his face. It was so funny, I started laughin'."

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