“I didn’t know.”

The air-conditioning unit was starting to bellow out cold air. It still smelled like a wet sheepdog.

He asked, “Do you think they were happy?”

“In the beginning.” She hefted her huge thermal mug, seemed about to take a sip of coffee and then changed her mind. “In the beginning. But not even she could keep his attention for very long. He had so much to do. He was very busy, your father.”

Fat Charlie tried to work out if Mrs. Higgler was joking or not. He couldn’t tell. She didn’t smile, though.

“So much to do? Like what? Fish off bridges? Play dominoes on the porch? Await the inevitable invention of karaoke? He wasn’t busy. I don’t think he ever did a day’s work in all the time I knew him.”

“You shouldn’t say that about your father!”

“Well, it’s true. He was crap. A rotten husband and a rotten father.”

“Of course he was!” said Mrs Higgler, fiercely, “But you can’t judge him like you would judge a man. You got to remember, Fat Charlie, that your father was a god.”

“A god among men?”

“No. Just a god.” She said it without any kind of emphasis, as flatly and as normally as she might have said “he was diabetic” or simply “he was black.”

Fat Charlie wanted to make a joke of it, but there was that look in Mrs. Higgler’s eyes, and suddenly he couldn’t think of anything funny to say. So he said, softly, “He wasn’t a god. Gods are special. Mythical. They do miracles and things.”

“That’s right,” said Mrs. Higgler. “We wouldn’t have told you while he was alive, but now he is gone, there can’t be any harm in it.”

“He was not a god. He was my dad.”

“You can be both,” she said. “It happens.”

It was like arguing with a crazy person, thought Fat Charlie. He realized that he should just shut up, but his mouth kept going. Right now his mouth was saying, “Look. If my dad was a god, he would have had godlike powers.”