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Graham doesn't speak loudly. He doesn't speak as often as I speak. But when he does say—say—Hello, it means more to me than anybody else's Hello means. When we talk he talks about small things, the weather, dinner, lunch, but they're a lot to him, the flavour of things, the look of things. To him they are beautiful, and so they seem epic to me. He always seems to be there with a good idea, when a good idea is needed. He is always wondering how he might help out, and then he does help out. I know someone, he says, who you might like to meet. He arranges for us to meet at the train stop. I begin to worry. This seems like a shady place. Where is the man with the impenetrable smile? And here we are, says a man. He is shaking my hand. Graham helped me when I most needed it, he says, as if by way of introduction. And as we walked towards lunch, I felt light, I felt like a gondola unloading my snow, I felt the sun.