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“My mother died,” Basso said. “Had you heard?”

Antigonus shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“So am I,” Basso replied, “but mostly because I realised I hardly felt anything when they told me. I waited for it to sink in, it has, and I still haven’t really felt anything. That’s appalling, don’t you think?”

“You should consider yourself lucky,” Antigonus replied. “One of the worst things that happens to a man has just happened to you, and you’ve escaped the suffering.”

Basso nodded. “Mostly,” he said, “it’s a nuisance; an inconvenience. For instance, I’m trying to remember something that happened when I was a kid. I think, I’ll ask Mother, and then I realise I can’t; it’s annoying, frustrating, it itches where I can’t reach, but it’s not grief. Unless I lie to myself, the most I can come up with is, it’s a loss of information, like a library burning down. There’s a whole chunk of my life for which I’m the only source of historical data—well, strictly speaking there’s my sister as well, but in practical terms there’s just me. It makes me feel, I don’t know, vulnerable. What happens when I get old and forgetful? All that part of me, my childhood, will be lost, for ever. I find that intensely disturbing.”

Antigonus touched the decanter. Basso shook his head. “You’re afraid,” Antigonus said, “that you’ve lost the capacity to feel. You’re worried you’re becoming callous and inhuman, and you blame yourself, because of what you’ve done.”