Jeremy Clarke Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 8 February 2018

This Neapolitan episode was as surprising to me as the Battle of the Nile was to Oscar

issue 10 February 2018

I picked up my grandson from his mother’s flat and noticed the change in him the second I clapped eyes on him. He was taller than when I had said goodbye to him a month ago, and his spirit seemed more conscious of itself. I also noticed that my devotion to him (lately inviting criticism as being excessive) was as strong as ever.

Alone with me in the car, he was reluctant to speak. The circumstances of his life have changed in the past few months — new home, new school, new friends, new town, a different parent — and I wondered if he was defeated by it all. We were bowling along a fast country road when I turned to him and said, ‘Are you happy?’ Oscar is too intelligent to measure the complexity of his experiences against a simplistic concept like happiness. But he has a kind and forgiving heart and he knew that his grandad’s question was kindly meant.

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