I often used to wonder if I would miss my father when he died. We had not been close or even had much contact. Would it really matter if he were no longer there, across the ocean in England, puttering about his pseudo-ancestral property in Sussex or going up to his mews house in Belgravia? The notion that he might leave me something— money or property—was a pleasant prospect. I would be grateful for any such inheritance. But whether or not I would feel the loss of the man was more difficult to decide. I had hardly ever known him, spending only a few days here and there with him between his air journeys or mine. How much warmth can there be in the fact of a father's existence?