28 SEPTEMBER, 2021

Dear Harry,

Did I ever show the proper appreciation for the car you bought me, or helped me buy? I forget whether, or how, I participated in the purchase.

It was my first car, a little Ford Anglia. Its color was best described as dun, not an attractive color by any means, but the price was right at the used car dealership in Bedford where we bought it, even if the color would not have been my choice. After a thorough examination—you knew more about these things than I—you determined that both the bodywork and the engine were sound; and I liked what was a rather sleek, quasi-American design for a little English car.

So we bought it. Perhaps you even got a better deal on account of your clerical collar—a perk you mentioned once in one of your letters. We are now in the late fifties and in those days the clergy were treated with consideration and respect. Such things still counted.

I was immensely proud of my little Anglia. I brought it up to London and parked it proudly on the street outside our house. Admittedly, it was no match for Hugh’s elegant black monster—was it a vintage Bentley? A Daimler? A Jag?—but unlike his fine antique machines, mine actually worked. I did not have to tinker under the hood, which was how my friend Hugh spent a great deal of his time. Instead of having to walk over to the tube station and take the train, I could now drive up to the top of Putney Hill and cut across the common towards Wimbledon. Arriving at the school I could drive into the teachers’ parking lot and park my Anglia with pride alongside the odd assortment of my colleagues’ cars. I could feel, well… almost like an adult. A man in control, and not only of his means of transportation but his life.

Which was quite obviously just another illusion, Harry, as you’ll understand by now. But thank you anyway, for this generosity and the trust it represented. And my apologies for proving, in the coming days, that the trust you’d shown in me was unhappily misplaced.

Regretfully, Peter