When dad was in bed in his downstairs study - when he was dying, in other words, but we never mentioned the D-word (or the SD-word, which stands for life is Shit and then you Die) - I used to go and see the wolves every day. Come out of school, get the bus down to Camden High Street and walk along the canal to the park. Hang out with the wolves for a bit then walk home, my heart beating faster as I got near the house and wondered what had happened that day. Because something had always happened. His catheter bag had leaked or the district nurse had called out the doc because his blood pressure was low, or, once, he saw a face on the ceiling and it wouldn’t go away.

The things that happened were never good of course because every day he was getting worse, he was dying a bit more. Except for once. Once, something amazing happened.

It was really cold that day, so cold the edges of the canal had frozen. The ducks couldn’t work it out. As I walked along the towpath I watched them trying to walk on the ice and falling over. The wolves were cool about the cold though because they came from the frozen north. There were eight of them visible, more than I’d ever seen out of their tunnel at one time. Eight breaths pluming in the wild cold air. Some of them stood, noses up, others turned and trotted and stopped. And trotted. All sniffed the air, smelling the Arctic coming towards them. A couple of them gave me that sweet wrapper look.

Something was different, something was changing. That’s what they told me. I watched my breath plume, and I felt it too.

Walking back along Gloucester Crescent, a sense almost of excitement. The street lights were shining on bike saddles. A bonfire smell, brake lights where the road rises towards the T-junction, a cat flattened on a wall, watching me pass.

Dad was fine, you wouldn’t have known there was anything wrong (except for him being in bed downstairs, and looking like an anorexic, and being attached to a wee bag).

He laid down the book he was reading. It was the book of poems he’d been reading before. It had a bright orange and yellow cover that looked like a close-up photograph of a fire. 'So what’s happening, Kidder?' he said. Dad’s face looked at the ceiling as he spoke, but his eyes looked at me.

'Elvis is alive. Not a lot.'
'Glad to hear it. Where you bin?'
'In the park for a bit.'
'Regent’s Park?'

I nodded. I hadn’t told him before about going to see the wolves. I was embarrassed because he’d suspect that me wanting to see the wolves all the time was about him being ill and how much it upset me. But now I told him, because it seemed right, I still felt how beautiful they had looked in the cold, darkening light. 'Checking out the wolves,' I said.

'You’re kidding me.'
'No I’m not.'
He seemed excited. He tried to sit up. 'Hey Clare,' he shouted. 'Clare.'
Mum came to the door. She was holding a leek as if it was a sword.
Dad said, 'Guess where Davy Crockett here has been?'
Mum said, 'Amaze me.'
Dad said, 'Only to see the wolves in Regent’s Park, that’s all.'
Mum raised her eyebrows, not getting it. I didn’t get it either.

'And what have I been reading this afternoon, at exactly the same time Kidder was outside the wolf enclosure? Only a poem about the wolves in Regent’s Park zoo, that’s all. Here listen.' And dad picked up the book with the flaming fire cover and read out some lines about the moons of February and March and being consoled by the howling of wolves.