Most people are insecure, and with good reason. Not me.

This is probably because I've had to think about who I am and who I'm not, whichis something your average person generally doesn't have to do. Your averageperson has a pair of parents, or at least a mother, or at least knows roughlywhere they fit into all that family business in a way that I, for better orworse, don't. Usually I think it's for the better, though sometimes not.

Also, it helps that I am very clever, if challenged in other ways. Challenged inthis context means that I am weird, strange, odd, socially disabled, foreverlooking at things from an unusual angle, or however you want to put it.

Most things, I've come to understand, fit into some sort of spectrum. Thedescriptions of myself fit into a spectrum that stretches from 'highly gifted'at one end to 'nutter' at the other, both of which I am comfortable with. Onecomes from understanding and respect, while the other comes from ignorance andfear. Mrs Willoughby explained the thinking behind both terms. Well, sheexplained the thinking behind the latter term, the offensive, deliberatelyhurtful term; the thinking behind the former, respectful judgement seemedperfectly clear and valid to me. (She got that wincing expression on her facewhen I mentioned this, but didn't say anything. Hol was more direct.)

'But I am clever.'

'I know. It's not the being clever that's the problem, Kit. It's the tellingpeople.'

'So I ought to lie?'

'You ought to be less ... determined to tell people how clever you are. How muchmore clever you are than they are.'

'Even if it's true?'

'Especially then.'

'But—'

'Plus, you're missing something.'

I felt myself rock back in my seat. 'Really?'

'Yes. There are different types of cleverness.'

'Hmm,' I said, which is what I've learned to say rather than the things I usedto say, like, No there aren't, or, Are you sure? – in what was,apparently, a sarcastic tone.

'If nothing else,' Hol said, 'other people think that there aredifferent types of cleverness, and that's what matters, in this context.'

One of the ways I am clever is that I can pay very close attention to exactlywhat people say and how they phrase things. With Hol this works especially wellbecause she is quite clever too, and expresses herself well, and mostly inproper sentences (Holly is a journalist, so perhaps the habits of her trade havehad an effect). Also, we have known each other a long time. With other people itcan be harder. Even Guy – whom I've known even longer, because he's mydad, after all – can be a bit opaque sometimes. Especially now, of course,as he's dying. They don't think there is a tumour in his head affecting hismind, but he is on a lot of mind-muddling medication.

So, to return to Hol's last phrase, 'in this context': there was an almostaudible clunk as she added these words to the end of the sentence. She put thosewords in there because she knows that I like them, that they make a differenceto me. Both Hol and Mrs Willoughby have explained to me – sometimes atgreat length – that context matters a lot in various situations, andespecially in social interactions, which is the stuff I tend to havedifficulties with. Adding 'in this context' means she – Hol – wantedme to think about what she'd just said rather than just dismiss it out of handbecause it seemed to me at the time that there was, plainly, only one sort ofcleverness.

Anyway, other people 'thinking' that there are different types ofcleverness was, apparently, what I was supposed to focus on.

'Are you sure, Hol?' I asked, patiently.

'There you go.'

'There I go what?'

'There you go, sounding sarcastic and patronising.'

'But I wasn't being either. I was trying to sound patient.'

'Again, what you meant isn't what matters, Kit. What matters is how youappear, what other people think you meant.'

'It's not my problem if ...' I began, then fell silent under a look from Hol.The look concerned involves her dipping her head a little to the right and hereyebrows rising while her lips purse a fraction. It was her look that says, asnear as I can gauge it, 'Now, Kit, we've been over this before.'

'It is your problem,' she told me. 'If you've given people the wrongimpression when you could have given them the right one, you've—'

'Yes yes yes, I need to make allowances for people,' I said, wanting to get backto the proper point. I may have waved my hands, too. 'So, what other sorts ofcleverness are there?'

Hol sighed. 'Emotional cleverness, Kit. Empathising with others, getting on withpeople, intuiting what and how they think.'

'But if people would just say what they—'

I got the look again.

Now it was my turn to sigh. 'That's another area where I have to makeallowances, isn't it?'

'Yes, it is. Plus, people don't always know what they think themselves, Kit,'Hol told me (and, in another turnaround, now she was sounding what youmight call conspicuously patient). 'Not precisely, not so they can tell youclearly and unambiguously and without contradictions.' She paused, probablywaiting for me to protest that, well, people just should know what theythink, and express it properly (it was certainly what I was thinking). But Ididn't say it. 'And a lot of the time,' she continued – when I just satthere and smiled the way she'd taught me – 'even when people doknow what they think and why, they don't always want to tell you.' Anotherpause. 'Sometimes because they don't want to hurt your feelings, or give yousomething you might use against them later, either directly against them, totheir face, or use against them by mentioning what's just been said to somebodyelse.'

'Gossip.'

'Often, yes,' Hol agreed, and smiled. Hol has a plain face but the consensusseems to be that it lights up when she smiles. I like to see her smile, andespecially I like to see her smile at me, so I suppose this must be true. Holhas always been my favourite of Dad's old friends (not that he really has anynew ones). Even before we came to our financial arrangement, I knew that Itrusted her and I would listen to her and take her seriously. 'Sometimes,' shewent on, 'they're ashamed of what they're thinking, or just need more time todecide what they really, truly feel, because emotions can get very ... well,tangled.'

'So,' I said, 'what you're saying is, it's complicated.' (This is almost a jokebetween us. A lot of apparently simple things seem to end up being'complicated'.)

Hol nodded. 'People are. Who'd 'a thunk?'

I thought about this. 'Well, everybody, obviously.'

Holly nodded. 'Well, everybody else, Kit.'

'So I ought to hide my light under a bushel?'

'Oh, Jeez, Kit, you haven't been reading the Bible again, have you?'

'Is that where that's from?'

'Yes. I mean, I think so.'

'No. But should I? Hide my light under a bushel, I mean?'

'Well, just don't insist on putting it under a magnifying glass.'

We were in the sitting room of the house, sitting on overstuffed but threadbarecouches on either side of the large, interestingly warped coffee table. A largevase of black glass containing real flowers sat between us. Usually we keepartificial flowers in this vase because real ones are such a bother and the onlyreason the vase is there anyway is to catch drips falling from the water-stainedceiling directly above. Holly had...