Mr Parish died of a stroke when I was twenty. Mrs Parish wasn’t with him, of course. Nor was Kitten, who had long gone, to a younger man and the prospect of children. He was on his own, in his study, with dried mud on his shoes and a pen in his hands. I like to think there was a half-written poem on the page before him … No, you’re right, Ornella: this is not true—I never liked his poetry. I would prefer to imagine him dying in the middle of building a wall or making a firebreak. He did these things with great energy and competence; they seem realer to me than his poetry. He didn’t get a state funeral because poets don’t get state funerals in Australia. But it was a big funeral and I was a pallbearer. There were obituaries in all the newspapers.

I was twenty years old. I suddenly had a lot of money. I didn’t need to finish my university degree. I didn’t need to do anything.

It wasn’t much of a life though—the solitary life I lived, at my flat in St Kilda. I said the bare minimum to my neighbours. I had a balcony with a few plants on it. I had a view of the sea. I didn’t really think it could get much better. Life didn’t really get better for people, just more complicated. I’d learnt that. You can’t rely on anyone. You need to be self-sufficient.

And then I met Julia.

‘There’s no question,’ said Julia, ‘that your mother loved you, Owen.’

We were well past business lunches by this point. We were toing and froing between houses, my flat and her flat, leaving bits of clothing behind.

‘You think she abandoned you,’ Julia said. ‘Of course that’s what you think. And she did, in a way. But …’ Julia considered me and I saw myself, for a moment, through her eyes: a grown man feeling sorry for myself.

‘All those other people there for you,’ Julia said. ‘Your mother left you in good hands. It’s not for us to say what another person can endure, Owen. And how they should endure it. That would be selfishness.’ Julia swallows more wine. She drinks way too much, in this she is like Mother. ‘Your mother wasn’t cut out to be some firebrand heroine. She didn’t have the temperament of a Joan of Arc. Why should she have? She’s left work that other people can enjoy. That’s enough. Why do we expect women to be armour-plated? And you were fine, Owen. How it all turned out. Maybe even better off.’

I must not have looked convinced.

‘There are only so many bricks you can lay upon someone before they collapse,’ Julia continued.