I had no idea what he was talking about, and I saw Mrs Parish wince more than once, but he certainly spoke in a way no one else I’d ever known did. ‘Who’s this curious little truck-buster?’ he once said of me, and I smiled nervously.

‘Is Mr Sermon a poet?’ I asked Mr Parish after he’d gone. The enormous fireplace was booming its wood and flame, reddening our faces, warming the tiled floor. Mrs Parish was intent in a corner with a book.

‘He is,’ said Mr Parish, rolling port around in a small glass and staring into the fire. ‘Another impoverished gentleman of the pen. Sells his poems like peanuts to any taker. Poor bloody bastard.’

‘My Mother’s a poet,’ I ventured. It came out timorously. It didn’t have the declarative force I would have liked it to have. I also knew, in the way that children intuitively know these things, that Mother would be horrified I had blurted this out. But I also knew it needed to be said. I noticed Mrs Parish’s face lift and become alert to our conversation.

‘Indeed,’ said Mr Parish, still looking into the fire. ‘So I have heard.’ He rolled the port around in its glass again before putting it to his mouth. ‘Lucky she has a husband.’

OF ALL THE DAYS, THE BEST

But of all the days, the best were the days with you, Ornella! I’m not even sure why they were the best. The house in Coburg—you said it yourself—was going to the dogs. Things were always breaking there, even though it was not a very old house. Curtain rails came down when you pulled the curtains open in the mornings, nearly hit you on the head, such a fright, O-yo!; the back-gate jammed in cold weather and so did the back-door; the silicon on the bathroom basin had come loose and the pedestal wobbled when you brushed your teeth. These were all fairly ordinary handyman jobs—Nonno would’ve fixed them in two seconds flat. Papa might’ve come round and repaired a thing or two in his temporary hold-it-together-till-you-can-get-a-tradesman way but you refused to ask him. Your boyfriend Carlito waved his hand, said, ‘Sure, Ornella, no problems, I’ll do it’ and never did a thing. You berated yourself because, actually, you didn’t want to have to rely on a man, but you didn’t know how to use a drill or a saw or even (really) a paintbrush. And having never been taught to use tools, you were scared of them. They made you stupid. You didn’t know how to handle them with conviction. It was like when a stray tennis ball rolled to your feet in a park and you had to throw it back, across a distance. You’d lift your arm, prepare for a fulsome arc, but lack the confidence to pull it off: the ball would drop short, land yards away from its intended destination … Stupid girl’s throw—so weak, so limp, so unsure of itself. Why didn’t Nonno teach you these skills? You couldn’t fix stuff, and you couldn’t ask, and so the house began to disintegrate around you.