He is asleep when the phone rings, stretched out on the bed in Mark’s old room at the back of the house. A few seconds of panicky fluttering in his chest before he realizes where he is. The phone keeps bleating from the other bedroom, and dizzily he crosses the hall.

It is one of those cordless jobs – grey, sleek. It takes another few seconds for him to figure out how to answer it. Already he is overwhelmed, exhausted. The light in the bedroom has grown dim. He has no idea how long he has been asleep.

‘Dad?’ he hears Mark say. ‘You all right?’

‘Fine. Fine.’

‘You got the phone in, then?’

‘Demonstrably.’

He shuffles back out on to the landing with the phone clamped to his ear, crosses back into what is now his room.

‘So, how you doing? Happy to be back in the house?’

The question startles him. Is that really what Mark expects?

‘Oh, yes. Settling in. I’d been looking forward to seeing you, though, more than the house.’

‘Yeah. Listen, I’m sorry, I meant to be there when you got home but then this work thing came up.’

‘That’s all right. So, when do you think you’ll come over? I thought perhaps we might go out. Maybe play a round of golf. My clubs are still –’

‘I don’t know, Dad. Golf? It’s not really my thing. Besides, I’m kind of tied up at the moment with this ad we just shot – they need me in the editing suite.’ There’s something in his son’s voice, a straining. ‘You understand, don’t you?’

‘Of course.’

‘I know you need help –’

‘I’m not a baby, Mark,’ he responds, with some irritation, immediately regretting it.

He catches the hesitation at the other end of the line. Mark was always sensitive as a boy.

‘Well, I hope you’re finding the house okay,’ Mark says, sounding a little defensive. Then, as if to justify his absence, he continues: ‘I came down last week and cleared out a few things. Got the gas and electricity back. I meant to do the phone, too, but there wasn’t time …’

On and on it goes, the stream of justifications, of excuses, when, really, what does it matter now? Standing in the back bedroom, listening to Mark, Anton’s eye is caught by movement outside. Down below, stepping up from the patio. The top of a woman’s head – dark hair caught up in a messy knot at the crown. A solitary figure, he watches her progress up into the garden, the rest of her form coming into view as she picks her way through the long grass. White T-shirt, bottle-green skirt, flip-flops on her feet.

‘I’ll be a week in the editing room, maybe more,’ Mark goes on. ‘And there’s this thing I’ve got to do at the weekend – helping a mate move house …’