‘She left her husband?’ Another rush of empathy.

‘Oh, she’ll never do that. He was there too, backslapping me like I’m a long-lost brother, saying the yard in Vermont cost too much to run so they’d brought his horses back over the St Lawrence to set up with her dad. Then he introduced me to their three kids: two little dark-haired, dark-eyed boys, the spit of their parents, and a girl with curly blonde hair and green eyes.’

‘Dizzy.’

‘She shakes your hand like a president and rides a fence like a deer. Pure O’Brien.’

‘Oh God, that must have been agony for you.’

‘Don’t blaspheme. It was. It is.’

‘What did you do?’

He glared at the windscreen, smile flashing like gunfire. ‘I said nothing, did nothing. Drank. Went out on the lash with the boss. Drank some more on my own.’

‘But you knew Dizzy was definitely yours?’

‘Do two bays breed a palomino? Her mother was in a bad way, saying she’d never let herself believe it, that her husband was a devoted dad who lived for his kids even if the marriage was lousy and she suspected him of being unfaithful. She bought a home paternity test kit and sent off swabs from my mouth and Dizzy’s, just so there was no doubt. Maybe she wanted it to be his, a miracle to make the marriage sparkle again. Back it came five days later telling us what we already knew. I’m Dizzy’s natural father. She couldn’t stop crying. Our love affair started again that night.’ He raked his fingers through his hair, eyes wincing self-critically.

‘I knew it was a mistake, but she thought so little of herself, I couldn’t hurt her. She was right about her husband’s infidelity. I’d been along on her dad’s boys’ only nights, playing poker for hours in the back room of this big old bar in Ottawa he liked, the sort with more hostesses than decent whiskys, y’know? While dad stayed in the game, husband threw in his hand to get straight on it, buying himself a private dance or two, and the rest. Wanted me as wingman, but I was having none of it. The drinks cost too much for a start.’ He cast her a sideways smile, and Pax got a brief hint of the easy-going hellraiser who was happy to party with the devil all night as long as the bar was free.

‘What about Dizzy?’

‘I wanted the truth out in the open, but her mother insisted that the kids were too tiny, that she needed more time. Every time I made to leave, she’d win me back round, beg me to stay longer. She’d sneak to my apartment over the garages in the dead of night with a bottle of President to mix Raymond Massey cocktails – that woman could drink me under the table, always has – and we’d argue until dawn. She likes arguing, picking fights. It’s her opera, her theatre. I was her audience.’