‘You’re going to go and say he was neglected,’ she said. ‘You’re chasing him up.’ Her voice rose. ‘You’re going to have him put away!’

I jumped to my feet and stood over her. I bellowed: ‘I’m his bloody father!’

There was a silence. Someone shuffled along the corridor outside. The cat jumped off her lap and disappeared.

Then she said: ‘You’ve taken your time.’

‘I haven’t!’ I cried. ‘It’s not my fault! Tell me where he’s gone.’

‘Windermere.’

‘What?’

‘That’s where they went, because he sent me a card. Well, she wrote it, of course, but he did the ending.’

She climbed to her feet, went to the cupboard and fished in a drawer.

‘Didn’t mean to shout,’ I mumbled.

She took out a postcard and gave it to me. ‘You can keep it,’ she said.

I switched on the lamp and looked at the card. One side had a mountain view. The other side read: Dear Nan, We are living in a lovely room with a view of the lake. It is very nice here, and I can visit the shop downstairs and buy lots of sweeties. That was Lesley’s writing. It was signed with a squiggle. The postmark was six years earlier.

‘Can I really keep it?’ I asked.

She sighed, then she said: ‘I never had any children.’

I replied: ‘Well, I haven’t really, either.’

In the hallway there was a phone. It was only just six, so I rang the depot, reversing the charges.

Reg said: ‘Where the hell have you been?’

‘I’ve eloped with a coach.’

‘I don’t give a fuck what she does—’

‘A coach,’ I said. ‘Your coach.’

A pause. ‘Where the hell are you?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said.

‘What’s that supposed to mean? Eight sharp you’re booked for Ramsgate.’

I said: ‘Get somebody else.’

Reg let rip. I felt strangely detached. Serene, in fact. If this was falling to pieces then it was quite pleasant.

I interrupted him: ‘I’ve worked for you for seven bloody years and I’m having a few days off.’

‘I want that fucking coach back by eight tomorrow!’

What had he meant, a man was going to take him away in a lorry? Was he dreaming about me? Did he want me to come and take him away? How could Lesley steal my son and then give him to an old lady to look after—what was the point?

It seemed so unfair. Reg’s voice buzzed like a mosquito in the earpiece. I thought about my mother in her overheated room; I thought about both my parents, when they were alive, and how they were slipping away from me. I’d presumed all these years that I had remembered them, but it was all becoming confused. Rage rose up in me. I didn’t even have any photos. Eleni had chopped them up and the dustmen had been. No human being should do that to another.

That did it—Eleni and her scissors. Reg was yelling about calling the police, so I said, quite calmly: ‘If you call the police, I’ll tell Joy.’