He looked delighted. ‘Yes! To new beginnings.’

We clinked glasses. I said, ‘Is that Armagnac again?’

‘It is.’

‘With the tears.’

‘Yes, with the tears.’

The piano kept playing – light and fast, rising and falling, soft on the harmonies but with a strong touch on the melody. Mark swallowed a couple of mouthfuls of Armagnac and set down his glass, and I sipped my cocktail. He said, ‘Is it good?’

‘Yeah, it is. It’s delicious. Thank you.’

He beamed. ‘Good. You’re welcome. What do you think of France so far?’

‘Oh, it’s amazing.’ Was it really me, enthusing like that? With Mark? He looked as surprised as I was. ‘The hotel’s gorgeous. It’s quite a treat.’

‘That’s what I thought,’ he said. ‘I wanted to take you all somewhere special.’

‘That’s nice of you, but you know what, you don’t have to bribe me and Ellie into liking you. If you’re good to Mum and the new baby and halfway decent to us, I should think we’ll manage to accept you.’

‘I hope so,’ he said. ‘It matters to me what you think. Probably more than you realise.’

‘I do realise,’ I said slowly. ‘What I don’t really understand is why.’

He pulled a face and pressed his lips together, as if he wanted to speak and couldn’t let himself. It was uncomfortable to look at him. The music rose to a climax and ebbed away, and I turned away from Mark and caught sight of my reflection in the mirror again and saw him there beside me.

Two fair-haired, blue-eyed, not bad-looking people.

From the piano player’s perspective… what would we look like?

That was when I saw it. And then I turned to Mark and said it.

‘You’re my father. Aren’t you?’

He gazed at me. I couldn’t hear the piano music any more. It was if no one else was there at all.

‘You have no idea how hard this has been for me,’ he said. ‘I wanted to tell you before. I wasn’t sure how you’d react.’

He let out a half-suppressed sob and put his head in his hands.

I couldn’t move. I was incapable of reassuring or comforting him. It wasn’t just the music and the people around us in the bar who had vanished. It was everything I thought I’d known, everything I’d believed about myself.

Because if Dad wasn’t really my dad – if that had been a lie all along – what else might be untrue?

After what seemed like a long time Mark raised his head and looked at me again. His eyes were slightly wet, but he wasn’t crying. Neither was I. Should we have cried, or hugged? I still couldn’t move.

‘I’m not meant to tell you,’ he said. ‘Your mother wanted us to sit down and talk about it all together. She’ll be furious with me.’

‘Well, you didn’t tell me. I guessed.’

Why hadn’t I realised before? Why hadn’t I guessed the minute I met him? But then, it would never have occurred to me that Mum would lie to me for so long about something so important. Or that Dad would.