I stared at her in astonishment. I was going to say, no, that couldn’t be possible. As a child I had hung around, on the margins of Ted’s life, longing for attention from him or even attention by proxy from the aunties. He couldn’t possibly have imagined that I didn’t love him and crave his affection.

But then I thought, it’s like Jack and me. Ted and I couldn’t be more different as parents and that was what I had intended for the whole of Lola’s and Jack’s lives, and still intended for the future. Yet with some part of myself I was also afraid that Jack didn’t love me. However much I tried to hug him close to me, however hard I tried to compensate for having left his father, he pulled away from me and withdrew into himself. I had broken up his family and, whether he did it consciously or otherwise, he made me pay dues for that. Had I made Ted pay, too, for Faye’s death and what came afterwards?

It’s a cycle, I thought. Ted’s mother and father had both died before I was born. I would never know the truth about them now, but they had created the child who became my father and in my turn I had my troubled relationship with my loved son.

Then I told myself it’s not a bloody cycle. It stops right here. Jack and I would be all right and, much more important, Jack himself would be all right. I would see to that.

I said, ‘I hadn’t seen it in exactly that light. But maybe you are right. I’d like to know more and try to understand these things better.’

There was a moment’s silence in which I thought Audrey might relent and talk to me. Her hand lifted in mid-stroke while she considered the options. Then she smoothed the cat’s fur even more deliberately and the creature closed its eyes in supine contentment. ‘I was your father’s business partner for a few years. He borrowed money, put it into a shop, lost it, never paid me back. He made promises, which he always broke. What else are you expecting to hear?’

‘Was it because of your money that he went to prison?’

‘Didn’t Angela tell you about that?’ Her voice had a harsh edge to it now.

‘Angela said she didn’t really know or care about what he’d actually done. He was inside for three months, that’s all, and before he came out he ended it with her.’

Audrey shrugged. ‘It wasn’t to do with my money.’

‘Whose was it, then?’

‘Why are you so anxious to know all this? I can’t help you, anyway. It’s nearly forty years ago.’

I took a deep breath. I was getting angry myself now. ‘So who can help me?’