I went to the foot of the stairs and called Jack. He appeared almost at once, changed out of his school clothes and with wet hair combed flat from the shower. He sidled to his chair and sat down. Immediately he started wolfing down the fish.

‘Are you hungry?’ Mel asked.

‘Yes.’ He glanced quickly at me. ‘Didn’t get anything to eat at lunchtime.’

‘And why’s that?’

‘I should think Mum told you.’

‘Yeah. Here, have some of these baby beans. So, who did you meet? What amazing things did you do that were worth missing school for?’ Mel leaned forward, pushing her coils of hair back from her face so that she could hear better, her eyes and all her attention focused on him. There was no censure, only friendly interest.

‘No one. Nothing,’ Jack muttered.

‘Really? It sounds deadly boring.’

He nodded and went on eating. By the time the pudding came, he even joined briefly in our conversation. He talked slowly, as if he weren’t quite used to the sound of his own voice, but at least he was speaking.

After we finished and he said goodnight, Mel and I opened another bottle of wine.

‘Thanks, Mel.’

‘Tuna was a bit overcooked.’

‘I meant about Jack. Being so nice to him.’

‘I wasn’t nice, I was ordinary.’ This was true. Mel had a gift for being ordinarily warm and inclusive. Tonight it had just seemed more noticeable than ever.

‘You look very happy,’ I said. ‘This Jasper must be good news.’

‘I am happy. I wish you were.’

I felt some of the protective walls around me shifting, as if Mel’s darts might pierce them. I didn’t like it.

‘What did you mean, when you said your father was a con artist?’

What did I mean? There was the pressure inside me, building up inside my skull, threatening to break through the bones. ‘Ted was a great nose, a fine perfumer, but that wasn’t enough for him.’ I chose the words carefully, biting them off with my tongue and teeth. ‘He always wanted something more. There was so much yearning in him. He wanted to be rich and he never was. He wanted glamour but except for the illusion of perfume his life was humdrum. He thrived on secrecy, that nose-tapping and winking kind that men who think of themselves as men of the world go in for. To do with deals, scams, setting up little businesses. I think he must have lived through his fantasies and the reality was always disappointing. Women ultimately disappointed him. His daughter did, too.’

Mel leaned back in her chair. ‘You are his daughter.’

‘Yes.’

‘But you talk about the relationship as if it involves someone else.’

That was truer than she realised. Somewhere within the numbness around Ted’s death there was raw grief, yet I could only touch the outlines of it. As if the bereavement didn’t belong to me, but to someone I knew. As if I weren’t entitled even to the painful connection of grieving and therefore the potential relief that lay beyond it.