At no point during my visit did my mother express any surprise or consternation about what I had told her had been happening to me. Whenever I asked her a question she leapt out of her seat, but whenever I delivered an actual statement she received it placidly. I knew not to attach too much significance to this; it had always been so with her. As a boy I had only to ask her the meaning of the word tuberculosis or gangrene for her worst fears to be realised – within seconds an army of specialists was queuing in the drive; but if I’d come home from school with my head under my arm she would simply have tossed me an elastoplast and gone on with what she was doing. She had no feeling for the bathos of factuality.

But one thing struck me as odd. When I told her that I was relieved we’d cleared a few things up because I’d been feeling a bit like an orphan for the past couple of weeks, not knowing where I’d come from, she visibly changed colour. Ten minutes later there were still two bright spots burning in her cheeks. And I hadn’t even asked her a question.

My father came home, presently, looking satisfied with his day in his office overlooking the river. He seemed pleased to see me. ‘Natalie Latterly, Byron Shortfoot, Malcolm Donalbain,’ he said, tossing his coat to my mother and settling himself into his favourite chair. ‘Mal Function, Ida Weekes-Grace, Rhodes Fellowes, Afrormosia Hardwood, Berndt Norton, Jocasta Motherwell, Aphasia Slurr, Inigo Knightley.’ It was good seeing him in such good spirits.

Before I left, my mother referred to our earlier conversation. ‘Barney’s been wondering where he comes from,’ she said.

‘Isn’t he a bit old to be wondering that?’

‘No, not that way. He’s been wondering if he’s really who we say he is?’

‘Who does he think he is instead?’

‘Someone else.’

‘Someone else’s,’ I intervened.

I thought for a moment that he looked hurt. Rejected. ‘No such luck,’ he said. ‘You’re stuck with being Barney Fugleman, son of Rebecca –’

‘Rachel,’ my mother corrected him.

‘Son of Rachel and Benjamin. It’s on your birth certificate, and if it’s on your birth certificate it’s yours for life. Ask Diddy Dunkit-Dayley.’

That was the only time I ever suspected him of fraud.