I go out to the hallway swiftly – but standing just inside the door, bending to pick up the junk mail from the mat, is not my mother, nor my father, but a young man in a dark suit. His face is all cheekbone and angled nose. He has fine brown hair and a prematurely receding hairline – he’s brushed the hair back, defiantly, as if to show off his expanse of forehead. He has a certain style: he may be dressed in a suit but I can imagine him in leathers in a nightclub. He picks up the mail and sorts through it, separating the letters from the junk. He puts the letters in the outer zip pocket of a soft laptop case that he has over one shoulder and drops the junk into the small wicker bin beneath the empty coat pegs. He rubs the soles of both shoes hard against the mat before he turns left into the lounge.

I follow him. He walks over to the blinds and raises them – that cheap plastic chain that was always breaking – why did my parents not like curtains? Light floods the room. The settee and easy chairs are still there, bulging brown leather, I remember how they always felt cold to sit on, until your body heat warmed up the leather. It always felt all wrong – that you should be making the settee feel more cosy rather than the other way around.

The television has gone; the mantelpiece is empty. Like the rest of the house, the lounge has the air of a room where one or two items have been left to avoid the impression of desolation but the few things that are still there only emphasise all that is missing.

There’s a buzzing noise from his jacket pocket and the young man extracts a phone. When he speaks, his tone of voice suggests that nothing could have delighted him more than to receive this call.

‘Yes, Martin! Yes … yes … yes, I’m here at the property now … Yes, of course, no problem, no problem. I’ll come out front and wave! Yes … yes … bye.’

He goes back out into the hall and I follow. He opens the front door and steps outside, walking a few paces down the path, where he turns and then stands, feet planted firmly apart, looking down the road. After a moment, he lifts both arms in a high, wide motion, crossing them over his head as they reach the top of the arc of his wave, in much the same gesture he might use if he were a mariner sitting on his upturned boat and trying to attract the attention of a passing oil tanker. After a few repetitions of this, he lets his arms drop and a brilliant smile lifts his features.