‘The only thing I want to be told,’ said Ivy, ‘is how long I’ve got.’ Her bridge partner’s husband had been diagnosed with bowel cancer when he was seventy, she informed us. ‘That was nine years ago, and he’s still around. Thuy’s only sixty-eight. She wants a divorce, but the children get upset when she mentions it.’

Bram said that he couldn’t offer a prognosis without diagnostic testing. ‘So many factors are involved. If you have a tumour, we need to determine how big it is, its location, the spread. How can I say if you won’t help me out?’

There was a hint of impatience in his voice. Ivy touched the hanky to her lips again. Bram corrected himself at once. ‘I’m probably stuck with you for years,’ he said gently, with a smile.

When he got up to leave, he told Ivy, ‘Whatever you decide, remember that I’ll be looking after you. I’ll always make sure that you’re comfortable. We’re pretty good at things like pain management these days.’

Ivy held out her hand so that he could kiss it. She said, ‘I’ve never been frightened of pain.’

Predictably, Ivy refused further investigation of her symptoms. From that day on, she had Bram confine himself to routine things like flu shots and blood pressure checks. I keep reminding myself that Ivy is responsible for the situation she finds herself in now. No one else is to blame. It’s her stubbornness alone that’s made it impossible for Bram to rule out cancer.

So why do I find myself thinking back to a silly thing that happened shortly after we came to Australia? An old schoolfriend emailed me. It turned out that he, too, was a recent arrival, and we arranged to meet for a drink after work. He was one of those people who always look a little sweaty, and his face was pitted with acne scars. But he had a quick, simple way of speaking that was appealing, and we spent a pleasant hour talking about old times and new. On parting, he grinned, held out his hand and said, ‘Ta-ta!’ It was how we used to say goodbye when we were at school – our catchphrase, serving to mark off our set from the other boys. I shook his hand and said, ‘See you.’ The smile dropped from his face.

Why didn’t I use our old, comradely expression? Because I’d never heard ‘See you’ at home and I wanted to show my command of Australian ways. Okay, it might have been a little boastful, but I certainly didn’t intend it as a rebuff. It’s true that I didn’t hear from him again, and that I didn’t attempt to get in touch. That doesn’t mean anything, because our ways had already parted after school. Yet as soon as I said, ‘See you,’ my eyes felt hot. I had the impression that I’d damaged something delicate and of incalculable worth. That feeling has thinned over time but it’s never entirely gone away. There can be no connection between what happened that day and what’s happening tomorrow, but I feel that one exists all the same.