But didn’t I already know that? I knew that from how Dad used to come and visit me in Deer Park after my mother moved Mr Cooper in, and all he wanted to know was, ‘How is she, Snow? How is she?’ It had actually got to the point where I refused to talk to him about it. I’d visit my father for Christmas, or Easter or my birthday, or I’d call him on Father’s Day, and he’d say, ‘How’s your mother doing?’

I’d say, ‘Why don’t you ask her?’

That was a bit cruel because she wasn’t talking to him, but why should I have had to act like a telephone between them? And why did he stay stuck on her for years and years when he could have just done what everyone does and take up with somebody else? I’m sure he would have had offers, because he had that shop, Olarenshaw Electrics, so he wasn’t a dole bludger, and there were plenty of old single women around in Deer Park, at the bowls club and everywhere else, who might have wanted to marry him. But when I asked him why he didn’t take up with one of them, he said, ‘I got married once, and it was for life.’

But anyway, they were back together and even worse Dad was saying, ‘Snow, you’ve got to come and see her.’

I said, ‘Why do I have to see her?’

He said, ‘She’s got cancer. She’s going to have treatment. You’re a nurse, you understand these things.’

I didn’t want to do it, but the fact is I loved Dad, and if he loved Mum what was I supposed to do about it? And thinking about it now, there was one other thing that Dad said around that time that I probably should have picked up on but didn’t, and it only makes sense now that I’m thinking about it.

He said, ‘You don’t know what we’ve been through together. Your mother has had to do some hard things in her life. I wasn’t always there to help her.’

I had zero interest at the time in asking Dad what he was talking about, but anyway, I went down to Melbourne to see them. Mum had already started chemo by the time I got there and was bald and wearing a scarf. I had a look through the medication she was taking, and it seemed to be pretty much what cancer patients were then being given to buy them a bit more time.

I asked her how she knew she was sick, meaning how did they pick up the cancer? She said, ‘Oh, I’d gone down to the haberdashery to pick up some material for some curtains and bang, I fell over, flat on my face on the floor.’

She said, ‘I don’t know how long I was out, Snow, but when I came around, the old lady whose shop it was had put some wool under my head and was fanning me with a Butterick pattern. All I could see were these lovely faces looking down at me.’