We resume our walk, Dad’s cane tapping; my feet, in new flat sandals, clacking; my mind going to lots of places.

‘Angela is writing to Mum.’

‘Is she? In Sweden?’ We keep walking, but I can tell by the change in the rhythm of the tapping that Dad is surprised.

‘Yeah, she’s already sent a letter. To Torge’s address. She hopes it will get forwarded. Surely Mum’s not still living with Torge after all this time?’

‘I doubt it.’

‘Angela wants to “reach out”. She wants to find out if Mum’s happy or not.’

Dad pulls a face. ‘I’m not sure your mother is capable of that,’ he says. ‘But you never know. How do you feel about Angela writing?’

I shrug. ‘I don’t feel anything one way or another. I’ve always just been happy with you.’

Dad looks pleased. ‘Have you? The blind bloke …?’

‘Yes, the blind bloke …’ I have been. I have been happy just with him. Despite all the other layers of unhappiness my life has been wrapped in. I’ve never said this to Dad before. ‘How about you?’

‘I think it’s up to Angela,’ Dad says.

I have more questions. Other things I want to say.

‘Dad …?’

‘Yes?’

‘Do you think that you and Mum shouldn’t have been together? Do you think it was doomed from the start; that she was?’

Dad pauses. And, Was I? I wonder. Was I doomed from the start, too? But I am not my mother, I think. Yes, I have distanced, yes, I have removed myself from situations and from people, but I am not her. I don’t think I possess quite her level of froideur. Or her addiction. Or her selfishness. When I disappeared from life, I didn’t keep popping back, to tease and to betray.

‘Yes,’ he says finally, ‘I don’t think it was ever going to work. But I really hoped it would as I loved her. I loved her a lot, considering we were two bewildered kids, pregnant and married at sixteen. And she loved me, too, for a while. But she felt suffocated.’

‘Did you?’

‘No, not suffocated. I felt I had to step up. Make something of myself. Provide for my family. I had to become a man. Cheeky little Vince Alberta, a husband and a father at sixteen! Who could ever have imagined it! Could you imagine being a parent at sixteen?’

‘No,’ I say. I manoeuvre us under an overhanging branch. I never imagined being a parent at all.