‘Oh well, good.’ There is silence; I wonder if the phone has gone dead. ‘So … I didn’t hear back.’

‘Back?’

‘From Mum.’

‘It hasn’t been that long.’

‘No.’

‘Were you really expecting to?’

‘I don’t know. No. I don’t think so. I still feel quite disappointed, though.’

‘She moved to Sweden,’ I say. To be a Swedish drug addict. ‘Despite her occasional crappy visits, she didn’t want to be in our lives any more. I don’t know why you’d think she’d suddenly want to be, again, just because she gets a letter.’

‘Maybe she hasn’t got it yet. Maybe she’ll never get it.’

‘Maybe.’

‘I’m going to keep on trying. I’m going to call the consulate there. Or the British ambassador or something. See if they can help me find her.’

‘Good luck with that.’

‘You sound like you don’t want to find her.’

‘No, I think she’s a missing person who doesn’t want to be found.’ I sigh. ‘She moved to Sweden to escape us and that’s where she wants to stay, undetected. I don’t think she’s going to welcome being tracked down, and Dad feels the same.’

‘What? What has Dad said about it?’

I sigh again, wishing I hadn’t said anything. ‘Well, not that much. Just that you shouldn’t expect a reply from her.’

‘Right.’

There’s a devil on my shoulder, patting me there. I’m trying to ignore it, but I can’t. I can’t help myself. I’m disappointed and angry and let down, too. About a million different things. ‘You left too, you know. It seems you don’t want to be found either.’

‘What? What do you mean I don’t want to be found?’

‘You left too,’ I repeat. I am despondent and numb enough to bring this up now, after all these years. I just don’t care about putting it out there.

‘I don’t know what you’re getting at.’

I sigh again. ‘I get the impression you’d prefer to have no contact with us at all. That you want to be free of us. Free of me and Dad. You left to be free of us, after all.’

‘It wasn’t like that.’

‘What was it like, then?’

‘I was nineteen, a grown woman. I was just making my way in the world.’

‘A way that involved plotting your escape at a local college full of foreign students and buggering off to the furthest place you could manage!’

‘That’s unfair!’

‘I don’t think so. I think you were positively Machiavellian about it. Actually, your timing was pretty horrendous, if I remember rightly.’ I am bitter. I am as sour as an under-ripe lemon. I move into the kitchen and run myself a glass of water. ‘But leaving is soooo easy, isn’t it, if you’re the one who’s going?’