‘Good, good. It does sound really beautiful,’ Dad says, but I worry he doesn’t remember what a seagull looks like, or a tugboat, or anything else I am talking about.

‘Sorry, am I describing too many things at once?’

‘No,’ says Dad, smiling, ‘not at all. I get the overall picture.’

I hope I really am painting pictures for him, in my flawed clumsy way. We are closer now, Angela is right. The corner has definitely been turned this London summer: these trips out have given us the chance to talk, really talk again, and try to walk in each other’s shoes … to a point. We have stopped short, though. I have stopped short. There are confessions, just like Angela’s last night, that still lie dormant, locked away. Things that need to be said. Will I ever be able to describe the hidden corners of my heart to my father? Can I ever turn that rusty key and let them spill out?

‘Oh, lamp-post coming up.’ I steer Dad away from it. ‘How long is the bridge, Dad?’

‘Seven hundred and ten feet.’

Dad’s touch at my arm is now feather-light. He’ll be able to go further on his own soon. There’ll be no stopping him; no breaking step. I hope he has a good time with Kemp tonight, nosing at the reservoir. Sitting in the hatch or whatever he plans to do. And I’m looking forward to meeting Salvi tonight. My outfit is planned, the butterflies in my stomach are all lined up. He wants to see me again! Life truly is full of small miracles.

‘I had an interesting chat with Angela before you spoke to her the other night,’ I say. If I am not quite ready to make confessions of my own, I can start with my sister’s.

‘When you shut yourself in your bedroom? I knew that wasn’t PPI!’

‘Yes. She told me something. She said she left London because it was so dark and depressing at home. With us two.’ I laugh, but I feel incredibly sad. ‘I think it was, though, don’t you? It was dark. She was struggling. She had to go. Mum came to visit from Sweden once, in nineteen ninety – when Angela was at home by herself. She said Mum looked worse than ever. That she was quite abusive, asking for money. It was another reason Angela went to Canada … because she knew however many visits there were, or how long she waited around, Mum was never going to change.’