Dad stops walking. ‘What do you mean, grabbed you where he shouldn’t have done?’ he asks. Pain flashes across his face. ‘Was this when I had Milly? When I came to the fair and your friend Georgina sent me round to you?’ It’s his turn now to take a deep breath. It’s almost a gulp. ‘I remember … I thought I heard you shouting, but you appeared a couple of minutes later and said it hadn’t been you?’

‘Yes, that was then, Dad. It was me.’

‘Well, what did this man do to you? Tell me!’

‘Oh Dad, I can’t go into detail, but … but his hand was sort of like a vice, on my … knickers, on the outside. It wasn’t that bad but …’

‘It was bad!’ exclaims Dad, his voice raised. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? How could you have pretended everything was OK? I could have done something!’

‘You couldn’t have done anything, Dad. And I was fine, really, except for being very angry, for a time and maybe for ever.’ I grin sardonically, but of course he cannot see it.

‘I could have done something,’ repeats Dad. His face is red and the hand on his cane is clenched, knuckles straining. ‘I could have done something, Prue.’

‘No,’ I say. ‘It was all down to me. I … I was so happy that someone was interested in me. I shouldn’t have gone round the back with him. I thought he liked me. But he made me a victim. I made myself a victim – or that’s how I’ve always seen it. And when the second thing happened, I felt that “victim” was a label I wore, a sign above my head – that I was marked out …’

‘I’m afraid to hear it. This second thing.’ I can see tears threatening at the corner of Dad’s eyes. I may regret telling him these things. The first and the second. But he has revealed the layers of his heart to me – about his blindness, the guide dogs, his love for Angela and me. He has stepped out into the world. He has listened to a talk at Central Hall Westminster. He has danced to Blondie. If we are to truly know each other again, I must tell him.

‘Can we stop a minute?’

We both put our hands on the railing and feel the breeze from the river caress our faces. A party cruise is going under the bridge; people are whooping and raising plastic champagne flutes in the air.

‘Back when I was twenty-six, I … I was … well … I was sort of raped.’

‘Good God, Prue!’ Dad pulls back from me, letting his cane fall to the railing, and grips both my hands. He grips them tight as the boats ebb and rock beneath us, going their merry way under the bridge. ‘Prue, Prue, I—’