I take a deep breath. ‘Angela wrote to you,’ I say. ‘She wrote you these.’ I take the stack of airmail letters out of my bag and put it on the table, among all the spilt sugar granules. ‘There were a couple more that she sent to Sweden, before I intercepted them – we found Torge’s address in your old book – and of course you never replied, so I started to reply for you. I did it for over a year. I wrote as you on fake postcards I posted to Angela from the letter box at the bottom of the street.’

‘What on earth did you say?’ She is fingering the letters without looking at them. She is looking at me.

‘Not much.’ I smile weakly. ‘Not much at all. We don’t have them any more – I think Angela threw them away.’

She nods. She is looking down at the letters now and her face crumples at the sight of Angela’s childish handwriting on the top envelope. There are doodles, too, some swirly flourishes in the corners, some flowers and rainbows. Angela’s hope is in those doodles. My mother takes the elastic band off and leafs through them in turn, soft tears falling on delicate pale blue. ‘I’m sure you made a better me than I could ever have been. Can I have these?’

‘Yes.’ I feel pity and sadness and I don’t like these emotions. I am already walking away, in my mind. I have already got up and left this table with the two still-full cups and the spilt sugar and am out on the sunlit street, making my way back home.

I stand up. ‘I’m going to go now,’ I say. ‘Angela has been trying to get in contact with you. Her number, in Canada, is on the back of the last letter.’ I had scribbled it there whilst in the back of Derek’s taxi. ‘Maybe you could give her a call. Oh, and if you do, please don’t mention the postcards you never sent. Or that you only have Angela’s letters now. It would break her heart.’

I think we both realize the irony of this. That hearts were already broken, long ago.

‘No, I won’t. And yes, I’ll do that. Thank you. And you? Could I give you a call?’ She looks at me and I see her whole life and some of mine in her eyes. I see regret and I see longing. I see something that looks a little like love.

‘I haven’t written my number down,’ I say quickly.

‘Might you come back again? To the travel agent’s?’

‘I don’t know.’