Dad stands up, stretches out his shoulders in a giant shrug, turns his face towards mine. ‘Anywhere we can get another ice cream?’ he says. ‘A normal one?’

‘Well,’ I say, looking around me, ‘I think I can spy a Mr Whippy van over there.’

‘Splendid.’

When we get home, Dad walks straight over to The Palladian window and opens it wide.

‘Dad!’ I exclaim. ‘You’ve opened the window! Are you going to let your hair down on to the citizens of Chalk Farm?’

‘No, just getting a little air in,’ he says.

Progress, I think. We are no longer stifling. This is progress. I’m quite unnerved, I realize, at the thought of Dad being scared. I mean, yes, he’s blind. Yes, he gave up on life when the guide dogs were no longer there to help him with day-to-day living. He’s reclusive, elusive, shut down and shut off. But scared. I don’t like the thought of it. People like Philippa are scared. People who are despairing are scared. I’m glad we brushed past the moment, shrugged it off. I’m not ready for such a moment with Dad.

I also think about the other things we talked about. After dinner – a delicious Tuscan stew with ciabatta bread and a leafy green salad – I wait until Dad nods off in his chair for an early-evening nap, then I go to the tall cupboard, reach under the photo album, and get out my paintings.

It’s one of my secrets. I’ve been painting for about fifteen years. Portraits of Dad, mostly, as he sits in his chair, sometimes awake, sometimes sleeping. Sometimes a small smile plays around his lips as he uses his Braille reader. Sometimes he looks like a grumpy child, in repose. I try to capture the essence of him, his personality, his Italian-ness; what makes my dad my dad. I have other pictures I’m working on. Sketches. Line drawings. Faces I’ve copied from magazines. Faces that don’t even exist, only in my mind. I’ve kept my brush-in-water-pot jangles and swishes – lovely sounds I haven’t dared make – to a silent minimum. I haven’t hummed as I’ve worked, or accidentally dropped any lids of paint tubes on to the floor. My painting has been a very hidden pursuit and I feel guilty – for the subterfuge and for the voyeurism, in particular – that I’ve sat painting my father and he’s been totally unaware of it.

I haven’t wanted him to know. Yes, I know he can’t see my efforts, but he would have encouraged me to show someone and I haven’t wanted to. They’re not good enough.