Holly chimed in. ‘Ask him about her, Dad. He never talks about Ninni either.’

‘I’m not a talker,’ Jack said.

That made Paul roll his eyes. ‘Tell us. We’re your family. We all thought that you had found someone far better suited for you than that snooty Fedra.’

Jack sighed. ‘You know what happened, Dad. Ninni is having a baby with her partner. We decided it was a summer fling. There’s really nothing to talk about.’

Holly did. ‘I bet he hasn’t told you that the baby daddy is a bastard. I bet she’s not even with him any more.’

‘Holly, please stop. You sound like a five-year-old telling on me.’ Jack started to clear the table. ‘It doesn’t matter now, does it?’

Paul looked at him with a strange smile. ‘Did I ever tell you how I met your mum?’

‘Yes, it was love at first sight,’ Jack and Holly said at the same time.

‘Well, but did I also tell you that the first time Rosie brought Jack to meet me, he asked me if I was his new daddy?’

‘The first time he met you? That’s cheeky.’ Holly laughed at Jack.

‘Oh, yes, I think it was his way of asking me what my intentions were.’ Paul shook his head. ‘Problem was, it scared Rosie. She pulled away. She said she couldn’t involve me in Jack’s life in case it didn’t work out.’

‘What did you say?’ Holly was mesmerised.

‘I said, what if it did? What if I really was Jack’s new dad? And I also told her she was an idiot if she didn’t give us a chance. She told me not to call her an idiot.’ Paul grinned. ‘And, just like that, I was a dad.’

Jack started loading the dishwasher.

Later, after dinner, after they had left, full of food and beer and wine, Jack went for a walk.

He entered the big park behind the apartment complex and walked among the trees. It was September warm, a touch of Indian summer, and he hoped it would clear his thoughts.

There were plenty of people walking their dogs, even this late. Quite a few of the pups came over to greet him, to sniff his hand and wag their tails and demand belly rubs. None of them looked like Frikk. Mostly lapdogs or retrievers, from what he could see.

Eventually he sat down on a bench close to a small duck pond. He missed the view of the ocean from the cairn on the island. Ninni had called it a mountain, but it wasn’t, not really. But from the cairn he had been able to see all the way out to the little islet where his sheep grazed.

There were possibilities out there, he thought. The community building could be turned into an excellent bistro. The produce of the island, the things that grew out there, the things that people made – if he put all those together he could create great food.