Which thankfully I did. The morning was bright, allowing us to go for a walk in the park. I half-expected Stuart to join us, but I was relieved when my dad asked him to clip the hedges, I suspected to get him out of the way. I was pleased they wanted a chat, with just the three of us, as much as I did.

It was only when we walked through the turnstile into the Phoenix Park that I realized why. One question followed another until it became clear that they’d been worried I would decide to stay permanently in Florida. The relief on their faces when I explained my time there had been temporary pricked again at my conscience.

My mother looked up at a particularly majestic tree with green leafy shoots. “We’ll have a good summer. The Oak is coming out before the Ash.”

I remembered the rhyme from school. If the Ash comes out before the Oak, then the summer will be a soak, if the Oak comes out before the Ash then the summer will be a splash. When we were kids, we’d joked it meant the summer would be wet no matter what happened with the trees.

We walked towards the papal cross and watched a small herd of red deer jaunt past. The ground was wet underfoot but the park felt fresh and cool, with sweet spring scents. We stood for a while to watch the deer and on our way back to the house, I asked some questions of my own.

“So, this Stuart. How long has he been here?” I gazed at my feet as I kicked away some dried beech nuts. Why did I feel so odd about asking them what was going on?

My mum glanced at my dad to check. “A few weeks?”

He nodded, striding along, hands clasped behind his back, cap shading his eyes.

“Yes,” she said. “A few weeks.”

I was amazed. My parents usually disliked house guests. My uncle had always said that house guests were like fish, nice for the first day and not too bad the next, but after a few days they start to smell, and they’d always agreed with that.

“Does he work?” I asked. “Have a job?” Surely doing odd jobs for my parents couldn’t take up all his time, I thought.

“Oh yes,” my mother said. “He works for the civil service – he has a good job.”

My father looked at my expression and smiled. “It’s only temporary. There’s no need to worry. He’ll move out as soon as he finds somewhere to live. He sold his house after his wife and baby died. He couldn’t bear to live there anymore.”

“Understandably,” my mother added, and I felt another twinge of guilt.

Until my dad said, “But he is looking to buy somewhere new.”