‘He’s gone to Aberystwyth to see grandma,’ said Albertina and offered me a marmite sandwich. ‘She’s not very happy with dad at the moment.’

I wanted to ask where her dad had been on Friday evening, on the off-chance he’d been dropping a house on me at the time, but I couldn’t think of a way of slipping it into the conversation. Instead I asked why Albertina’s grandma wasn’t happy with him.

‘She doesn’t like the idea of him moving to America,’ said Albertina. ‘She says that she’s only just got used to him living in London.’

‘When did he move to London?’ I asked.

‘Forever ago,’ said Albertina.

Actually, according to my notes, it had been just after he graduated in 1972. But when you’re seventeen forever isn’t a very long time at all.

‘Aberystwyth is miles,’ I said. ‘That’s a bit of a drive isn’t it? Or did he take the train?’

‘Dad doesn’t take the train anymore,’ said Albertina. ‘He says he’s allergic to other people. He drives up – takes him ages.’

‘So when did he set out for Wales, then?

‘Friday morning,’ she said. ‘To avoid the traffic.’ She said it so smoothly I wondered if she’d been coached – but to what end? Still, some poor sod back at Belgravia was going to be spending some time with the ANPR logs to see whether Albert Pryce’s Mercedes M-class had been spotted on the M4, and if so at what time. I hoped it wasn’t going to be me.

‘When are you moving to the States?’ I said, wondering whether we were going to have to ask them politely to stay in the country and what earthly pretext we were going to justify it with.

‘Not until the spring,’ said Albertina. ‘And I’m not going with – this is totally just for him, the Intern and the Replacements.’

The Intern being the woman featured in her father’s acclaimed semi-autobiographical novel, wife number three and mother of the two ‘replacements’ – even now, hopefully, vomiting all over the back seat of their mother’s Toyota as she ferried them from playgroup to kaffeeklatsch to ballet for tiny tots.

‘She’s the one that’s desperate to move back to States,’ said Albertina – and had persuaded her husband that he’d be treated with the respect he deserved there. Not like in London, where no one fully appreciated his genius.

‘Dad’s always been a bit insecure about that,’ said Albertina.

‘He won the Booker prize,’ I said. And had pretty much made the shortlist every year he had a new book out.

Albertina shrugged.

‘He’s haunted by a deep dark secret,’ she said.

‘Yeah?’ I said, trying not to sound overly interested.

‘Yeah,’ she said, and then asked if I liked sci-fi.

I suggested that I was occasionally partial to a bit of SF – you know – when the mood took me.