‘Mother?’ Joe’s voice quavered, made him sound as if he was fourteen. He stood staring at her, until she looked away. ‘Tell me, now,’ Joe said. ‘Is your mother still alive?’ He wasn’t sure he wanted to know, his feelings tumbling and somersaulting.

‘No,’ Barbara said. ‘She died a few months ago.’

‘Oh,’ Joe said, as a wave of grief passed over him, and relief, too. Added, ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ He took a deep breath. ‘And your father,’ he said, his heart quickening once more, ta-tum, ta-tum. ‘Who might he be?’

‘He died in the war,’ she said. ‘Or so my mother said.’

‘You never knew him?’

She shook her head.

Joe moved towards the table, pulled out a chair and sat opposite her.

‘Did you know her?’ Barbara asked.

Joe stood up again, walked behind her and stood by the sink, looking out across the yard to the cowshed beyond. ‘I did,’ he said, added, ‘I loved her once.’

He heard her spin in her chair, push it back and walk up to him, leaning her face into his. ‘You loved her?’

‘Is that such a strange idea?’ Joe said.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘That was tactless. It’s just–’ she hesitated and Joe waited. ‘It’s just I thought she was in love with another man.’

‘Your father?’ Joe said.

‘I don’t know if he was,’ Barbara said. ‘This is my quest, as you put it.’

‘Then who is this other man?’

Joe knew the answer before she said it.

‘He’s called Maximilian List,’ she said. ‘Have you heard of him? I have a photograph of him too.’

Joe said nothing.

‘But now you tell me that you also loved her.’

‘I did that, yes.’ He almost said, And she loved me, because that hope still smouldered in the deep of his dreams, unrecognised.

‘You see,’ Barbara said, ‘List’s wife said that my mother was infatuated with him and now I wonder whether they had an affair, or whether my mother was imagining it. And now you tell me that you–’

She walked back to the table and sat down. She was looking at him, and he her.

He pondered for a moment. ‘And when did you say you were born?’

‘I didn’t. But my birthday is the twenty-fourth of February, 1944.’

Joe calculated. He hadn’t thought Trude would get pregnant. What had she said? Don’t worry. He hadn’t given it another thought, hadn’t wanted to give it a thought, that Trude would do unspeakable things, like those wicked girls with a tot of gin and a bicycle spoke. But here was her daughter. Their daughter.