‘Hiking?’

He nods. ‘We’ll spend some time in the Valais, hike, camp, sleep under the stars.’

‘Sounds amazing.’

‘Maybe another time you can come. But not with these two.’ He nods to the pool.

‘I don’t know, I think they’d both be faster than me. When I went hiking with them and Michel a few weeks ago I was definitely the slowcoach.’

‘Slowcoach,’ he repeats it, savouring the word. ‘I like that.’

I forget he’s not a native English speaker, he’s so good at it. And French, obviously. And Spanish, naturally. But not Swiss German, I think, remembering my behaviour at the club.

‘I’m sorry about last week.’ I stare into the pool, avoiding his eyes. ‘I had a lot on my mind and I guess I wasn’t able to focus on much else.’

He looks at me and shrugs, smiles. ‘Forget it. Want to talk about it?’

‘Jorge, Jorge, regarde-moi!’ shouts Léa and she takes a breath, leans over, head down in the water, until she’s doing an ungainly handstand, legs akimbo.

‘Très bien. Encore une fois!’ he calls back when she emerges.

I think of him catching me snooping. Of the private letters I riffled through. I shake my head. ‘There’s nothing much to say.’ But I want to tell him, I need to tell someone. I look at him. I can be selective, I suppose. ‘Actually, I think I might have found my biological father.’

His eyebrows shoot up. ‘How?’

‘It’s a long story.’ I think of the letter, the elaborate script of A. Meier that led me to Thun and then Reichenbach. ‘This man… he’s the brother of someone who used to know Mum. I found someone here in Lausanne who once knew them both.’

‘So are you going to contact him?’

‘I already have, but I didn’t know then that he might be my father. And now I think that’s likely, I don’t know if I should contact him again. I don’t know if I want to actually meet him.’ For so long I’ve thought I needed to know who my biological parents are. But now I don’t know if I can stand in front of them, face to face, and talk to them. I don’t know if I can make them real. Because if Anna and Daniel are my real parents, what does that make Mum and Dad?

Jorge’s silent for a minute, and I don’t expect him to understand, so it’s a surprise when he says ‘Your parents will still be your parents, you know.’