She snorted. ‘They’re fine, they live in Southend.’ Of course, Essex, where he’d gone to university. He’d told me he was from Somerset, a middle-class family, an orphan. But he had parents, living! What a lie to tell! Although, of course, I had also told him my entire family was dead, which wasn’t strictly speaking true either. ‘Far as I know, they’ve not heard from Sean in years, and Denise hasn’t either.’ She saw my blank look. ‘That’s his sister. She’s got four kids now, Sean’s never seen a one of them. Reinvented himself after uni, didn’t he? I guess a working-class family weren’t part of the plan.’

Nephews. Nieces. He wasn’t alone in the world at all.

‘And, Kathy, did you really split up because you were pregnant? I’m sorry to ask.’

She set her cup down. She seemed calm, accepting of his lies, and I envied that. ‘No, that’s true enough.’

‘He wanted to . . . have the baby?’

She gaped at me. ‘What? No, it was me pushed to keep it. He wanted me to have an abortion. Said he wouldn’t give me a penny in child support. My parents are religious, and anyway, I wanted it. That’s why we split. Nasty about it, he was. Tried to say it wasn’t even his.’

I wasn’t understanding her. ‘But you – I’m sorry, you lost the baby?’

Another strange long look. She got to her feet and picked up a framed photo from the mantelpiece. I wondered why I hadn’t noticed it before. She thrust it into my hands. It showed Kathy in a floral dress, beaming, her arm around a tall, mixed-race boy in graduate robes. He was a handsome lad. His eyes, in a lean, smiling face, were startling blue. ‘The Sullivans are good enough to Jack. He sees them once a year or so.’

I set the picture down carefully, afraid I would smash it, my hands were so convulsed. ‘He has a son.’

‘Oh yes, Jack’s his alright.’ A shade defensive. ‘He’s in his twenties now – got a good job as a paramedic.’

Medicine again. His son. Patrick had a son, tall and handsome.

‘And he – he knew?’

My mind was rejecting it still. He couldn’t have had a son all this time, who he’d known about but never saw. He wouldn’t have done that, not to an innocent child.

Kathy was contemptuous. ‘Course he knew. Never gave me a penny for him, mind you. I could have got Child Support on to him, but what’s the use? We didn’t need him.’

‘Right. I – I see.’ Oh my God. All this while I had been dreaming of the child Suzi was having, a baby that was maybe his, and he already had a son. A son in his twenties.