Inwardly, the old despair flickered. Dylan had nine GCSEs, even if they were mostly middling grades; and could have got four A stars at A level if he had only… what? Lucas threw a look of despairing fondness at his son as he sprang round the table, in a baggy T-shirt splattered with something and his unlaced, beaten-up trainers that somehow never tripped him up, grabbing the saucepan out of the drainer and drying it with a jokey flourish, between flicking the tea towel at his sister. Life had got on top of him – something Lucas could relate to only too well, if he allowed himself to; and yet here the child was, half a year shy of nineteen and obstinately ploughing his own furrow, as sunny-faced and confident as Lucas had ever seen him, under this roof of all rooves. It was like another thaw, an internal one. More magic. Things stuck fast for years, working loose.

‘So, it’s going to be Michelin stars, is it?’ he quipped. ‘I can’t wait, and Mum too, I’m sure.’ He and Esther smiled at each other properly, for the first time since the night before, and the promise of the day felt complete.

‘We’re just about off now. Dylan said you didn’t want goodbyes, but I’ve brought you toast. Esther made it. She asked me to say farewell and thank you.’

Having rapped firmly, Lucas started talking the moment he opened the door, a part of him steeling himself for the first sight of his parents’ bedroom in thirty years. Decorated in blue and white stripes instead of the yellow he remembered, and with the bed against the wall on the left instead of the right, it didn’t give him the jolt he had feared. His father was sitting in a straight-backed chair by the window, a book flat, spine-up, on his lap, a glass of water perched on the sill, his old-fashioned, half-moon glasses on the tip of his long nose. As Lucas crossed the room, he started coughing, a horrible bubbling sound that kept surfacing despite his visible efforts to swallow it out of existence. Lucas arrived at the chair and then stood by feeling like a dumb waiter, holding the plate of toast, waiting for the fit to end. Even then, his father did not pay him any attention, reaching instead, a slight tremble visible in his fingers, for the water glass. He had deteriorated, Lucas realised, even in the two days of their visit.

‘Put it over there, could you?’ He gestured at the bedside table. ‘I might have it later.’ He picked up the book. ‘You’d better be gone now. The sun won’t last.’

Lucas cleared his throat, not moving. ‘So, Iris comes by.’