Rex pointed towards the caravan section. ‘See all those people over there? They’d be homeless. They’re all pensioners, and I don’t charge the oldies any rent.’

Manolis acknowledged the proprietor’s generosity. There were certainly a large number of discoloured caravans baking in the sun, the vast majority with long grasses and weeds encircling their jaundiced sides like funeral wreaths.

‘Your dad did the same, you know,’ Rex added.

Manolis looked puzzled. ‘The same what?’

‘Like I said yesterday, when someone couldn’t afford to pay their bill at the milk bar, Con let them eat for free.’

A memory cut across Manolis’s mind. It was of hushed conversations by the cash register, embarrassment, then understanding and kindness. He smiled.

‘That reminds me,’ he said. ‘I ended up going past Dad’s old shop today. You wouldn’t happen to remember its name?’

Rex’s knees made a cracking sound as he stood. He stretched and scratched.

‘I’m pretty sure it was the Manhattan Café,’ he said. ‘No wait, the Niagara Café. Something American, anyway.’

‘Really, an American name…? I remember Dad cooking American food, British food, Australian. Didn’t realise he went the whole hog and called the café something American too. You sure it wasn’t something Greek, like the Parthenon or Olympia?’

A gear clicked in Manolis’s brain. Niagara indeed sounded familiar.

‘The name reflected most of the food,’ Rex explained. ‘I remember your dad tried adding traditional Greek food to the menu a few times, things like stuffed peppers, moussaka, even souvlaki. But people didn’t like it, they complained, said it was too oily and too rich. So he stopped.’

Manolis didn’t recall that. He certainly remembered his father’s vegetable garden, which produced tomatoes that tasted like real tomato, and eating Greek food with his parents. Roasted gemista vegetables, tomatoes and peppers filled with mincemeat and rice and mint. Spanakopita, spinach pie. Dolmades, which even Manolis helped make, collecting vine leaves bigger than his hands from the neighbourhood bushes. But it was all prepared and eaten behind closed doors, away from prying, judging eyes.

‘Greek food was considered peasant food,’ Rex added. ‘No one wanted it.’

That all changed in the city. Building on his experiences at the Niagara Café, Con ran a successful Greek restaurant serving authentic Greek fare for which people paid top dollar. His son waited tables there too, the handsome gadabout in a crisp white shirt and tireless charmer of flirtatious female diners. Con would’ve preferred his son take over the business, but the police academy – the chance to protect and serve the public – proved too strong an allure. The café was never meant to be inherited and was purely to lay a foundation in the new country. But the restaurant was different; it was something more legitimate and long-term. Con was understandably disappointed with his son’s career choice but supported him nonetheless, as any loving parent would.