It is strange how quick and easy certain actions are. I saw the coffin being carried into the apartment, and then I went into the kitchen with my aunt and uncle and when I came out my father was in the coffin and they were carrying him out the door. In two or three minutes they had carried the coffin down the stairs, and, except for his clothes and some books and papers, it was as though my father had never been in the apartment. I thought that it would be fine without him; soon, I expected, we would be used to it.

In the days after the funeral my mother grew distant from the household. I watched her type out letters on an old machine that suddenly appeared on the dining room table and then tear them up. I don’t think she slept at all and we did not have proper meals. I do not think she understood that my father’s family was in debt, and my father’s share of the business was worthless. She was sure that there was money but there was none. There was the lease on this apartment which guaranteed a low rent. She could not be evicted, but she had no income. Maybe my uncles and my aunt had money invested. She was sure that they did, and she began to write to them and scream at them to demand her share, if not for her sake, then for mine.

I sat in on the final meeting she had with them. Two unsmiling uncles and a frowning aunt, and the chairs set out in the hallway, as though she would allow them to go no further. She asked them if they were going to leave her destitute, if that’s what they were going to do. If the company could pay my father his salary, then they could pay her a pension. Did they want her to wash floors? Did they want her to beg on the street? There will be no need for that, my aunt said. How dare you tell me what there will be no need for, my mother said. I will stand outside your offices with Richard and I will beg. She leaned over and grabbed my arm. I will shame you all, she said.

A small amount of money would be set aside, my uncle said, for my school fees and my university fees, and the lease of the apartment would be put in my mother’s name, although the lease technically belonged to the family and was potentially valuable. But there was no other money available; even the cost of my father’s last days and his funeral would make a difference to the family. It might not have occurred to my mother, he said, but shipping between Argentina and England had declined and the company was running at a loss, and when the ships were sold, as they would be in the near future, the money would be used to pay off debts. If she thought she was marrying money, my aunt said, then she had married the wrong man. But we do have friends in Buenos Aires, my uncle said, and we could help find you work, and maybe you could talk to some of the English community in the city, they might know of work.