“And when did he find out the truth?”

“How do you know that isn’t, Astrid?” This earned a silence I imagined coming with a stare, and my aunt said “When I told him how much Abel means to me.”

“More than Neville after everything he did for you? You’d never have had your career if he hadn’t kept you both for years.”

“It isn’t all about money, Astrid. Sometimes I think that’s all you think there is to life.”

“That’s a shade unfair, isn’t it?” my father said. “It’s no more true of her than me.”

“I’ll apologise to both of you, and I did to Neville. He knows how much I appreciated his support and a good deal else about him. I just need more than he can give, and I think I made him understand.”

“I don’t suppose he had much choice, had he? Were you tired of him in bed?”

“Really, Astrid,” my father said, and my aunt retorted “I do wish sometimes you could be a little less…”

“Less what, Thelma? If you didn’t spare your husband’s feelings there’s no need to spare mine.”

“I was about to say banal. Let’s say mundane instead, shall we? My relationship with Abel isn’t so much about sex.”

“Not so much, but you aren’t saying not at all.”

“Astrid, you’ll have me thinking you’ve got a calculator for a brain. I’m saying Abel brings me things nobody else could. Look at my new work and perhaps you’ll understand.”

“I never have and I don’t imagine I’ll be starting now.”

“That nonsense he was telling Patrick,” my father said. “Is that the kind of thing?”

“It isn’t nonsense, and I think you’ve just proved my point about you both.”

“Whatever you call it,” my father said, angered at last, “we don’t want it anywhere near our son.”

“Or your friend either,” my mother said.

“I’m not sure how that can be achieved,” my aunt said.

“You’d better find a way,” my mother warned her, “or we will.”

This led to a silence, and I was wondering what it might signify when my father called “You can come down now, Patrick.” He sounded as if he was at least halfway up the stairs, and I stumbled to my feet in case he discovered my behaviour. In the front room I found everyone pretending either that there’d been no argument or that it was resolved. The card games we played at the dining-table felt like a postponement of further discussion or of worse.