‘Gradually the magic of the island settled over us as gently and clingingly as pollen,’ Leo read. ‘Each day had a tranquillity, a timelessness about it, so that you wished it would never end.’

At the desk that passed for a nurse’s station, Tara and Jen were in discussion with a young doctor.

The doctor looked exhausted. Jen was manically nodding, dabbing at her eyes with the tip of her little finger while Tara was white-faced and dry-eyed, only the tight set of her mouth revealing the effort she was making to hold it together.

And I never felt closer to her. It is not the years together that build a marriage, I saw now. It is these moments. All the big moments, like the first time I saw her face in the office of our old music paper, and the first time we went to bed, and the pregnancy and birth of our son. And then all the smaller moments that only seem huge later, like the time Tara got violently, projectile-vomit sick on vodka and I took care of her in a way that I later realised I could never have taken care of anyone else on the planet. They only come with time, all those moments. You can’t find them in a bar or a club or on some business trip to the other side of the world. These moments were ours and these moments were mine. And here, in the conversation with that exhausted young prison doctor, here was another one of those moments that built a marriage. The moment when my wife was told that she would one day – possibly one day soon – be without her father.

‘But then the dark skin of night would peel off and there would be a fresh day waiting for us,’ Leo read, ‘glossy and colourful as a child’s transfer and with the same tinge of unreality.’

Then Tara and Jen were walking towards us, their faces arranged to pretend that everything was unchanged and would stay that way forever.

‘We could do with a real cup of tea,’ Tara said, looking at me. ‘Not that stuff from the vending machine. That would be really nice, Christian.’

Which was married talk for – please leave us now.

TARA

We watched them go.

And when my mother, my husband and my son had passed beyond the little desk that acted as a sort of pretend nurse’s station, my father and I looked at each other. He indicated the copy of My Family and Other Animals that he still had in his hands.

‘And we all thought he was only ever going to love one book. But now he loves lots of books. As long as they’ve got animals.’

‘You stubborn old man,’ I said.

He gently placed the book on the bed and I took his hands in mine.

‘Dr Khan says that you shouldn’t be in here talking about the results of tests,’ I said. ‘You should be in a proper hospital, and should be having surgery. Dr Khan says—’