‘To Sydney,’ she said.

I nodded and drank the toast.

‘When’re you going back, Mr Hardy?’

‘After all the services you performed I think you should call me Cliff.’

She laughed. ‘You had trouble maintaining your dignity, didn’t you? Perched on top of that bedpan.’

I’d been constipated for a few days after the operation and a proctologist had whacked in suppositories and let nature take its course.

‘Made me feel human again, though. You said something about needing help.’

She told me that she’d left Australia fifteen years before to marry an American doctor who’d been holidaying in the wide brown land. The marriage hadn’t worked out, but her Australian nursing credentials had served her well in America and she had no trouble getting work that allowed her time for her daughter.

‘I was an only child and my mother died when I was ten. My dad was a geologist and his work took him all over the country. He did his very best for me, but I was often parked with people I didn’t know and he was busy even when he was around. I want to be there for my kid a hundred per cent. Her father lives in LA. He visits now and then and contributes financially but not emotionally.’

For all the difficulties he’d had with his parenting role, Margaret said that she loved her father. She’d visited Australia twice during her daughter’s holidays and he’d visited once. They corresponded by letter at first and electronically in recent times. Thirteen-year-old Lucinda valued the connection with someone she called her ‘Ossie grandad’.

We were near the end of our drinks when she got to the heart of the matter. ‘He’s disappeared,’ she said. ‘I haven’t heard from him for weeks and I can’t find out anything about him. I email and phone the company he works for and get nothing useful. A couple of his friends say they haven’t heard from him either. I’m very worried about him but I can’t. . I contacted the police and made a report but I’ve heard nothing back. I can’t go home. I need this job, and Lucinda’s involved in so many things that’re important to her. I’m stuck.’