“Your mother and I were in a road accident,” he told me. He looked down. “And then she died.” He paused for a long time as if wondering whether to carry on.

I sat there in silence, looking at him. I didn’t feel any real emotion, just confusion.

“Why?” I asked.

“Why what?” he said.

“Why have you come here today to tell me this?” I began to feel angry that he had chosen to disrupt my life in this way. “Why didn’t you stay away?” I raised my voice at him. “Why didn’t you stay away as you have done for the past thirty-seven years?”

“Because I wanted to see you,” he said. “You are my son.”

“No, I’m not,” I shouted at him.

There were a few others enjoying a quick drink before making their way home, and they were looking in our direction.

“You are,” he said quietly, “whether you like it or not.”

“But how can you be so sure?” I was clutching at imaginary straws.

“Edward, don’t be stupid,” he said, picking at his fingers.

It was the first time he had used my name, and it sounded odd. I had been christened Edward, but I’d been known as Ned all my life. Not even my grandfather had called me Edward, except, that is, when he was cross with me or I had done something naughty as a child.

“What’s your name?” I asked him.

“Peter,” he said. “Peter James Talbot.”

My father’s name was indeed Peter James Talbot. It said so in green ink on both my birth certificate and his. I knew by heart every element of those documents. Over the years the handwritten details on them had somehow been the only tangible link to my parents, that and the small creased-and-fading photograph that I still carried with me everywhere.

I removed my wallet from my pocket and passed the photo over to him.