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“Could you not have worked that out for yourself?” I ask patiently. Also, there is nothingprobableabout it. I am baffled by the guy. But this feels a little like the conversation with Frank back in the café weeks ago. Or, to put it another way, I could be one of those fishermen standing in a row to our right. Patience is everything, if I am going to get a bite and reel something juicy in.

“It’s complex.”

“Isn’t it always? Well, I’m in no rush. You did invite me out for dinner, after all. Or was I imagining that bit?”

“You weren’t imagining that bit.”

He turns to look at me. Really look at me. Despite the shield of my Ray-Bans, I want to melt. That face is Antonio Banderas inTake The Lead. It’s a flipping good job that I can’t dance the Argentine tango. I’d be in it deeper than that river in front of us.

“I guess you heard my grandmother refer to my late father.”

I nod slowly and sadly. He turns his attention back to the river, where a couple of little fishing boats are now chugging by.

“My parents died when I was twelve,” he says. I inhale sharply. “Hit and run car crash in Bristol on the dual carriageway, about a mile from where we were living at the time. They were almost home from a night out at the theatre.Phantom of the Opera. I’ve never been able to watch it… unsurprisingly.” Now Tiago takes a deep breath. “Avó e avô(Grannie and Grandad) were visiting us from Portugal at the time. Dad was British. Mum Portuguese.”

“Oh, my goodness,” I say, wishing I had something better to offer him… like the ability to turn back time and rearrange events.

“Mum met Dad when he was a holiday rep in Albufeira in the eighties. She followed him back to England when the travel company he was working for went bust. My grandparents were gutted but they understood. Mum and Dad married shortly after. My grandparents made a point of coming over to Bristol at least once a year.Avó– Grannie Elsa– embraced all things English so much that she’d always combine her visit to us with an English language course. It helped her communicate with me and my sister in both languages, it helped her communicate with my dad and, of course, it helped her chat to people from all over the world, not just British and American tourists. Many of them couldn’t– huh, and still can’t– speak Portuguese.”

“Guilty as charged on that count,” I fill the brief silence.

“In those days she would close thepasteleriafor a month. Usually in February when it was quiet. The day after that fateful accident, she had to close the place for a year to help me and my sister get back on our feet.”

This is so much to take in. I don’t know where to start and I don’t want to say anything remotely insensitive or inappropriate.

“Tiago, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realise. H-how do you even begin to piece your life together after something so awful happens?”

“You can’t. It can’t be fixed.”

He looks at me briefly then returns his attention to the water. A group of holidaymakers strolls past us. Tall and blonde. They look Dutch or Scandinavian. Maybe I’m stereotyping, but nine times out of ten I’m proven right when I guess nationalities in my own café.

“Time healing wounds is utter bollocks,” Tiago continues, once the tourists are out of earshot, as if the words he is sharing with me are sacred and not to be overheard. “Scrapes and bruises, maybe. A broken heart, not so much. You just learn to live with it. That’s all you can do. Learn to survive.”

How I want to throw my arms around him and shelter him from all the hurt he’s been through, but it’s much too late for that. In both senses of the word. I just don’t know where I stand with him. The best I can do is listen with an open heart.

“Grannie gave up her livelihood that year to come over and look after us while the house was being sold. School somehow carried on, paperwork and wills were sorted, custody plans were made. Grandad was still alive back then, and he came to help as well, but the bakery has always been Grannie Elsa’s pride and joy. I guess because she can switch so effortlessly between front of house, being the face of Tavira’spastéis, and then slip back into the rolling-up-your-sleeves mayhem of the kitchen.”

I can’t argue with any of that. The lady is a tour de force. I wish I had taken notes having seen her in action.

“Anyway, eventually they were allowed to bring us back to Portugal. So my sister Sophia and I lived with them here until I headed back to Bristol to study Business and Marketing at UWE. But Sophia stayed here. I think she almost felt duty-bound to look after Grannie when Grandad passed away– in the same way that Grannie looked after us. She’s not set foot back in England since we left. I can totally understand that. She was older than me. She has more memories to haunt her.”

“Didn’t… couldn’t your other grandparents give your grannie and grandad some respite… on your dad’s side of the family?”

“Dad was estranged from his family. Biological and adoptive. I think he was very unlucky with his adoptive parents, who turned out to be just as incapable of looking after him as his birth mother and father.”

Oh, my goodness. I’m awash with guilt for my frequent whines about Lauren. The truth is, I don’t know how lucky I am to have had a stable upbringing.

“I’ve since tracked my biological grandparents down but it was too late; they died a few years ago. I established contact with a cousin on social media though. So that’s something.”

We sit in silence for a while. I wait for Tiago to speak again because I still I have no words.

“A nun from the Jerónimos Monastery of Santa María de Belém in Lisbon chose to leave the order a long time ago.”

“Oh?” I have no idea where this rather random statement is going.

“Do you believe in magic?”

“Sort of,” I reply. “Not the trick of the eye, sleight of hand, illusionist stuff. But I think there’s a deep magic woven into the fabric of the universe. So many things that can’t be explained. I was always useless at maths, but having listened to Kelly, who you met earlier– and who just loves numerology– I can see that there does seem to be a numerical pattern to nature and the cycles, to life in general. Okay, that was a bit deep.”