They were arguing in the cafe this Easter Sunday morning. A man with a red face was sitting along when I saw his eyes brighten up. It had to be his son or his dog. It was his son, a three year old from his estranged wife. She was maybe Korean or Chinese. He, I realised when I heard him speak, was Italian. It was soon clear the boy shuttled between the two, especially when I heard her say Why didn’t you send me the video of him playing? Clearly, the boy had been round the dad’s but the dad hadn’t sent the ex-wife the video of the playing boy. We need our proofs, our bits of documentation to look at when we are on our own. This child she spends probably all her time with except the odd weekend, she needs to have the ghostly image on her phone when he is not there too. The dad was nonplussed. Did he not realise that occular evidence had to be supplied? Did he think that occular evidence would de-intensify the experience of him alone with the child? After the terrible disputes at the break-up, now there are the terrible disputes over the scraps of video material. The child was happily running around the cafe creating havoc. Now that he was present to both of them, they ignored him.

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