‘I went away to war,’ said Grandad. ‘And then, when I got back …’

‘Whoa,’ I said. ‘Hold on to those horses, Pop. Which war?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Yes, it does.’

‘Oh, no. No, Rob. Trust me, it doesn’t.’ Grandad was fierce, even by his own standards. He pointed his bishop at me like a loaded gun before returning it to the board. ‘All wars are the same. People kill each other, then they go home, if they’re lucky enough to be alive, and try to forget all about it. Most times that’s impossible. In the meantime, politicians dream up the next war. And that’s only one of the reasons I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘But what did you say to Grandma when she asked where you’d been?’ Pop was agitated but I couldn’t let this go.

‘I just told you. I’d been away to war.’

‘Didn’t she ask you about it?’

‘Yes. And I told her I didn’t want to discuss it. She understood. People understood then. They don’t now. You should be ashamed of yourself, Rob, if you take a moment to think about it.’

‘But …’

‘Do you want to know about your grandmother, or not?’

I gazed at the chessboard. Even to my inexperienced eyes, it was clear I was in a hopeless position. A bit like the conversation I was having.

‘I do, Grandad,’ I said.

She’d been waiting five years. Grandad, it seems, accepted this as a simple statement of fact. My first reaction would have been, why? But, as Pop pointed out to me, I have a well-developed sense of my own worthlessness. It seems, in 1967, Grandad didn’t suffer from the same problem. He was, on the surface at least, confident.

‘What did you look like back in 1967, Grandad?’ I asked.

‘You don’t want to know,’ he replied.

‘Well, I do,’ I said, ‘or I wouldn’t have asked.’

‘My hair,’ said Pop, ‘reached down to below my shoulders. It was all layered and shiny. And I had a spectacular handlebar moustache.’

‘A what?’

‘A moustache that bent around the sides of my mouth and came down to my chin. Huge sideburns …’ He saw my puzzled expression and demonstrated at the side of his face. ‘Way past my ears and nearly reaching the ends of the handlebar moustache.’

‘Was there any part of you that wasn’t hairy?’ I said. It was difficult to get my head around the fact my grandfather was more wombat than human. Now, he was mostly shiny skin and deep lines.

‘Not really,’ he replied. ‘You should’ve seen me in bathers. I was ninety per cent Axminster rug.’

‘Way too much information,’ I said.

‘Told you, but you wouldn’t listen. I have photographs somewhere. Unless you behave yourself, I’ll get them out. And I haven’t even got round to the fashion of the time. Paisley shirts. Flared trousers. You’ve been warned, young Rob.’

This was really exciting. Grandad as a young man. I wasn’t going to let that go, but I also sensed if I asked him to get out the old albums now, I’d never hear more about Grandma.

‘So Grandma told you she’d been waiting five years,’ I said. ‘What happened then?’

‘I took her hand and said the wait had been worth it.’

‘You were a smooth talker, Pop.’

‘Check,’ said Grandad. Where did that come from? I gazed at the board. The position I was in was hopeless, but I couldn’t resign. We’d been here before. According to Grandad I had to fight to the bitter end. Never give up. ‘Australians never give up,’ he’d said. ‘It’s what makes us great as a nation.’ I moved my king to a safe square.

‘And then?’ I said.

‘And then I wooed her,’ said Grandad. ‘I wouldn’t let her forget me. Not that she would have. I think I knew that even then.’ His voice had taken on a distant quality, as if he’d travelled back in time and was living those moments once more. ‘She was so beautiful, Rob. The most beautiful woman I’d ever known. We married in 1969. Your father was born in 1972.’

‘And then what happened?’

‘To your father?’

‘No.’ I hated it when Grandad deliberately messed with my head. ‘To Grandma.’

‘Ah,’ said Grandad. He thought for a moment and then moved a bishop the length of the board. ‘Checkmate,’ he said.

I examined the position. I don’t know why. It was obviously checkmate. I sighed and set up the board again.

‘She left me in 1975,’ Grandad said. ‘Went back to Italy. Was going to take your dad with her, but changed her mind at the last moment.’

That news would take some processing. One decision taken or not taken over forty years ago determined whether I was born or not. I’d always known, intellectually, that life was a matter of chance, but I’d never felt it until now.

‘Why?’ I whispered.

‘I think she knew that if she’d taken your dad, I couldn’t survive. She loved me enough to save my life by giving up her son to me.’ He rubbed at the stubble peppering his chin. ‘I heard she died in 2001.’

He moved a pawn a couple of places forward on the board. I followed suit, though I couldn’t concentrate. But when it came to digging out truths from Grandad’s past, I knew I had to plan my moves far ahead. And be patient. One fact at a time.

‘But why did she leave you?’ I said. My grandmother was dead. I didn’t really know how to feel. On the one hand, I hadn’t known her, so it wasn’t really a loss, as such. But a part of me shrivelled to know that she’d never be more than a name to me.

It was sad. It was very sad.

‘She couldn’t deal with the ghosts,’ said Grandad.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘She tried, but it was no good.’ Grandad rubbed at his mouth and moved his bishop, threatening my knight. ‘I came with ghosts, and although she gave it eight years of constant effort, she couldn’t really compete. In the end, she had to leave. I was glad she did, because it was no life for her.’

‘Ghosts?’ I moved my knight.

‘I came back to Sydney in 1967 with a whole company of ghosts.’ Grandad sighed. ‘They were with me constantly then.’ He looked over to the corner of the room. ‘And to be honest, they’re still with me, Rob. They’ve never really gone away.’

I felt a chill, even though the evening was warm.

‘Those ghosts,’ he continued. ‘I can’t tell you how tempting it was back then to join them. But I had your dad to look after. To raise. In the end, it was your father who gave me a reason for living.’

Grandad moved his rook.

‘Check,’ he said.