SIX years ago at Christmas, my dad and I had an argument so brutal and cruel and mutually destructive that it’s taken until this Christmas for us to be in each other’s company again.

The wounds started to heal a little back in spring, when we began tentatively reaching out with emails – always about other people, never us. The first email came from Dad. An old teacher of mine from back in Northern Ireland, where I was brought up, had died. Dad wrote telling me what happened. The email surprised me – not because of the news about my teacher, but because it was my dad who’d written it. I thought our relationship was in the grave too. I replied briefly, and with no ill will, but I was curious why I’d even responded. Our relationship had been so bad and unpleasant over the years that I wondered why I risked rekindling it.

A month later, I was working on a family tree for my mum, and for some reason I cannot fathom – curiosity, maybe, a subconscious need for resolution, perhaps – I sent my dad a few questions about our genealogy. My mum and dad had a stormy and unhappy marriage. Dad was often absent, and when he was home he seemed in a constant state of rage. He and I rarely spent more than a few minutes together when I was a boy, and after my parents split up when I was in my early twenties, our relationship withered to a few awkward drinks once a year and the odd telephone conversation.

I resented him for all the things I felt I’d missed out on that other young men had experienced. It made me sad when I heard friends talking about how much they loved their dad and how he’d taught them to swim, or ride a bike, or shave – we’d done none of those things together. We differ in almost every way, and we’ve no hinterland– no shared memories of good times.

Dad, though, had his own demons – he had a painful childhood and he knows that damaged him when it came to being a father himself.

Still, it’s strange how it was an email about a family tree, which laid down the roots for the new, tentative relationship dad and I are experiencing now.

Dad replied to my email with a whole swathe of information that he’d separately been gathering as research into the family tree. He’d uncovered a completely unknown branch of the Mackay family in America that I knew nothing about. He’d learned of them in the years of cold war when he and I didn’t utter a word to each other.

I ended up in touch with those relatives in America and this summer a long-lost cousin called Alice – fittingly, a retired social worker – came to Scotland and we spent some time together. When I spoke to her about my father, I realised that I was no longer boiling with anger towards him, in fact, I suddenly became aware that the anger I’d held was as destructive for me as it was for him. As I talked to this charming stranger who shared some of the blood in my veins, it dawned on me for the first time that what I felt was real sadness about my father. Loss, even. Sadness for a connection that never was, loss of memories that neither of us had ever had – and regret that so much of what had gone on between my father and I was steeped in anger, and even hate, on both sides.

What a god-awful pointless waste of two lives, I thought, as I found myself talking to my cousin about my dad. At this point, anger may have been put to one side and replaced with a melancholy for things that never were, but I still didn’t want to see my father again. We have an expression in our family – “it’s all blood under the bridge”, which might give you an idea of what kind of family we are – but I felt far too much blood had flowed under the bridge for us to ever be in the same room again.

Then, however, I had a little intimation of my own mortality. I had a brush with ill-health this year that pulled me up sharp. I realised that one day I won’t be here – and with that comes the knowledge that others won’t be here one day either. It made me look on all my relationships with new eyes – to turn toward those I truly love and care for and value them all the more, and all those people were my family. There was a ghost at the feast though – and his name was Don, my dad.

Serendipity seems to have reigned over so much of this new coming together of my dad and I – an email at just the right time, a family tree prodding the subconscious onward, a long-lost relative, a moment of sickness. So, when Dad wrote to me not long after I’d recovered, and asked if we could meet and try to put the past behind us, I was ready to agree. Neither of us would be here forever.

And so, not long ago, my dad came to Scotland for three days and we spent more time in each other’s company than we’ve ever done in our lives. My father and I had never even been to the cinema together, I realised. So we went to the movies and we had a laugh. We had a few decent meals and some good conversations.

I think that for the first time in our lives we enjoyed each other’s company – and that’s a fine and good thing after four decades of simmering tension, dislike and anger. We’ve a long way to go – we may not ever be bosom buddies, and that’s fine as well.

I wish English had a word for “happy-sad”, as that’s how I feel about this little step my father and I have taken towards each other – and the time of year only adds to the mix of emotions, because this will be the first Christmas when Dad and I might truly feel like family at last; that we belong to each other after all.