I scour the hob and I clean the back splash with a squidgy sponge that is meant for scrubbing pots and pans and there are specks of green fuzz stuck to the grouting in the tiles and I think about grouting and what a pain in the arse it gives me. I think how futile it is, but perhaps not quite as futile as ironing. I sweep the floor and then mop it out and I use far too much bleach while I’m doing so and the fumes start to engulf my nostrils and Jenny shouts at me from her desk not to bother, that she’ll do it tomorrow, now is not the time.

Their sleepy faces. I am filled with a short jolt of tenderness and I can feel my cheeks blush with a compassion that I didn’t know that I possessed until this moment and I shake it away. I am not without resolve.

They agree to come to bed because it is Sunday and they are due back to school in the morning, after the holidays. It is officially a school night and half past nine is beyond reasonable in my estimation and this is what I tell them. They say goodnight to Jenny and she tells them that she is feeling very tired and that she will be up to them shortly because she’ll be going to bed soon herself. It is good that she is tired. I follow the children upstairs.

I stand in the doorframe of the bathroom and I look at them play-acting with the toothpaste and I look at the grouting over the bath and I can see only my mistakes.

And later I plump Mikey’s pillow for him just the way he likes me to and I kiss him goodnight, and his hair – the flyaway bit that sticks up and makes him look as though he has a Mohican. I push it back down into its place. I kiss his soft cheek and I feel the softness and my heart lurches. I do the same to Joey who is in his bed beside Mikey’s. Joey asks me how high the wave would have been in Japan. I tell him that it would have been taller than he could imagine.

Joey – how tender his skin and the smell. The smell of the unknown and that sense of belief in what a great life they have. They don’t have myself or Jenny arguing when they are about to sleep. They are merely caught in the glorious sensation of another good day as only children can.

Goodnight, Dad, he says.

I tell him it’s Daddy, always Daddy, and I turn off the bedroom light but I am careful to leave the light on in the landing.