He wagged his tail and gazed at her, panting. Tara filled up a glass salad bowl at the tap and put it down just outside the door, and the dog submerged its face in the cool water, lapping gratefully until the patio slabs were splashed dark. The sheer relief of his frantic gulps made Tara feel bad for taking so long to let him in – and also annoyed yet again with her dad.

So much for being a devoted dog owner.

The heat had intensified, and when Lloyd lay down on the cool tiles in the shade of the kitchen, Tara didn’t have the heart to move him outside.

Instead she went back to her photographing and eBay listing, and was so absorbed in finding exactly the right way to describe the shoulder covering on Masquerade Sindy’s outfit that the sudden knocking on the window made her jump.

Molly was standing on the other side. Lloyd leaped to his paws, his tail circling with joy, and started bouncing up and down against the glass.

What else could she do? Tara went over and opened the door.

‘Lloyd!’ cooed the girl as the dog launched himself at her.

‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Did no one leave any water out for him? He was very thirsty.’

‘Daddy said he’d be OK. We just went to the hall to see if the workmen had started the windows. The windows are beautiful! They’ve got stained glass apples!’

‘I don’t think it’s safe to leave Lloyd in the garden on his own. Someone might steal him.’ Tara didn’t want to scare Molly but honestly, how thoughtless was Keith? Had he learned nothing in the last twenty years?

Instantly, her excitement vanished. ‘Really? Would they?’

Tara changed tack. ‘Where’s … your father?’

‘Our father’ sounded wrong. Like he was God. ‘Keith’ sounded wrong. ‘Dad’. No, Molly had said ‘Daddy’. He’d clearly opted for a name change second time around. Rebranded himself.

‘Daddy?’ Molly clarified.

Tara nodded. Daddy. Now she thought about it, he’d been Daddy to her and Toby too, till they were six. Toby had been the one to knock it on the head.

‘He’s getting the shopping out of the car. I wanted to make sure Lloyd was all right.’

As Molly spoke, Keith appeared in the garden, struggling with shopping bags. He was flustered, less like his debonair work self. His hair was messy, and he looked hot. A multipack of crisps fell out of one bag and Tara thought she could hear the clinking of bottles. A nameless shadow crossed the back of her mind.

‘Are those your dolls?’ Molly had reached out for Masquerade Sindy and was inspecting the box. ‘This is really old!’