Tara was torn: she wanted to say, You’re right, I would have told you to get lost, but Dad had finally come home. And underneath the frostiness, the fury, a small voice whispered, He wanted to check you were OK.

Keith looked as if he might try to reach out a hand, but decided against it. ‘I’ve wanted to see you for such a long time, Tara. There was never going to be a “right moment”. But we’ve got to start somewhere. And look – we have.’ He smiled, again hopefully. ‘Haven’t we?’

‘Dad.’ The word felt artificial in her mouth: this middle-aged man wasn’t her dad. Dad was younger, darker, funnier – someone who’d maybe even stopped existing the moment he left in the babysitter’s car. Unhappiness swooped in Tara’s chest, suffocating her thoughts. She shook her head, miserably. ‘I don’t know that this is going to work out the way you want it to. I’m an adult. I can choose how I conduct my personal relationships.’

Keith looked at her for a long few seconds, then let out a breath. ‘I’m sorry. I misjudged it. But I thought I should try. Was that such a bad thing?’

She hesitated, then shook her head. She could tell, now she was grown up, that he was a charming man, probably used to getting his own way, to talking around any hiccups or resistance. But she hadn’t let him do that. That was something.

He pushed himself off the stool and picked up his satchel; a battered leather one, the same kind he’d always had. Were there still toffees in the side pockets? ‘I should make a move.’

‘Where do you live now?’ Tara put the mugs in the sink, to make it clear there would be no refills. She didn’t want to know who he lived with.

‘London – Highbury. I just drove up for a night to check out this property for Steven. It’s mainly what I do now, consultancy, one-off projects that I like the sound of. One of the benefits of age – there are younger, keener architects to do the grunt work for us old goats!’

Tara didn’t push for details; she could tell he was being deliberately over-modest, itself a sign of vanity in her opinion, and she wasn’t going to feed his ego by letting him know she’d Googled him. He’d sold the practice he’d built up, staying on as a director. She smiled, her lips tight.

‘Thanks for the tea,’ he said. ‘It’s good to see the old place is still standing. And that you’re … doing so marvellously well.’