The shock of hearing her use that word nearly snapped the anger right out of me. I almost started laughing. I don’t think I’d ever heard her say anything worse than ‘bloody’ before. But then she carried on: ‘All these years, you’ve hung onto this idea of him as this’ – she flapped her hands in the air, trying to pick out the right word – ‘great guy, who’s had all this success, but trust me, it’s a good thing you’re nothing like him. You don’t know him. Not really.’

‘And that’s the whole problem, isn’t it?’ I said, my voice rising as the resentment poured back into me. ‘I never got the chance to know him. When I was growing up, every time I wanted to get back in touch with him, you put me off. You always warned me against it.’

Her voice rose to meet mine. ‘Because I didn’t want you to get hurt! It broke my heart in the year or so after he left, when you tried to arrange to meet him, and he always cancelled or couldn’t be bothered. You were eleven, twelve years old, Ben! It shouldn’t have been you making the effort. It should have been your father.’

I shook my head, my throat tightening and my cheeks getting hot. ‘I don’t know … He was still my dad, and it always felt like you were trying to keep us apart. Maybe we could have had a relationship, if you weren’t always getting in the way.’

I regretted it as soon as I said it. Of course I did. It was stupid and spiteful and I didn’t mean it in the slightest. But I said it anyway.

Mum put down her coffee mug on the table, and I’ll never forget the way she looked at me. Straight in the eyes, her smile dissolving slowly as the shock gave way to sadness.

She ran her hand gently across her forehead, as if she was trying to soothe a tension headache. And I wanted to take it back, to walk straight round the table and hug her, but I didn’t. I still don’t know why. She shook her head and picked at some fluff on her sleeve. When she spoke again, her voice was so quiet I could barely hear her. ‘Well, if that’s the way you feel, then … I’m sorry.’

That’s what she said: ‘sorry’. When I should’ve been the one apologising, she said ‘sorry’. That will always stay with me.

And that was it. It didn’t end dramatically. It wasn’t some EastEnders-style bust-up, doors slamming and plates smashing. It just ended with me standing up and saying, ‘Look, I’d better go,’ and Mum saying, ‘Yes, OK, all right.’