And that was it for us. He carried on reading, and I carried on trying to draw him into escapades that got progressively naughtier. I stuck up for him when kids tried to take the piss about his dad, and he smoothed the way every time we got into trouble. One look at his angelic countenance and most adults caved. We were never really apart. We walked to school and back every day, and I was over his fence and in his garden before we’d even been home for half an hour. We practically lived in each other’s houses.

I’ve always had a gift for making friends, but there’s never been anybody like Charlie for me. He eases me in some strange way and makes me happy. And we fit together and balance each other. He adds his sweetness to my salty personality, and I like to think there’s a particular snap in his humour that’s totally down to me. Men come and go—boyfriends in his case, hook-ups in mine. But at the heart of my world is him, and I hope that never changes.

I smile at him. “Where’s the housebreaking mole?” I ask.

He washes his hands at the sink. “We put him at the bottom of the garden. Poor little sod was absolutely petrified.”

“Oh no,” I say mockingly. “Oh, how I hope that he’ll recover his equilibrium and then he can go back to making those ginormous bloody holes that fuck the lawnmower up.”

“Misha,” Teddy says reprovingly as she comes into the kitchen. “Poor little mole. Don’t be mean.”

“You look serious,” Charlie says, bending down to get a hug from my mum.

“Anya has been suspended,” I say grimly.

“Shit,” he says.

I smirk. “How very wordy and literate of you, Charlie. I can tell you’re a librarian.”

“Why was she suspended?” he asks, ignoring me.

“Climate change,” I say shortly. His eyes brighten immediately, and I shake my head as he opens his mouth to undoubtedly give me a lecture on the environment. “Don’t bother,” I say sourly. “She’ll be down soon and you can join your eco voices in harmonious concert. Just give me a chance to put my earplugs in first.”

I grab the sad-looking soft toy and put him in the centre of the table. “Okay, Peter the Puppy Dog is in position and the billionth meeting of Dad’s Do-Over is in session. Teddy, please call Anya to the table.”

She blanches and dashes off, and we sit listening to her feet thundering upstairs and the indistinct muttering of the girls’ conversation.

Dad Do-Overs are our family board meetings. My father was always very keen on them, saying he was from a country whose people were ruled harshly and he didn’t intend to conduct his family like that. They started small, but the one rule was always total honesty, and whoever held the wooden spoon had the floor and couldn’t be interrupted. When he died, we swapped the wooden spoon for Peter Puppy Dog, a soft toy he’d bought the girls, but they understood that the total honesty rule still applied.