‘It can’t be helped,’ I said. I too would have liked Tony to be here today, for my own sake as well as Lola’s and Jack’s. But there was no point in regretting his absence now, or at any other time.

‘How are you?’

‘I’m all right,’ I told him.

‘And the kids?’

‘They’re here.’

‘I’ll talk to them. I’m thinking of you, Sadie.’

‘I know. Thanks,’ I said and passed the receiver to Lola.

When we were first divorced, Jack and Lola both spent plenty of time with their father. We had agreed on unlimited access and it worked well. But in the last five years, since Tony met his new partner and particularly since the birth of their twin girls, the weekend visits have become less regular. This is no one’s intention, it’s just that Tony has less time to spare for children who can already feed and dress themselves. Lola is fairly sanguine about it, but Jack minds.

Graham glanced around the room, judging the atmosphere. ‘A few words, maybe?’ he suggested to me in a whisper.

I cleared my throat and stepped into the middle of the room while he rattled a spoon against a plate.

I had no idea what I was going to say. I don’t remember what I did say, except that it can’t have been very inspiring. Everyone listened politely, anyway. I thanked them again for coming, and lifted my glass that had one and a half mouthfuls of red wine at the bottom of it. Luckily everyone else’s glasses were well charged.

‘To Ted.’

The echo began as a muted, respectful chorus. But the next thing I saw was the faces all around me breaking into smiles and there was a sudden little wave of clapping, and some stamping and cheering. Ted, Ted, Ted. Jack’s white face poked round the hallway door.

‘My father,’ I added to the chorus, but under my breath. It wasn’t my unmemorable words that had provoked this, of course. It was Ted himself and I was being made aware of his popularity for perhaps the last time.

I looked around the room again, searching for a synthesis between my knowledge of him and what all these other cheerful, rational friends and neighbours felt. There was his dented old armchair but even as I stared at it I couldn’t shift the cold wedge that separated my memories of Ted from everyone else’s.

I shook my head and looked for the faces of my children and my old friends. They jumped out of the gloom at me, full of warmth and life. Mel’s red lipstick. Caz’s hennaed bob, Graham’s bald patch and habitual anxious frown. And Jack and Lola, my flesh and Ted’s too.

This is what matters now, not then, I rationalised. History’s gone.