‘I’m making your dad a gritty smoothie,’ Joe says cheerfully, taking the contraption apart.

‘Don’t you mean green?’ asks my father.

Joe shakes his head, his curls bouncing against his chiselled jaw like some kind of men’s aftershave ad. I find myself automatically sucking my stomach in, sticking my chest out; I’m glad I put my T-shirt on.

‘Definitely gritty, David.’ He takes a slurp. ‘Gorgeous!’ he shouts. He screws a grey plastic rim onto the cup part of the blender and turns it, so that the handle is facing my dad. ‘There you go, get a load of that.’

‘Hmm,’ says my dad, inspecting it. He takes a tentative sip and then another. ‘Not bad.’

‘It looks disgusting. What’s in it?’ I ask, curious about why Joe would be making a gritty drink for my father.

Joe counts off the ingredients on his fingers: ‘Coconut water, spinach, avocado, banana, ice, protein powder, flaxseeds, a handful of mixed nuts, squeeze of lime juice – oh, and an apple. Good for your brain,’ he says and taps his temple. ‘Have one of those every day, you’ll be right as rain.’ He slaps my father across the back and heads outside towards the pool.

I wonder if this is just something personal trainers do or has he somehow discerned Dad’s forgetfulness – or maybe Bethany told Joe about our father wandering about last night, claiming there was someone in his room and that his journal had been stolen.

‘You okay, Dad?’ I ask. ‘I see you found your journal – it was on your dressing table.’

My father frowns at me.

‘Appearing, as if my magic,’ Bethany says, her voice heavy with sarcasm, switching the kettle on. ‘Coffee?’

‘Thanks.’

‘Why does no one ever listen to me?’ Bethany asks, after Dad has gone to sit outside and drink his pond-scum by the pool. ‘When I took him for those tests last year, he scored twenty-one on the Mini-Mental State Exam, had mild depression and his brain scan showed a slight shrinkage of his frontal and temporal lobes – all indications of the onset of dementia. I made a whole bloody programme about it, I know what I’m talking about. Not that any of you bothered to watch it.’

‘He seems fine,’ I say.

‘Just a bit forgetful?’ Bethany says. ‘No shit, Sherlock.’

Matt thunders down the stairs. When he sees me, he clears his throat and glances at Bethany. She’s busy banging around the kitchen, getting out the cafetière and looking for the coffee.

‘Sara,’ he says in a low voice. ‘She worries about Chloe, you know. I try and remember to call her. Let her know everything is okay.’

‘Right,’ I say, setting out mugs. Not a conference call for work, then.