He was also still a presence in our family home. I often saw him there, particularly around mealtimes. He’d be in the yard with a cigarette, pacing back and forth, talking on the phone. We were still – just about – a family.

That all changed one Saturday. I went around to my parents’ to pick up some paperwork I wanted. When I arrived, Dad’s car was parked on the street. He wasn’t supposed to be there – he was supposed to be at a cricket match at Old Trafford. Perhaps he’d left his ticket, or his wallet.

It was neither.

I could hear Dad shouting from outside the front door. I glanced up and down the street to see if anyone else had heard; Mum would have hated the neighbours to witness a family argument.

I cracked the door and slipped inside.

From the door to the living room I could see into the kitchen. Dad had Roland’s shirt bunched up in his fist and was holding him against the kitchen cabinets. The tap was running; one of them must have knocked it on. On the counter top, in between Roland and the sink, was a twenty-pound note. It was not a lot of money, but then that wasn’t the point Dad was really concerned with.

‘How long have you been stealing from me? Eh?’ Dad shouted. He was a big man, and Roland was puny next to him.

‘I’ve not been.’

Dad pulled him forwards and then slammed him back against the cabinets. I jumped; I’d never seen this kind of physical aggression from my father.

‘Don’t lie to me. You think I don’t know how much money I have? You think I haven’t noticed some of it disappearing?’

‘It might have been Tom.’ This time Dad slammed Roland so hard against the cabinets that the house vibrated. Good, I thought, pinning it on me, the bastard.

‘Don’t you dare blame your brother. He has a job. So what’s it for?’ Dad said. ‘What are you spending it on?’

‘Stuff.’ Roland’s voice was strangled. ‘Let me go. You’re hurting my throat. We’ve got a gig tonight and I’ve got to sing.’

Dad’s knuckles whitened as he gripped harder. ‘Don’t worry. You can say you’re trying to sound like Rod Stewart. So what did you piss it away on? The money I went out and earned for my family?’ I think that was the worst thing for Dad. Not the theft or the lying or the betrayal but the waste.

‘Stuff. Food. Living.’

‘You must think I’m fucking daft.’

I don’t think I’d ever heard Dad swear. Some part of me thought he probably didn’t know words like that, that maybe our generation had invented them.