‘And drugs,’ puts in Martin ponderously.

‘Exactly!’

‘You need to be careful, Becky,’ he adds. ‘Don’t let them suck you into their way of thinking.’

‘Unhappiest city on the planet,’ agrees Janice. ‘It said so in the paper.’

They’re both staring at me mournfully, as though I’m about to be carted off to a penal colony on Mars.

‘It’s a brilliant city,’ I say defiantly. ‘And we can’t wait to get there.’

‘Well, maybe you’ll see Jess,’ says Janice, as though this is the only possible ray of light. ‘How far’s Chile from LA?’

‘It’s …’ I try to sound knowledgeable. ‘Not far. Same general area.’

My half-sister Jess is married to Janice and Martin’s son Tom, and they’re out in Chile, where they’re planning to adopt a little boy. Poor Janice is trying to wait patiently, but apparently it could be a year before they come back.

‘Don’t listen to them, love,’ Dad chimes in cheerfully. ‘LA is a fine city. I still remember the glint of the Cadillacs. The surf on the sand. And the ice-cream sundaes. Look out for those, Becky.’

‘Right.’ I nod patiently. ‘Ice-cream sundaes.’

Dad spent a summer driving around California before he got married, so his version of LA is basically from 1972. There’s no point saying, ‘No one eats ice-cream sundaes any more, it’s all about flavoured fro-yo.’

‘In fact, Becky,’ Dad adds, ‘I’ve got a couple of favours to ask you.’ He draws me to one side, away from the others, and I look up at him curiously.

Dad’s aged a bit recently. His face is craggier and there are little white hairs tufting out of his neck. Although he can still vault over a gate quite athletically. I know this because he was showing off to Minnie earlier today in one of Suze’s fields, while Mum cried out, ‘Graham, stop! You’ll do yourself an injury! You’ll break a metatarsal!’ (Mum has recently found a new daytime TV show, Doctor’s Surgery Live, which means that she now thinks she’s an expert on all things medical and keeps dropping words like ‘platelets’ and ‘lipoproteins’ into the conversation even when we’re just talking about what to have for supper.)

‘What is it, Dad?’

‘Well, the first thing is this.’ He takes from his breast pocket a small paper bag and pulls out an ancient autograph book with a picture of a Cadillac on the front and California in white swirly writing. ‘Remember this?’

‘Of course!’

Dad’s autograph book is a family tradition. It gets pulled out every Christmas and we all politely listen as he tells us about all the signatures. They’re mostly autographs of obscure TV stars from American shows that no one’s ever heard of, but Dad thinks they’re famous, so that’s all that matters.

‘Ronald “Rocky” Webster,’ he’s saying now, turning the pages fondly. ‘He was a big star then. And Maria Pojes. You should have heard her sing.’

‘Right.’ I nod politely, even though I’ve heard these names a million times and they still mean nothing to me.