She smiled shakily. “You never cry.”

“Good point. So just you shush, all right? I’m nothing like what you should have had. You should have had so much more than this.” He kissed the top of her head. “But this is the best I could do. I’m just an average bloke with an extraordinary daughter.”

“I’m not. I’m awful. If you knew how awful I am.”

“The only awful thing about you is that terrible thing you do with your hair when you’re going out.” She managed another watery smile. “Okay, we have to stop now, sorry. That is absolutely all the talk about feelings I’ve got in me.”

“Okay.”

“Are you going to eat anything?”

“I’ll get some toast when I’m dressed.”

“Make sure you do. Don’t want you wasting away.”

“Dad… ”

“Da-ad… ” He was still starving. He counted the slices of bread, then put two more in the toaster. Alicia got up, taking her coffee with her.

“Alicia,” he said as she reached the doorway.

“What?”

“I don’t mean it, you know. I’ve always got more talk about feelings. We can talk about whatever you want.”

“Thanks, Dad.” She hovered in the doorway, holding her coffee against her chin.

“So?”

She turned away. “I’m going to get dressed.”

His morning was haunted by Ava. Going about his usual routine, he conjured her ghost for company – not beside him, but in the next room, upstairs when he was downstairs, in the kitchen while he mopped the floor behind the bar. He invented conversations, banal little snippets between a long-established couple.

I’m taking the rubbish-bags out, love.

Did you remember the kitchen bin?

Of course I did, woman. Stop nagging.

Would it work? Could it work? Married (complicated) but no children of her own (easier? Harder?). As he stared forgetfully into the tall freezer, counting trays of chicken curry and never managing to hold the total in his head, Alicia came in, mumbled something about seeing Katie, then disappeared.

Would Alicia mind if her dad brought home a woman? Maybe she’d be pleased. She could grow up and leave without worrying that he’d be on his own. No, he couldn’t carve himself a future out of sand and salt and a single encounter.

Can Mike manage on his own later?

What have you got in mind, Missus?

Oh, you know, if Alicia’s out…

Would Ava be so forward? He didn’t know her well enough to say. He could remember every word she’d said yesterday…

Reading her diary is the very least you could do.

Oh, shit.

No. Not this morning. Not yet. He’d been no-one but Dad for almost a decade. He deserved these few minutes to dream over his first time with a woman since Ellen left him.

There’s something – I don’t know –

But he knew. He’d recognised it last night, his own feelings mirrored on Alicia’s face. So his daughter had met some boy. And why not? At her age love flattened you like an avalanche. You could spend hours dreaming of their smile. Their skin against yours was an unbearable mystery. Teenage love, the purest kind of love there was.