Except then, it might just be one date and I’d have lost him as a friend.

‘Of course, you are.’ She touches my hand gently. ‘And friends can say no.’

Chapter 16

When I get home, I make the mistake of googling Serena the cellist. I know what my mother is like, she won’t forget that she wants to invite the woman. If I don’t do it and get it out of the way now, she will escalate the pressure – with texts, emotional blackmail and may resort to leaving pleas on my social media.

This is another reason why I didn’t understand my parents’ marriage. Mum is so determined and efficient in all other aspects of her life but failed miserably when it came to sorting out her love life. Why has she always let Dad get away with things?

Except maybe all that is about to change.

Anyway, it doesn’t take much effort to find Serena. Mainly because the second result that comes up has a photo of her with my father.

They are so close together they have to be touching. In fact, I’m sure his hand is on her bum. But it isn’t that which upsets me.

Even after chatting to Mum, even after thinking I’d got what kind of man he really is sorted out in my head, this stings.

It’s the look on his face. He is laughing down at her and his face, even in a picture, is alive.

It is the look he used to give me when he decided to come home and grace us with his presence. I used to long for that look, wait for that look. That moment when I felt like I was important. I was his everything.

And this image is that look frozen in time.

With some floozy.

I slam the lid of my laptop down as a feeling of revulsion and anger runs through me. I hate him. How can he do that with somebody else? How can he not come to see me, us, and be looking at somebody else that way?

I mean, I do know he’s a total charmer, I do know he flirts his way through life, I do know he’s had what Mum calls ‘stupid flings’, but I’ve never had the evidence shoved in my face.

This is everything that Mum didn’t spell out. The man she knew, but I was shielded from.

Googling my dad is not something I’ve done before – because he’s just my dad. I’ve always taken his career for granted, just thought about it as an ordinary job. He doesn’t make the nationals, it’s not like he’s famous. You have to dig out the ‘arts and culture’ pages of the Sunday supplements and search with a magnifying glass to find some mention of him. So I don’t.

But apparently, he does help fill the digital columns.

Particularly when he messes around with ingenues and prodigious talents that the world of music is watching.

My fingers are trembling slightly as I re-open the lid, take a deep breath and look again.