I smiled in spite of myself. ‘Daddy’s just being silly, Daniel,’ I said. ‘We get along very well with the French, that’s why you’re learning it at school.’

‘Can’t really remember anything we’ve learned, apart from bonjour and pommes frites.’

Sean found his swimming shorts in the suitcase, plucking them out from under a pile of shirts.

‘That’ll actually get you a long way, big lad,’ he said. ‘Hey, do you know why the French only eat one egg for breakfast?’

‘I don’t know, Dad.’

‘Because one egg is un oeuf !’

Daniel laughed for a hysterical moment, then stopped. ‘I don’t get it.’

‘Un oeuf? Enough? An egg in French is—’

‘Jesus, Dad,’ Lucy rolled her eyes. ‘That’s literally like the worst joke I’ve ever heard.’

Sean retreated into the en suite to get changed.

‘Hey, Daniel,’ he called through the door. ‘Did you hear about the French cheese factory that exploded?’

‘No.’

‘There was nothing left but de brie.’

‘Ha!’ Our son shook his head. ‘I don’t get that one either.’

‘De brie,’ Sean said again. ‘Debris. Nothing left but de brie.’

‘Oh my God,’ Lucy said in disgust. She turned and went back to her own room.

Daniel wrinkled his nose. ‘What’s brie?’

‘What are they teaching you at that school, boy? Brie? The most famous French cheese in the world!’

‘Tell me it again.’

Sean repeated the joke as he emerged in his swimming shorts, bare-chested, tossing his jeans, shirt, wallet and keys into a pile on the bed. He had started going to the gym and exercising regularly in the last few months and it was easy to tell – his chest and shoulders were broader and more defined, his waist slimmer. He hadn’t been in bad shape before, but he’d definitely been putting the work in recently. I felt a strange pang of insecurity and something else – jealousy? – as if he’d been working out to try to impress someone else. Someone other than me.

Daniel was laughing again as he skipped out of our bedroom and into the hallway.

With our son gone for a moment, the smile on Sean’s face faltered and died, and for a moment he looked grim-faced and serious. Deadly serious.

I froze, a pair of shoes in each hand, not sure how to react. His expression was so unexpected, such a change from a moment ago, that it took me completely off guard.

He caught me looking and plastered his smile back on. ‘Just going to the pool with Aquaboy, then.’

‘Sure. You OK, love?’

‘Grand. Never better.’

‘I’ll finish here. Quick shower then I’ll come and join you.’

‘Right you are.’

I watched him as he walked out of our bedroom. He started in with the jokes again as they headed down the stairs, his deep Irish brogue echoing down the hallway.