‘It’s not on this one,’ Ned said, looking closely at the cover. ‘But on the Australian version of the album, it looked like there was a bloodstain on the road too. There,’ he pointed to the space just behind Ringo and John, ‘like from a car accident. And on the back,’ Ned flipped the album over, ‘it was rumoured that if you turned the back cover and held it at a forty-five degree counter-clockwise angle, that an image of the Grim Reaper would appear. I never saw that, though.’ He manoeuvred the disc around, as if trying to see if he could summon the anomaly.

Penny wished that he would stop. It was a bit creepy.

‘OK, enough of that.’

‘There’s other stuff too,’ Ned pressed on, looking at his daughter as Penny tightened her hands on the steering wheel. ‘The odd similarities. Car crashes. Head injuries. Mourners. A person running to get help . . .’

‘OK Dad . . . it’s unsettling. And none of it is true anyway. Paul McCartney is alive and well. So please stop.’

Ned looked up from the album and eyed his daughter critically. ‘Stop what?’ he demanded.

‘What you are doing,’ Penny said, refusing to meet his eyes. ‘Don’t ruin the music. You have happy memories associated with these albums, these songs. Don’t spoil that for yourself. You don’t have to make it so complicated.’

Ned paused for a moment to think about this. He looked back at the album cover, which he had been studying with increasing intensity and then transferred his gaze once again to Penny.

‘No. You’re wrong there, it’s not all happy. Not every memory. That’s impossible, Penny. In any relationship, no matter if it’s with your spouse, a friend, a child, anyone. It’s impossible to be happy all the time. You know that, don’t you?’

Penny focused her attention hard, on the world that was flashing by on the other side of the car’s windscreen. ‘Of course I know that,’ she whispered, feeling inexplicably sheepish.

Did she though? she wondered privately. She knew she wasn’t good at handling conflict. She preferred a simple life, for things to be on the straight and narrow, needed to know exactly where she stood, what to expect and when. She knew this was partly the reason she’d never left Mulberry Bay. Never went out and took on the big bad world like Elle had.

As if in reply to her silent musings, Ned began to hum a tune again – Penny just didn’t know from which song. ‘It can be hard, you know. When you don’t like dealing with the downs as well as the ups. And your mum and I had those too. Plenty of them.’

Penny was listening intently. While it seemed like Ned was rambling like this, just thinking aloud, lately she felt as if it wasn’t just idle chatter.