Penny smiled at this, but it was to her merely another example of how Elle was yet again the favourite in Ned’s eyes. She couldn’t ever remember her father seeming the least bit interested in her school work – it was always her mother who attended parent–teacher meetings, helped with homework. Feeling a little unsettled about what Anna had written about her being ‘needy’, Penny put down that journal and picked up another, opening it randomly.

June 30, 1987

It seems as if the sun is shining on our family as of late. Penny’s school dance night is coming up. She has a solo, which is thrilling – she prances about on stage quite well, it seems. But for the first time, Ned has actually volunteered to come along to the school with me. I can’t help but giggle a bit at the reason, after all, Ned has never shown a particular interest in dancing or leotards. But it’s because his prodigy of a daughter decided to pick a Beatles tune for her solo: Twist and Shout. I think she is quite good at dancing to it. I would venture to think she might even inspire Ned to get up and dance himself on the night. Wouldn’t that be a sight to behold . . .

Penny stopped reading for a moment and laughed at the memory – that dance display in particular had been quite memorable. She did recall that her number had brought the majority of the school hall to their feet, and she had the fuzzy recollection of her father standing up, next to Anna. No, he wasn’t dancing to ‘shake it up, baby’, or anything like that, but he was indeed clapping and singing along.

‘How had I forgotten about that?’ Penny asked herself, thinking of the moment where she had looked down from the stage and seen both of her parents stand up and cheer. She found it so difficult to connect with Ned sometimes that such memories were golden, and she ran her hand over the diaries, grateful for this rare and precious insight into her childhood.

But right at that moment, the door to the office opened, and Ned himself stepped tentatively in, looking around the room with a somewhat stricken look on his face, as if he was afraid of Anna’s ghost jumping out and yelling, Boo!

‘What’s so funny?’ he asked gruffly.

Penny’s smile faded and she quickly snapped the diary shut, unable to escape the feeling that she had been caught doing something she wasn’t supposed to.

‘Nothing,’ she said evasively. ‘Just remembering something nice.’

Ned scowled, as if the idea of laughing in this ‘Temple of Anna’ was something wholly inappropriate at such a time. Looking again around the room, he grunted, ‘Doesn’t look like you’ve got too much done.’