He put down his cutlery and blew out a sigh. ‘Blimey, that’s made me think.’ He seemed to drift off. His eyes rested on the photograph of Mum on the mantelpiece. It’s one taken on our last holiday when we rented a caravan in Hunstanton. I love that picture of her. She’s laughing. She used to laugh a lot. We all did. I can hear her laugh if I concentrate hard but I worry that one day I won’t be able to remember what she sounded like. It’s like she’s slowly being rubbed out. Dad blinked and gave me a sorrowful look. He always looked like that if I tried to talk about Mum. I was ready for him to change the subject. ‘We met in Plummers,’ he said at last.

‘At a plumber’s?’ I laughed at the thought of them surrounded by toilets.

‘No, you goon. Plummers was the little bookshop in the high street. I was picking up the latest Stephen King novel. I made out I’d ordered it but really it was my dad’s.’ He chuckled at the memory. ‘Your mum was with her friends giggling in the romance section. We got chatting and I asked her if she wanted to go for a Coke float. I loved a Coke float, me. Why don’t we have those anymore?’

I rolled my eyes at his nostalgic view of the old days. I knew they were my age when they got together. Soul mates he called it when he’d said a few words at her funeral. I don’t know exactly what he meant but I do know they were happy. Not perfect. There were arguments, sometimes, but nothing to spoil my memories. Dad said they didn’t have much money and that’s the only thing they rowed about.

‘She loved to read, did your mum.’ He looked at the photograph again.

‘I remember her sitting on my bed reading me bedtime stories.’

He gave me a watery look. ‘Books never interested me. Do you read much?’

I shrugged but he expected more of a response. ‘Just the stuff school makes us read.’

He looked around the small dim living room. It had hardly changed since Mum died. Just that it was a bit neglected and more of a mess.

What he’d said gave me something to think about. Girls liked romance novels. I wondered if that was still true?