‘I’m hanging!’ Bess breathed slowly, waiting for the commencement of the dire tradition. Her mother then began to whisper, and it sounded like water sloshing in her ear. Bess had to screw up her eyes and concentrate to hear.

‘I promised I wouldn’t say happy birthday until he got here, but happy birthday, Bessie.’

‘Thanks, Mum,’ she whispered back, although God knows why – there was only Chutney to hear her.

‘Right, here he comes. Come on, Eddie, for the love of God – she’s waiting!’ her mum yelled, with a tut at the end of the sentence that she reserved solely for talking to her husband. As usual, she placed the blame for any impatience solely at her daughter’s door, as if, while her dad rummaged in his sock drawer to find his instrument, Bess had been whispering, ‘I haven’t got all day . . . Tell Dad to get a move on!’

‘Hello, darling, it’s Dad!’

For the love of God! ‘Yes, hi, Dad!’ She rubbed her forehead with her fingers and took a deep breath.

‘Right, here we go!’ her dad chuckled. ‘This is the fifty-third time we’ve done this – hold on to your hat.’

Her mum counted them in. ‘And two, three, four – happy birthday, darling!’ they chorused.

‘Thank you, both!’ Bess put the phone on loudspeaker and sat back in the chair, listening as her dad warmed up with a couple of squeaky blows before starting properly on something that was vaguely recognisable as ‘Happy Birthday’. Her mum warbled the words slowly and her dad did his best to keep up. They played and sang for approximately half a minute, which warmed her heart and made her smile. She loved them, her funny mum and dad, who had their eccentricities but who loved her and always had. That, in truth, had been part of the problem. They loved her that little bit too much. A little bit too much for her to shatter the veneer of perfection in which she was coated, believing it would break their hearts. How do you look someone who holds you in such high regard in the eye and watch their expressions as you tell them they have been living a lie, worshipping a false idol, have backed the wrong horse?

‘Oh, that’s lovely. Thank you,’ she smiled, touched, as ever, by their efforts.

‘We are so looking forward to our lunch!’ her mum yelled. ‘Your dad got a voucher from Philip in the post. Hang on, I’ll go and grab it.’ Her dad, now silent, was no doubt creeping back up the stairs to restore his harmonica to the sock drawer until Philip’s birthday in three months’ time, when it would be called upon again.