Seemingly, he can’t just load them into his car and fuck off out of my hair. No, he needs to carry everything into the living room and sort through it painstakingly slowly without any regard for my feelings at all. I am fidgeting about, tidying up and straightening things unnecessarily, willing him to leave.

‘Can’t you do that at home?’ I ask tersely.

‘Yeah, I will,’ he mutters. ‘Won’t be much longer.’ He continues to flick through paperwork.

If anything, my Sunday afternoon with Penny has ignited a fresh spark of anger in me. After all, when she was pissed off over some matter of the heart, she didn’t sit there feeling sorry for herself. Instead, she got drunk and egged someone’s car.

She guzzled a cream horn in a bookshop café because she wanted one. Although it didn’t end well, the fact is, she didn’t worry about the possible consequences. I should be more like Penny, I decide.

‘I really don’t want you doing this here,’ I bark at him.

‘Oh.’ Looking startled, he starts to gather up his stuff.

‘Can I also ask you,’ I add, my heart thudding now, ‘if there’s some reason why you won’t let Izzy visit you at your flat?’

He blinks at me in surprise. ‘Er, not really, no.’

‘It’s just, if there is, I’d rather you said why instead of spouting me a load of old shit.’

‘All right. Jesus.’ He shakes his head as if I am being entirely unreasonable. ‘There isn’t much space, that’s all.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, really!’ Clutching a box crammed with papers, he starts to make his way towards the front door.

I can feel one of those hormonal rages building up in me, the ones I have no control over, and I inhale slowly and deeply in an attempt to calm myself. ‘I don’t mean for her to stay overnight,’ I go on. ‘I just mean to visit, so she can see what your place is like. I think it’d be really good for her.’

‘Why?’ He frowns, almost comically.

‘To satisfy her curiosity of course. So she knows you’re living somewhere nice and that she’s welcome there.’

‘Well, yeah, but it’s really tiny,’ he says, raking back his neatly cropped grey-speckled hair.

‘She’s only four feet tall,’ I remark tersely. ‘I’m sure she’d manage to fit in—’ I break off as Izzy saunters into the room.

‘Honey, you’re meant to be in bed,’ I start, which she ignores.

‘We use centimetres at school,’ she announces. ‘I’m a hundred and twenty-two centimetres tall, exactly the same as Maeve.’

‘Are you? Andy blusters, getting up. ‘Wow. I had no idea you were as tall as that …’

She plonks a hand on her hip. ‘Why can’t I come to your flat, Dad?’