It had been such a long time since I’d talked about Dad. There’d been no one to tell. Poppy had asked about her grandfather once when she was little and they were doing family trees at school, but since then my past had just been shut up inside me because if I took the lid off the box of memories of Dad, that opened up my heart to Mum, and I hadn’t ever felt strong enough to tackle that. Maybe now was the time?

‘There was one thing that always made him cross, though,’ I said, as I pictured him. Clio was nodding encouragingly. ‘You couldn’t go anywhere near his hands. He was obsessed about them. I mean, they were nothing special, just big dad hands. I remember I trapped his finger in a kitchen cupboard once. I banged the door on it by accident. It wasn’t even that hard and I didn’t do it on purpose, but he went absolutely mental. You’d have thought I’d chopped it off for all the fuss he made. Funny the things you remember.’

I sighed and looked over at Clio. Her eyes were brimming with tears. God knows why. Sometimes she could be so over-sensitive about stuff. After all, this was my sob story, not hers, and it wasn’t even that sad. Dads left all the time. It was hardly unusual. Then I remembered that it hadn’t been that long since her dad had died so I decided to cut her a bit of slack.

‘You are such a soft get,’ I laughed.

Clio wiped her eyes with a handkerchief that she produced from her jeans pocket. It was always an actual handkerchief, not a tissue. That must be how they roll in posh circles.

‘I’m sure he loved you, Leah,’ Clio said quietly.

‘Yeah, probably,’ I said, rolling my eyes heavenwards. ‘He just had a funny way of showing it. I mean, what kind of a dad walks out without saying goodbye and then never gets in touch again? I kept thinking he’d just stroll back in and take charge of everything and then, when he never did, I decided that it must have been my fault that he’d left. Not sure how I made that out, but you know how teenagers think – everything revolves around them, even the bad stuff. Then I was cross. And then I was really cross. Now I’m just sad, but there’s nothing I can do about it.’

Clio was just staring at me. It was kind of eerie, to be honest, so to stop her doing it I asked her about her dad.

‘What about you?’ I asked. ‘It’s not that long since your dad died. Is it getting any easier?’

I remembered how Clio had been that very first time I met her, tears never more than a blink away. She definitely seemed stronger now.