Do you remember when we made that promise, Dad? In the fading light of a summer’s evening, when you sat beside my bed and closed the book you’d been reading, leaning in to kiss me and wish me sweet dreams? Always that. Never goodnight. Definitely never goodbye.

You smelled of tea and biscuits. The beginnings of a beard peppered your chin, bristling against my cheek. Your beard was dark then. Not even a whisper of grey. Nothing like the creep of white that haunts your face now. Your skin in the glow of my bedside light was bright and flushed from a day’s work, and the comforting clatter of Mum washing up floated through the floorboards. I don’t remember how old I was, but I remember the book. The Tiger Who Came to Tea.