I drive home past the cemetery and stop off to see dad. He's lying under a cherry tree and there's a thick carpet of Barbie pink blossom guiding me there. Sheep graze in the next field and the canal weaves its way in the distance. If dad wasn't dead this would be the perfect place.

I pause at Henry's grave, the baby who died in his cot at just a year old. It's covered in toys. His granny stopped me after his funeral and said, 'It's such a comfort Henry's buried next to Ken because he'll look after him.' I smiled and squeezed her hand, embarrassed by my grief over dad who had lived a full life and seen both his children and grandchildren grown. 

I always feel a fraud in the cemetery. I want to believe there is another world where babies float by on clouds and dad is spending his days gardening, putting the world to rights and having a fag that won't kill him. But I can't.

I did have one spooky moment a couple of weeks after dad died. I'd been lying in the dark listening to tedious all night radio when I had a really strong feeling my brother was visiting dad's grave. My brother, or 'Evil Kneval' as I call him because he's a thrill seeking nasty man, hadn't been to see dad in years.

When I had called to tell him dad was ill, we hadn't spoken in over a decade and I'd forgotten how his voice made every muscle in my body tense.

'I'm in Florida,' Evil Kneval said, as if he deserved an Olympic medal.

'He wants to see you before it's too late.' 

'I'm at the Cape,' he said. 

'Then we have a problem.' Dad would have been proud of me.

'It's not my problem,' he said, the only emotion impatience.

'One more thing....'

'What?' he said. I heard another voice calling his name.

'Crash and burn you evil bastard,' I said. 

He didn't hesitate. 'Just remember, I had Dad for ten years before you were born.' Then he cut me off. Always the last word.

Dad lasted two more days. I told him Evil was on his way. He smiled and said 'Good.' Now that killed me.

I lay awake throughout that long night feeling Evil nearby. As dawn broke, I drove through the morning  mist to the cemetery. I didn't need to get out of the car. There on dad's newly levelled soil was a field of Marigolds, like fat contented bees full of promise in the day's first light. Dad always had Marigolds in his garden, they were as much a part of the estate as Saturday night fights outside the Working Men's Club and bored teenagers hanging around the chip shop. Those Marigolds told me Evil knew dad better than I did. I wanted to pull out every root, stem and flower. 

I didn't. I couldn't. Even though they haunted me. 

Just as they finished flowering I dug them up and planted classic English Peonies heavy with scent and Delphiniums, aristocratically swaying in the summer breeze.

It all seems silly now. Dad's still dead and nothing changes. I zig-zag through the gravestones so as not to tread on anybody. My feet tingle as I dart around the headstones. It's much fuller now than a couple of years ago when dad first moved in. 

I get to his place. In a cemetery there's no bell to ring or door to knock. I wonder what all the Avon Ladies do on the other side.

'Hi Dad, I say. 'Me again.'

Silence.

I'd suppose I'd crap myself if he rolled up beside me and said, 'Hello Pidge, put the kettle on.' But when someone dies you live in hope. It's all you have.

I freshen the water in the vase next to dad's plaque with his name and dates on and hastily arrange a bunch of coral coloured roses. It's hot and I stand and stretch my back. That's when I notice a white van driving slowly past the cemetery and stopping at the junction.

I know immediately it's Dave the date! 

'Gotta go dad. Love you!' I run towards the gate.

A robin flutters past and sits on a post, its head cocked inquisitively to one side. 

Come to think of it, Dad always had a soft spot for Dave.