THERE IS ONLY one way to sing like Frank Sinatra. Keep your body straight, taut like a rope. ‘The deep vibrato will come from your stomach,’ my father always told me. Next, sip in little breaths from the sides of your lips. Tip your neck back and send out those long notes from the back of your larynx. Frank never sings in beat. ‘Tatim, it’s not cool to follow the beat,’ my father would say. He didn’t need instructions or a tuner. He could close his eyes and feel for the melody. I’d lie beside my father, head tilted to one side, listening to him inhale as he sang, a lovely sotto voce confirmation that two hearts were in solemn agreement.

Every afternoon that year, we would lie at the end of his bed, bellies down, the remote control pointed at the CD player in front of us, harmonising Frank Sinatra’s classics: ‘New York, New York’, ‘Fly Me To The Moon’, and my father’s personal favourite, ‘A Cottage For Sale’.