“You were such a contented, happy baby, Trisha,” Grammy Rose said as we sat on her back porch sipping our drinks – water with a splash of lime for me, gin and tonic with a splash of lime for her. “I’d take you into the garden and lay you on a rug under that tree”—she pointed to the walnut tree in the corner—“and you’d lie there on your back for hours, kicking your little legs, watching the leaves and the shadows.”

“Where was Mum?” I asked.

Grammy Rose gave me a funny look, like I’d asked a stupid question.

“Same place she has been for years, Trisha. Same place she’s been since she was twenty years old, though things got a lot worse for her after she married your father.”

I wanted to ask what she meant, but I was afraid. I’d already learnt by then it was better to keep emotions locked away.

Grammy Rose and Dad didn’t get on. Apparently, shortly after my second birthday, Dad told Mum she wasn’t to see her mother anymore. He said he wouldn’t have a disapproving mother-in-law questioning the way they raised their children.

Grammy Rose says she was banished from seeing her own daughter. A daughter who she could see was struggling to keep on top of a household and three young children.

Those two months I stayed with Grammy Rose were the happiest of my life. Largely because I convinced my grandmother I didn’t need to go to school, claiming I was smarter than everyone else in my year – which I was. I didn’t tell Grammy Rose that at fifteen, I’d become a constant source of attraction to all of the boys in the school and that they stared openly at my breasts as if it were their right. Many of the girls taunted me mercilessly – especially in the changing rooms. “Check out the cups on that bra,” or “Don’t stand too close – she might knock us out with those knockers.” I did my best to look frumpy, boring. I kept my straight blonde hair short, I wore oversized shirts, kept the uniform skirt far too long than was considered cool.

There were only two girls in the entire school I considered my friends, though I hardly saw them at all outside school. I was too busy at home to socialize anyway. With Mum nearly always out of commission, I was expected to do all the cooking and cleaning, and there was no way I wasn’t going to study hard. By then I knew the best chance of escaping home was to get a good qualification and a well-paid job. I never wanted to depend on anyone, because then no one could let me down.