‘He’s talking about Macbeth! The fiend-like queen – that’s me. And they’re holding up Macbeth’s head and this orange light comes over them – it’s like an Isis video. Cheers!’

Lucy brings a whole new element to the night. There are some things that my parents will only say to me, which shows some kind of loyalty, I suppose, so the conversation stops being personal. Lucy sits on the footstool and I sit on the Barcelona chair while my parents loll on the sofa. We’ve reached the hazy stage of drunkenness where words become particularly meaningful.

Lucy’s still talking about the play and her excitement about the concept of the ‘Pahr off sgestion’.

We’re momentarily perplexed but rooting for the concept anyway. ‘Par? Path?’ I prompt helpfully.

She takes a couple of shots at it.

‘Parf – parf –.’ She takes another sip of the drink to clear her head and leans forward. ‘Power of suggestion,’ she says, exaggerating the words at us as if we’re deaf. ‘The three Weird Sisters, psychics as we call them, I play second psychic as well … anyway, the thing is, they put the idea into Macbeth’s head. They plant it there. Hadn’t occurred to him to become the Thane of Cawdor before then but he thought, you know what? I can do that. See what I mean? It’s dark, right?’

‘Aha! Brainwashing,’ my father says.

‘Not brainwashing.’

‘Visualisation,’ I say.

‘You see?’ Lucy asks happily.

‘They didn’t read the future, they just gave him a goal to aim for,’ my father says.

‘Yes!’

My mother’s face turns my way. ‘What are your goals, Fern?’

‘To make a success of my business.’

She remains unimpressed. ‘That’s it?’

‘Well,’ I shrug, ‘the Thane of Cawdor thing’s already gone.’

My mother hates flippancy. ‘She had so much promise,’ she says, turning to Lucy for support. ‘She’s thrown it all away. She needs to do more with her life.’

‘Why does she?’ Lucy asks. ‘She’s got a nice life. You’ve got a nice life, Fern, haven’t you?’

‘Yes.’ I want to hug her.

My mother says icily, ‘She’s got a market stall.’

Cheerfully unaware, Lucy replies, ‘I know. Great, isn’t it? There was a waiting list and everything! She was really lucky to get it, weren’t you, Fern?’

My mother’s not used to people disagreeing with her. She glares at Lucy from the depths of her narrow eye sockets. When Lucy remains oblivious to the silent death stare, my mother stands up and announces coldly, ‘I’m going to bed.’

Retires: hurt.

‘Goodnight,’ we say in unison.

As she stands, the fur on her cape quivers as if it’s alive – and about to throttle her.

The thought comes into my head with no particular emotion or malice.

My mother goes through the door that leads to the bathroom and bedroom and closes it quite firmly.