‘But unlike your father, you’re not around in the daytime, are you? You’re in the market, selling second-hand clothes,’ she points out logically.

I sit on the stool and clasp my hands behind my head to stretch the tension out. In a couple of hours I can legitimately say goodnight and go to bed, and that’s the thought I’m hanging on to.

But my mother hasn’t finished yet. She gives a shrill, brief laugh. ‘Second-hand clothes!’ she repeats and takes a mouthful of her drink. ‘You’ve never been able to stick at anything, have you? You decide not to be a fashion designer. You get fired from your job. You set fire to the flat. You lose your boyfriends. You have no sense of responsibility. You’ve squandered every privilege you’ve been given. What have you achieved in life?’

I try to answer, swallowing the panic rising in me. ‘I’m good at – I’m good at finding clothes that suit people.’

‘Then go back to being a sales assistant and bring in a regular income so that you can afford a room of your own. Think about the future. What about a husband? Children?’ my mother asks. ‘This is hardly a secure basis for a good family life.’

I finish my drink in one. After the initial shudder the injustice rises up in me.

Alcohol. The insidious false bravado, the loss of mental restraint. At the same time there’s a small sober part of me begging me to keep quiet for my own good because I’ve never faced up to her before. ‘Family life?’ I say scornfully. ‘Like ours, you mean? We were never a family.’

‘Of course we were!’ She turns furiously to face me. ‘We were!’

This is what my childhood was like: I was dressed up and paraded around by my mother while my father kept away from us both in this very flat, even though our house was only commuting distance. I was more like a doll for her to play with than a person in my own right, with my own thoughts and feelings. A good family life?

I hook my hair behind my ear. ‘And when I started getting the attention from men instead of you getting it – attention I didn’t want, because I knew it was going to make you angry with me – that was it for you, wasn’t it? So it’s easier for me to keep men at a distance and let you steal the limelight. When you talk about me having a husband and children, I haven’t got much chance of that happening, have I?’

There’s a fearful pause, and I brace myself and count the seconds, waiting with self-loathing for that ominous gap between lightning and thunder.