I give a rueful smile. No one has ever described my mother like that before. The hypnotherapy has made me think a bit more about what my mother’s done with her life, which is basically to look good. And she does look good, in a sphinx-style kind of way. I start to wonder if she’s actually not been putting me down all this time but trying to spur me on in her own weird way.

I ask Lucy what she thinks about this theory.

Lucy gestures with her white gloves, which makes her look like a mime artist. ‘Could be. She admires achievement in others. That whole Malcolm McDowell thing. Remember? When she thought I was starring with him in The Gatehouse?’

‘Yes. That’s true.’

‘I wouldn’t worry about it. She’s ambitious for you. It’s natural that our parents want us to do better than them.’

‘That’s what David said. Something like that, anyway.’ We stand aside to let a wobbling cyclist pass.

The sound of plaintive mandolin music drifts towards us. It’s the music punt, sitting low in the water, with a group of tourists looking happy as they’re serenaded through the weed towards the lock.

‘You’ve got to give the folks something to be proud of once in a while and throw them an achievement now and then,’ Lucy says. ‘It keeps them going for ages, and they feel they’ve done something right and they’re not total failures. They’re an insecure lot, parents.’

That my parents might be insecure has never occurred to me. They act as if they’ve got all the answers. ‘How do you know so much about it?’

‘Well, I’ve had mine ages,’ Lucy says airily. ‘Since before I was born. How about you?’

‘Same.’ We seem to have got incredibly wise all of a sudden.

We leave the canal by the horse stairs and cross the road towards our street.

‘So, what’s in the bag?’

‘It’s one of David’s light boxes.’

‘Oh, yeah?’ She turns her full attention to me. ‘Fern Banks! Do tell.’

‘He’s a Virgo.’

‘Ah, a Virgo. Neat, self-motivated, cautious, sensitive?’

I laugh. ‘All of those.’

‘You’ll suit each other,’ she says. ‘Good for you, Fern.’

We’re now outside our house.

Lucy goes up the three steps to her flat. I go down the steps to mine.

I can hear voices inside. My mother: laughing merrily.

And a man, laughing heartily.

But it’s not my father’s laugh.

My stomach crunches into a ball.

Well, it’s all clear now, isn’t it, the reason she left home? She’s got herself a love nest and like a cuckoo, she’s manoeuvring me, the little chick, out of it. Right.