‘She came in all flustered, like she’d been at a casting.’

My mother goes red. I look at her.

‘I thought you were at your course?’

‘Oh, I couldn’t hack that in the end, darling. Or rather – I feel I can do so much more. It’s too limiting to pigeonhole myself completely. I have things to offer the wider world. Besides, I don’t want to end up morbid, do I?’

She waltzes over to the piano and starts to play ‘One Moment in Time’ by Whitney Houston. Linda rolls her eyes and goes to clear a table. I sit at the bar, on one of the tall stools that always make me feel cool. I get out my phone and start scrolling. Just before the first chorus my mother breaks her tune and shouts: ‘Come on, Jenster!’

‘Don’t call me that,’ I say, still scrolling. ‘It makes me sound like an off-road vehicle.’

She does the song to the end, screeching over the music like a banshee. I barely notice because the pub post is proving popular.

‘What’s that? I’m not on the square photo one. I just do the Facebook.’

She is suddenly at my shoulder.

‘Stop creeping!’

‘I didn’t look purposely, it was just there. You know how we’re trained, as humans, to look at a screen. Our eyes are drawn, helplessly, to the lit opportunity.’

‘Is that right?’

‘That’s right. No phone at the bar!’ barks Linda.

‘Yes, no phones at the bar, Jenny, godsake,’ says my mother. ‘Have some respect for the old days.’

Linda rattles a cocktail shaker. Ratatatatatatatat. She pours violet liquid into two martini glasses and garnishes each with a blackberry and a mint leaf. She places the two purple cocktails in front of us.

‘What’s this?’

‘A Bramble,’ my mother says. ‘I asked Linda to make them up specially. I have a feeling you’ll like it.’

I flinch. ‘What made you order that?’

‘It looks nice. Why? Is it terribly gauche or old-fashioned or something?’

‘No, it’s just …’

‘What?’

Her head is close, so close. Her eyes – like the snake from The Jungle Book. I shake my head.

She picks up a glass and hands it to me. ‘Okay,’ she says. ‘Bramble for your thoughts.’

I look at my mother and go through all the possibilities in my head of what I could or could not say and how she might receive it and—

Oh god, what is even the point.

I sigh, exhausted. ‘There’s someone on Instagram with the same name as this cocktail and she stopped following me recently and I don’t know why but I know the possible reasons make up a large proportion of my daily thoughts. You could say I am quite distressed about it.’

My mother shakes her head quickly. ‘Come again, darling?’