Mother broke free, still holding the hairbrush.

‘You’ve hurt me!’ Papa said. He put his hand to his cheekbone.

At this, Mother started laughing a horrible laugh.

‘Jesus!’ said Papa. ‘You’re a madwoman!’

Mother laughed and laughed and laughed and I wanted to run over and push her, right in the middle of her stomach, so she went crashing up against the wall and had the laughter flung out of her. I wanted to push her and ram a cushion over her whole laughing stupid face. Why couldn’t she say Yes Jo and mean it? Why did she have to ruin things when he was just trying to be a good husband?

Papa lunged for the hairbrush and Mother shrieked, jumped back, threw it on the floor at his feet. Only it bounced, and when it bounced its trajectory was clear and inevitable: it went straight through the back window, the glass coming down in little shaky diamonds around it. Papa yelled again, ‘You’re a fucking madwoman!’ and came toward her as though he wanted to kill her, but Mother leapt away and locked herself in the bathroom.

She spent the whole night in the bathroom. It was cold there, I thought: those tiles, they were so cold. And dirty. In between them, where the grout was, was all black and mouldy. They really needed scrubbing with a toothbrush or a nailbrush, they needed a damn good scrub, and they were cold and hard.

My bedroom was on the other side of the wall. ‘Owen!’ Mother said to me through the wall. ‘Owen. Owen! O-yo. Please, O-yo. Bring me some blankets, will you, and a pillow, O-yo!’

But I wouldn’t come. Why would I come in the bathroom with her? Why would I go and look after her? She didn’t look after me. Not properly. Not like a real mother. Why would I?

There were towels in there, weren’t there? She could make a bed with them in the bath.

2016 DOLL THERAPY

Last week, I tell Julia, they did doll therapy with some of the dementia patients at the care unit where Ornella lives. Mainly the women, but some of the men too. All sorts of dolls were brought in: rag dolls, hard plastic dolls, even china dolls. One resident took to her doll with particular passion. She nursed her doll all day. She brought her doll to meals and we had to set up a makeshift highchair for it. She tended to her doll, brushing its hair, tying on its bib. And then yesterday, we noticed that the doll had gone. There was Rose-Marie, at the breakfast table, eating her Weeties as usual, but the doll was nowhere to be seen. When we asked Rose-Marie where Baby was, she just smiled a strange sated smile.