‘You can come and visit me in Japan,’ she said.

‘I know,’ I said.

‘I hope you don’t feel like I have … abandoned you, or something?’

‘No,’ I said. I was pretty clear on this. ‘You have to go and learn ikebana and become a master.’ I thought about this for a second: could she be a master or would she only be a mistress? ‘It would be very sad if you couldn’t. It would be a waste of talent.’

Then Mrs Parish did hug me, but I didn’t mind: she was so spare with such things.

‘All right then,’ she said. ‘You’ve given me permission, Owen.’ She washed her hands under the hot tap and wiped them on the tea-towel. ‘Thank you.’ It was her last batch of bread. ‘Go and get your good clothes on, Owen. I’ll meet you at the car in half an hour. Wear something your mother will like.’

What would Mother like me to wear? What would Mother like me to wear? What would Mother like me to wear? I stood at the wardrobe and could not answer this question. Coats hung on good quality wooden hangers. Shirts were pressed. There was even a jerkin, and—on a thin arm of plastic-coated metal inside the wardrobe door—two ties.

I knew Mother would plan to wear her blue frilly expensive dress, but would change her mind at the last minute, possibly ripping it slightly when she tore it off. She’d leave it inside-out on her bed like children do. She’d put on a secretary skirt instead and a brown twin-set and a pair of shoes that were too high and too tight. Then she’d look at herself in the mirror and see that she was plain and ugly and frumpish, and she’d pull off the twin-set and wriggle out of the skirt and look for something else, something elusive, something her wardrobe didn’t contain. She’d pull out piece after piece, and as she tried things on, she’d get rougher and rougher with them, and more and more exasperated, with her wardrobe, and herself, till the clothes would layer the bed and the armchair and the floor, and she’d sit among them and weep for a bit, and wish she had someone who could advise her. Then eventually she’d stalk out and put the record player on and pour a drink, and go through the whole thing again, slowly this time, and as the first drink went down and she poured a second, gradually those discarded, inappropriate clothes would acquire a new life and she would begin to feel different. She would begin to feel special. She would begin to feel like a movie star going to the premiere of her new film. She would dress herself again and this time she would keep her wardrobe door open where the full-length mirror was and she would admire every bit of her form, the way the clothes fit so well, the way the buttons did up so neatly, the way her throat rose so elegantly from the collar. Because the fact was she was still beautiful and her hair was still golden, and, you know, you could mistake her for a movie star. And she was beautiful in the light of that room, and the aura of that drink, and the sadness of that music. Her ensemble, finally devised, would thrill her—only her, only then, in that moment. And then she’d leave the house and it would be too late, it’d all change back again. The outfit would be the wrong thing after all: the bad thing, the ugly thing. And she would not be able to be happy.