‘Owen Ferrugia,’ said Mr Box. He had recently shaved off a black moustache and he looked more frightening without it than with. ‘Sit down, sir,’ he said. ‘It seems congratulations are in order.’

While I squirmed, bug-eyed, in his too-big office chair, he fetched a document in a yellow manila envelope.

‘Here you are, boy!’ he said. ‘You have won this poetry competition. Get your parents to take you down and retrieve your prize. We’re going to announce it at assembly on Monday morning and give you your prize on the stage up there. Alright? So make sure you go and get the books or we’ll have nothing to give you.’

I nodded because what else could I do and he handed over the manila envelope. Mrs Parish took me to Mary Martins on Saturday morning. I got my hamper (though I cannot remember a single book that was in it) and was fussed over by the bookshop staff. I then had my prize re-presented to me on Monday morning in the school hall and suffered all the same fuss all over again from the teachers. I was not, however, resented by my school friends for sticking my head so far up above the general field of poppies—none of them thought a book hamper was any sort of prize at all. George and Callum only read things about VFL.

Ornella said: ‘You little brainbox!’

Mrs Parish said: ‘Exceptional, Owen. Exceptional.’

Papa said: ‘Damn you, Owen, I thought you were going to take after me and become a chef!’

Mother said: ‘Chip off the old block, O-yo’ and kissed me on the forehead.

I wanted Mother to be impressed by my win, but Mother was going through a phase of nonchalance now, accepting everything with a wave of the hand and a slight incline of the head. Like the queen. I didn’t trust it. I knew it was not real, and that in her head a million things were gathering and exploding and biding their time. But everyone said she was ‘much better’ and ‘doing really well’ and ‘Sometimes a person needs to get a fright …’ I believe it was you, mainly, saying all those things, Ornella. You put your head on one side when speaking of Mother. ‘She’s on the wagon,’ you said, and I imagined Mother in a fringed suede jacket with a whip, standing up and spurring on the horses. She looked like Miss Jane in F-Troop.

On account of Mother’s newfound serenity, I was, however, enjoying my Thursdays more than I had in a long time. I think Mother liked them too. She had stopped trying to be a Mother in the respectable normal way, or in the struggling slightly desperate way, and as a result things were much more relaxed and we were having much more fun. We were just incidental companions on summer holidays together.