As ever, my dad had brought her a pile of books, a new tape of piano music, the latest school photo of me, self-conscious and rather spotty, my hair carefully pushed back to show my newly pierced ears. She took the picture and held it in her hands without looking at it. She clutched it hard. Dad talked about our forthcoming summer holiday to Brittany; tried to joke with my mother, asking her if she was looking forward to snails and frogs’ legs, telling her he’d ordered up the sun especially. At one point she held her hand out to him and he took it gladly. But it wasn’t long before her fingers slipped from his grasp again. She was so monosyllabic, kind of curled up and sunken, that in the end he gave up entirely.

‘I’ll go and get some tea, shall I? I’m parched.’ He was too bright, practically backing out the room, his angular frame starting to stoop as he always would from this time on.

As the door swung shut, my mother looked at me properly. I picked at the hem of my school skirt.

‘Come here, Maggie, would you?’ Her voice was little more than a whisper as she patted the bed next to her, placing my photo carefully on the table. I scuffed my way across the room and sat. She took my hand in her skeletal one.

‘Did you see my earrings?’ I twisted my head this way and that to show off my gold studs proudly.

‘Oh, they’re lovely.’

Actually my ears were red and angry, a crust forming round the small studs every night.

‘I wanted – I wish I could have taken you,’ she said, forlorn.

‘S’all right.’ I was generous. ‘Gar came. And Bel. They do crosses on your ears with felt-tips, did you know? It did hurt.’ I spun one round. ‘I didn’t cry, though.’

‘Darling Maggie, you know –’ she cleared her throat like it actually hurt her to, ‘you do know how much I love you, don’t you?’

‘S’pose,’ I mumbled. I rolled one white sock up; I rolled it down again. I looked at a younger me, at the happy family photos of us being normal. I studied the watercolour Gar had painted for her only daughter of her beloved Pendarlin, trying to bring the light back to her life. I looked anywhere but into my mother’s great blue eyes because I couldn’t stand to see the pain.

Her grip tightened on my hand. It was the most energy I’d known her to exert for months, but I didn’t understand. Freeing myself, I crossed the room to fiddle with the net curtain.

‘You’ve got so tall. You’re getting like a willow.’

‘I know. Dad says I’ve got to stop growing cos I’m costing him too much. He has to keep buying me new uniforms.’