I can feel my whole ‘When I was your age’ speech coming on when she stomps away but I swallow it down to not ruin the day. The last few days haven’t been good for any of our nerves. But when I was her age I had a baby and no running water to contend with! When I was her age I had no idea what life would throw at me next! When I was her age I had successfully shut every door that I thought would be open to me! When I was her age my O-level results resulted in a big fat nothing and Mammy gloating over it like a cat swimming in cream.

I hear her on the phone again to Nora Reilly, complaining like a champion, and I think, yes, today is as good as it gets! The pure joy that we were arguing over a cake and not a coffin bubbled inside me and I put every ounce of love I had for her, for them all, into arranging the walnuts around the edge. It had to be perfect.

Mother dearest arrives to darken the half-door. She’s early, not because she’s polite but because she’s trying to catch me out. She has no idea how well-prepared I am today. I’ve been scheming all night. All the death of the last week has made me feel foolish for wasting so much of the life I’ve been given. She scans the kitchen and can’t find a single thing to complain about: a first.

The sound of my father’s tractor rounding the bend before he gets to the street brings all the children running and I hear the gate to the river field whine open and clang shut. John Johns is coming. I watch for him to appear in the far window. I know he will stop by the water butt and wet his face and hair with the still-cool rain. He will wipe his hands on his jeans and turn back to look at the river field before he ducks to get into the kitchen. He will smile at me today. I hold myself absolutely still so that he can’t miss me.

I have scrubbed this house from top to bottom. I have even polished myself. I have made a perfect cake. I have laid a perfect table. Everyone he has ever cared about is in this room except Catherine. I can’t do anything about her but there must still be time to do something about me? I’m here and well and living right under his nose.