I had been eighteen when my parents left home. Not only did they move out, they left the country. Dad had tried to emigrate and get a job abroad before – Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada, Kenya. He had considered them all over the years but, this time, it was definite. He longed to get away from rainy, grey Manchester, and when a post as a senior lecturer at a university came up on sunnier shores, it was a dream come true for him. Apart from my elder brother, Matthew, and me, my family were off to New Zealand and taking everything I took for granted with them – regular meals, Sunday lunches, family Christmases, my mother’s words of concern and care on days of exams, interviews or illness, bills paid, warmth and company when I returned at night. With them went a sense of belonging, security, a home.

Not that I cared at the time. I couldn’t wait for them to go, particularly my father, who in my late adolescence had become increasingly critical and sarcastic. No, their departure meant independence. I had a place at Manchester Art College. A world of possibility would be opening up in front of me, and there would be no one to hold me responsible. At last, the freedom to live the kind of lifestyle I’d longed for, all my teenage years.

Of course, we made lots of jokes about them going at the time, like ha-ha, Matthew and I were so dreadful that not only did Mum and Dad leave home, they went as far as possible. But I wasn’t laughing when it came to the day for them to go. Watching them load everything up one day in July, get a taxi to Piccadilly Station, get on a train and disappear: not my happiest memory. Mum was crying as they boarded and my younger brother, Mark, kept asking, ‘Why aren’t Matthew and Bea coming with us?’ I burst into tears, which set Mark off too, even though he was sixteen at the time. Mum was too busy trying to get everything on the train to notice that I was freaking out inside. I was determined not to make a scene. I didn’t. I turned away and put on a cheerful mask. Dad kept saying, ‘You can still change your mind. There’s a place at the university over there if you want it.’ But no way was I leaving Manchester, Marcia, my place at art college – no way.

I felt weird all the same.

When the train started up, took off along the track then disappeared, I thought, Right, that’s it, now you haven’t got any family, like they’d died or something.

There was still Matthew but he rarely showed his feelings. He didn’t that day. He just shrugged and set off to meet his girlfriend, Juliet, so I went home alone.

The house felt eerily quiet when I got back.