‘Who’s the adult here, Sonya?’

I turn my back so he doesn’t see the heat in my face.

‘Sometimes we all have to do things we don’t want to. It’s important Tommy knows that.’

I open the cupboard where I keep my Cif lemon cleaning fluid; there’s a Brillo pad there too. I spritz and scrub every surface, obsessed with every streak on the wall I haven’t noticed before. Mrs O’Malley’s cleaning spree was far from thorough. The sweeping brush is in my hands and I’m swiping at a cobweb in the far corner of the kitchen. The poor spiders. What will become of them now? My eyes fill. A flash of Tommy’s face illuminated by flames, his eyes reflecting the flickering fire. What might have happened plays out for a moment… My boy engulfed in fiery heat. My boy suffocated. My dog abused.

‘Sonya, it has to be this way. Mrs O’Malley won’t let this continue… Nor will I… You’d be doing the right thing.’

Has he ever said those words to me before? It was Lara who stoked his disapproval, his distaste, his visceral dislike of me. I’ll never understand the wedge that woman felt the need to drive between us. The thought of Tommy around her almost strangles me. A coughing fit grabs me by the throat. My father gets up and pats me on the back. ‘There, there, Sonya, there, there,’ as if he’s trying to soothe a colicky baby.

‘I’m going in to Tommy, need to check up on him.’

‘Is that wise? He’s probably asleep.’

I go into the bedroom, close the door softly behind me and find the two of them curled into each other, snoring soundly. I sit at the edge of the bed, reach out a hand to smooth Tommy’s worried forehead. His worried forehead, and he’s not yet five. His little head full of bad fairies and black birds of worry and his tummy that’s often sore, his filthy home, and his mother who’s a lush, a selfish, selfish, selfish lush. How many more times am I going to say ‘tomorrow’? How many more times am I going to say ‘sorry’? And the house almost going on fire is not the worst of it; the worst of it happened earlier today with no witnesses, and I was capable of that. A woman capable of that is capable of anything. Monster Mother – I can see the blaring headlines. Everything in the room comes into sharp focus, my vision as if filtered through crystal, and I can see a future where my bitch imp has me in her grasp. I whisper to them both, ‘You are not safe with me as I am.’

I stand, go to the window and lean my forehead against it. I open the wardrobe, get my wheelie bag and start to throw things in haphazardly.

Tommy opens one eye. I stop what I’m doing.

‘How’s Nod, darling? Have you found the land of the kind giants yet?’