NINA: She began screaming in her sleep.

Zoe would wake to the sound of Nina sleeping on the floor by her bed: snoring because there was a draught and she didn’t have a pillow.

‘You’re seeing your therapist again today, aren’t you?’ Nina asked.

Zoe groaned. The groan made her feel strange in her body, and pained in her head. Maybe she was going to die, too. ‘Maybe I’m going to die,’ she said, out loud. Nina jumped up. ‘Zoe! Into the bathroom. I’m going to ring that therapist and ask him to see you every day. Once a week isn’t enough. Into the shower, dressed, out.’ She called down the passage: ‘Mum, will you come and help?’

Ruth came rushing from her bedroom, in her dressing gown, hair sticking up. ‘Out of bed, pet,’ said Ruth.

Zoe squeezed her eyes shut.

‘Right then,’ said Nina.

‘Ready?’ said Ruth.

They pulled back Zoe’s bedcovers and heaved her upwards.

‘Oh,’ Nina said.

‘What?’ Zoe asked.

‘Oh,’ said Ruth.

It was the first time Zoe had seen Ruth cry up close.

She looked down. There was blood on the bedsheet and her old Minnie Mouse cover.

‘Oh,’ Zoe said.

With a finger, she touched the red, and drew it in a streak across the sheet.

She felt arms around her shoulders, wet kisses on her cheeks, and – as she closed her eyes in amazement that the moment had finally come – the cold whisper of something else passed through her: not just the screaming of the wind the night her grandmother left, but a warm breath on her face, the sharp scent of island salt, a thing with a womb and two breasts, who was and wasn’t a woman.

RUTH: She was changing too much. Before our eyes.

Nina dropped Zoe at the therapist’s office on the way to work.

What is your earliest memory – The therapist was wearing pale blue trousers. Really ugly. The frown between his eyes was more like a bulge. He wasn’t young after all. Probably he was really old, like in his thirties – of your grandmother?

All Mx Thompson’s talk in assembly was of intergenerational sharing in Native American menstruation circles and modern-day ‘red tents’ – but her grandmother was gone from her. The flow between generations had been staunched, in Zoe’s case. She felt a wave of self-pity. Water welled up. Tears and snot. Hot face, pain behind the eyes. Zoe clenched her fists. She felt angry with this man. Stupid, ugly man. She didn’t want to cry. The memory came to her of walking along the beach at Cwen, holding some cowries in her fist, and Eva bending down, kissing her on her head, and the happy feeling inside, the certainty of being loved. Zoe wailed.

Ah good, said this most annoying man.