Your feminism and that of my mother’s was of a similar kind, birthed in one city with the same influences. It meant birth control, work outside the home, and a refusal to be bogged down by either convention or religion. This particular kind of feminism could not accommodate sisterhood. Other women were to be climbed upon to get to the top and it did not mean compassion because that was a weakness. I was a disappointment to my mother while at the same time fulfilling her prophecy that without her upbringing I was doomed. She sacrificed me. These were here words, not mine. She was content to have a daughter who was lesser than her. You might want to write about my mother. Her anguish (or not) at having to leave her child. We were the noose that hung around her neck – her words not mine. I did, once, ask my mother why she did not take me with her. And she smiled sadly because my question betrayed my stupidity. She had wanted to leave me as much as she had wanted to leave my father.

The first time I travelled to see you was a big deal for me. I had never travelled alone. Would you believe it? I was twenty-eight and I had never travelled alone. He asked me, why do you really want to go? What are you going to do there? What are you going to gain? I had to answer these questions in order to get the necessary green light. Weeks of preparing babysitters and meals, sorting out all the logistics. I bought a new outfit, I went on a crash diet, I splurged on a facial. The finances were an issue all to themselves. There was the return train ticket to Edinburgh, the ticket to your event, the cost of your new hardback which I would surely buy and stand proudly in the queue to get signed. Why proudly? Because I had been your fan for years and because it would be my first ever time to speak to a writer. I would only queue for you and no one else, believe me.

Naturally I didn’t sleep the night before. All the growing excitement, the false alarms that flared up to threaten my outing. At the station, seeing an ad for the Edinburgh International Book Festival with your name on it made my palms turn cold. I hadn’t prepared myself for missing the children. My wrong empty lap, the Kit Kat I couldn’t share and all the sights that rolled past my window – but it would have been intolerable to have you in Scotland and not be there to welcome you.