I knew what was happening to you because it was on the news most days that first week. And the week after. Thanks to social media it seemed to go on forever. Not that I normally engaged with all that, but I did then—and you got a shedload of coverage on the local newspaper’s website as well. You made headlines nationally at first—“Sixty-Four-Year-Old Grandmother Victim of Arson Attack,” that sort of thing. The nation was outraged, but it didn’t seem to last. I reckon if it’d been your granddaughter who got hurt there would’ve been a lot more interest, but it’s like people don’t care so much about grannies and over-sixties, do they? That’s what my ma said.

Then it came out that your granddaughter’s violin had been lost in the blaze, one her dad had given her that was worth a good bit; she got plenty of coverage then. I saw her being interviewed on TV West and I thought to myself, must be nice to own something special like that, to have a dad who isn’t an a***hole who didn’t even hang around for the birth. A dad who’d think about what would make her happy when she got older and he was no longer around. I kind of get what she meant when she said she felt she’d lost the last part of him, and I forgot for a moment that it was because of me. Then I had this crazy idea about using some of the cash I’d made to try and get her a new one, but obviously I couldn’t do that, could I?

My mum cried when she saw her on the news, then she flipped out the way she does sometimes, screaming and banging her head against the wall like she wants to bash her own brains in. I had to pin her down or she’d have managed it. I’ve always hated it when she goes off on one like that. I want to shout at her and shake her to make her stop, but I don’t. I just hold on until the worst is past. Then I give her some vodka or weed and try to settle her down.