‘Why are you really here?’ she asks, eyeing me with suspicion.

‘Nice to see you too, Mother,’ I say with a quiet sigh, and take a seat.

26

June 2018

I SHIFT ON THE chair opposite as she takes me in, the beginnings of a frown on her forehead.

‘You’re looking for something. I can tell. You were the same as a child, too timid to say what you were thinking. Just speak up!’

A spark of annoyance now, and I’m tempted to change tack – to tell her I’m here because Mark has noticed how expensive my fictional therapy sessions are. To say that I’m not earning now, and the ‘Dr Kinsella’ payments have to stop. That she’ll need a new source of income to pay for her cigarettes and whiskey and other substances of choice. But I don’t. I stay on track.

‘You know we moved house?’

‘No. How would I know that?’

‘Well, we moved house. To a place called Rowanbrook.’

I watch for her reaction but there’s none. Or is that a slight narrowing of eyes?

‘Good for you.’ She says it in a way that makes it clear she does not in fact mean ‘good for you’.

‘Have you ever been there?’

‘Are you inviting me?’ A sly smile now. A cat eyeing up a mouse. ‘Would you like to bring me over to meet your fine, upstanding husband and your fine, upstanding children?’

She has no interest in meeting them, I know that. She does this to torture me. I call her bluff, as I always do.

‘Absolutely. You should come for Sunday dinner.’

A bark of a laugh. ‘Some day, I might just do that. And then your little house of cards will come tumbling down, won’t it.’ She stubs her cigarette and immediately lights a fresh one, her hand shaking as she holds the lighter to the tip. ‘You think I’m joking but I’d quite like to see it – Joanna Kirk in her nice but boring house with her nice but boring husband. I’m guessing your kids are nice but boring too?’

I bite my lip.

She nods slowly. ‘I bet they’re the kind of kids who try to please everyone – the sort who are no fun at all. I bet they end up walking around the school yard on their own every lunchtime. You were like that – remember?’

My cheeks colour but I’m still not rising to it.

She nods. ‘I remember. You whimpering that you had no friends. Nobody to talk to.’ A deep drag of her cigarette, eyes on mine. ‘Maybe lighten up a bit?’ she says through her exhale. ‘Maybe try not being such a drip all the time, then you’d have friends?’

‘I have friends.’

‘Not back then you didn’t. Never invited to parties, never asked over to anyone’s house. The clues were there.’ A laugh that turns into a cough as she breathes out blue smoke. ‘Tell you what, invite me over and I’ll teach your kids how to be fun.’