Has there ever been a disappointment like that first one? She looked and looked, searching for the princess with golden hair piled high on her head and a dress so sparkling it would hurt to look at it. What she saw, finally, was an ordinary lady, with hair like Mummy’s and a dress like Nan would wear. You’re much prettier than the princess, she said to Mummy and the man said, She’s right, if you don’t mind me saying, and Mummy giggled and then the princess was out of sight and the man said, The trains will be packed for the next little while. How about we have a drink? And so they went to a dark shop and Nic was allowed to go to the toilet with Mummy (as she remembers this she notices her crotch and thighs are wet and cold and she realises her bladder must have let go) but then she had to wait outside while Mummy and the man drank wine. The man gave her five dollars and told her she could buy anything she wanted, but he didn’t know she already had three dollars from Nan in her pocket and that is what she used to buy the souvenir tiara from the table covered in glitter and streamers. She put it on her head and then she used the man’s five dollars to buy the biggest Pepsi you could get and the biggest bag of red frogs and the biggest bucket of chips, and she ate and drank it all and then vomited all over the man’s feet when he and Mummy came out after a hundred hours. On the train home Mummy cuddled her and kissed her forehead and said, What a beautiful tiara, aren’t you a lucky girl, and she thought how she would have to keep it very safe so Daddy could see her wearing it when he finally got home.

Not the kind of thing you forget if you are not an out-of-control, stupid, thoughtless woman. Her oldest thing, probably, if you don’t count the ring and photo albums she inherited from Mum. Her oldest own thing, that she had managed to protect from Mum and Michelle all through childhood. (Where was Michelle that day? She would have been four or five, must have been with them. Nic cannot remember her presence at all.) It was so small and brittle and yet had survived almost as long as she had. Though her current situation had revealed unknown levels of breakability in her own structure and it was becoming increasingly likely that the tiara would outlast her in the end. The soon end.