You don’t just hit your mum, even when she’s attacking your girlfriend. And you don’t rugby-tackle her, knock her to the floor, put her in an armlock, or any of the various techniques I was trained to use on violent suspects. I settled for grabbing her by the wrists and yelling “Stop” in her ear as loud as I could.

She let go of Simone, who staggered to safety, and whirled to face me.

“What are you doing?” my mum demanded and shook my hands free of her wrists. Then she reached up and slapped me around the face. “I said what are you doing?”

“What am I doing?” I asked. “What the fuck are you doing?”

That got me another slap, but this one was perfunctory and didn’t make my ears ring. “How dare you bring that witch here,” she said.

I looked around but Simone had sensibly scarpered by that point.

“Mum,” I shouted. “Mum, what’s going on?”

She spat something in Krio, using words that I’d certainly never heard before. Then she drew herself up and spat on the ground. “Stay away from her,” she said. “She is a witch. She was after your father and now she is after you.”

“What do you mean, after my father?” I asked. “After Dad—what?”

My mum gave me the same look she always gives me when I ask what she considers a blindingly obvious question. Now that Simone was out of sight Mum seemed to be calming down.

“She was after your father when I met him,” she said.

“Met him where?”

“When I met him,” she said slowly. “Before you were a baby.”

“Mum,” I said. “She’s the same age as I am. How could she possibly be around when you met Dad.”

“This is what I am trying to tell you,” said my mum matter-of-factly. “She is an evil witch.”

Chapter 12 - It Don’t Mean a Thing

I FOUND her sitting on the pavement outside the piercing shop that’s next to the KFC. She must have seen me coming, because she leapt to her feet, hesitated for a moment, then spun and started walking away. In those heels it wasn’t hard for me to catch up. I called her name.

“Stop looking at me,” she said.

“I can’t stop myself.”

She halted and, before she could protest, I put my arms around her. She hugged me back and pressed her face against my chest. She sobbed once, caught herself, and took a deep breath.

“What on earth was all that about?” she asked.

“That was my mum,” I said. “She can get a little bit excitable.”

She pulled back and looked up at me. “But the things she said—I don’t understand how she could think I was—what did she think I was doing?”

“She’s on medication,” I said.

“I don’t understand,” said Simone. “What does that mean?”