Her daughter interrupted Julia’s helpless stammering and screamed, ‘With us it was love. But you… you just wanted to fuck Tom!’

‘Tom?’

At that moment Julia performed a cliché. Her jaw dropped. And she felt incapable of closing it again.

‘Don’t look like that! He was my first.’ With a vulgar gesture Lisa grabbed her crotch. ‘He took my virginity, Mama. We were to be together forever. But then you came along.’

‘Tom?’

Tom Schiwy?

‘Wasn’t it enough taking my father away? Did you have to steal the love of my life from me too?’

‘Your liaison teacher… the man I had an affair with, Tom Schiwy…?’

… abused you?

Lisa took a step closer. In the mirror Julia could see that her combat boots weren’t done up. The laces were flapping loose.

‘Loved. Oh, yes. We were going to get married. He told me I was much more mature than all the others.’

‘But darling, sweetheart…’ Julia was about to get out of the armchair, but Lisa threatened her with the screwdriver and made her sit back down.

‘Don’t try telling me it wasn’t your fault. I saw the way you spruced yourself up for him. You went to the parent consultation dolled up like a cheap tart to throw yourself at him. You’d have loved to go to school just in your underwear, wouldn’t you?’ She gave Julia a scornful stare, pointing first at her panties and then at her bra. ‘Christ, do you actually know how unhappy I was?’

Lisa blew a strand of hair from her face.

‘Didn’t you notice I wasn’t able to eat any more? That I was only wearing black clothes? And skiving off school with my new friends? No, you didn’t. You only had eyes and ears for your Tom.’

You’re wrong. Oh, God, darling. You’re wrong.

‘Listen to me, Lisa,’ Julia instructed her. ‘I understand your anger. But what your teacher did with you…’

‘Don’t you go fucking justifying yourself,’ Lisa interrupted her. ‘Querky said you’d try to talk your way out of it.’

Querky?

‘Wait a sec, I thought that was your boyfriend?’

This time Lisa managed an honest smile. Derogatory and derisive. ‘Querky’s a she. Yes, you know what, dearest Mother? I didn’t know either. I met her on the internet. In a suicide forum.’

‘Jesus Christ, Lisa…’

‘Shit, I wanted to kill myself when Tom dumped me for you.’

Tears flooded into Julia’s eyes at this admission. ‘I’m really sorry, I didn’t know…’

‘But Querky opened my eyes.’ Lisa stabbed the screwdriver in Julia’s direction. ‘It wasn’t me who had to be punished, but you.’

‘And that’s why you staged your own suicide?’

To scare the living daylights out of me?