We are all in a field of some sort: a wild place it looks, scudding clouds above us in a blue, blue sky and long, windswept grass. My parents are standing and my father is holding me in his arms, face out, so we are all looking at a camera that, I am guessing, is perched on a wall or a fence, set on a timer, one of those ones that whirr and click – such was technology at the time. It looks like it is a warm day, despite the wind. My mother is wearing a sundress and lace-up shoes with ankle socks. My father is in trousers and shirt with the sleeves rolled up. I am dressed in a strange knitted outfit, knitted trousers and a matching jacket – surely an elderly relative was involved in its purchase or construction. I don’t like to think my mother might have paid good money for it. The photograph is in colour and must have been taken around 1980 but make it black and white and it could be a photograph from the fifties, forties, thirties even. We are an eternal trio.

My father holds me in his arms, one strong forearm supporting my weight and the other around my waist. He is tipping me, to make me laugh for the camera. I am tilted towards my mother and have one fat hand reached out towards her face. She is looking at me, her eyes shining. All three of us have our hair lifted by the breeze. We are frozen yet it is a picture full of movement – our very stillness, caught in that moment, implies motion. If you looked at that picture for a while, studied it, it would tell you everything you needed to know about our small, triangular family.

*

I suppose if I had lived to have children I might have understood my parents, and worked out how it was possible for them to seem such hard work on a day-to-day basis and yet for all those days of irritation to add up to years of love.

My mother and I were in the kitchen one day. I was young enough to be sitting on the kitchen counter, swinging my legs, banging my little heels against the doors of the cupboards underneath.

‘Don’t do that, darling,’ she said.

‘Why not?’ I asked. I was sucking on two fingers and had to take them out of my mouth to ask the question. As soon as the question was out, the fingers went back in.

My mother was at the kitchen sink, her arms truncated by soapsuds, turning a clunking Pyrex dish over and over beneath the water. The water was very hot as steam rose from it. Could I really remember this? I must have been very young.

‘Mum’s got a headache. It’s a bit annoying,’ Mum said. (Mum, I remember, not Mummy, so maybe I was older than I think.)