‘Hey, you. Have fun? What movie did you see?’

‘Yeah, it was great. The one with the cops and . . .’ I’m blanking and I wish I’d thought to do my research. Rookie mistake. ‘The robot guy. You know.’

She’s already halfway back to sleep but she manages a small nod, and I know I got away with it. I’ve never lied to her before and it feels like I just broke something.

The change of scenery hasn’t done me any favours and I scrunch up next to Lou listening to her breathe, as wide awake as I’ve been for the last six hours, thinking about a few things I know for sure after last night.

Danny Mulberry is definitely my uncle. The real Danny Mulberry is a lot different to the guy in that story in the Double. And this thing I’ve started isn’t going away.

I close my eyes and wonder how far out of your depth you can go before you start to drown.

Here’s a short list of things I’m very good at:

Making my own nutritionally balanced school lunches.

Writing my own exemption letters for excursions.

Signing my own report cards (I even add the occasional comment: That’s my girl! So proud of Wolfie!).

Coming up with dinners that don’t require too much chewing.

Stirring a cup of tea quietly, so the spoon doesn’t touch the sides.

Sweeping the carpet (quieter than the hoover).

Conversational Spanish (Bien hecho! Esa es mi chica Wolfie!).

Measuring my mother’s mood by the dent in her pillow.

Fluffing out dents in my mother’s pillow.

Keeping secrets.

The occasional bout of magic.

I’m not going to say what’s up with my mother is entirely my fault, but it’s always seemed like a bit of a coincidence that by all accounts things were going gangbusters for Lou until I came along. She’s never actually said that, of course, but I’ve spent more than a few minutes cross-checking the before-me and after-me photos and it’s given me quite a bit to think about.

In the oldest ones, when she’s a little kid, she looks like she literally doesn’t have a care in the world: halfway up a tree, holding on with one hand; on the beach running after a dog, shouting something back to the camera. Photos of her as a teenager when she’s cool and confident in her school uniform, then older in blurry shots at pubs or concerts, head back laughing, glass of wine in her hand. Right up to the photos when she’s crazy pregnant and looking like a hot jam doughnut about to pop, Lou seems almost ridiculously happy. In my favourite one, she and my dad are in front of a waterfall somewhere hot and Mediterranean, laughing their young, good-looking heads off, as happy as Larry. Their inside arms are wrapped around each other and their spare hands are on Lou’s massive belly. Me. Her bikini bottom is pushed right down under the bump and, even though I know she was about nineteen or twenty, she looks like a little kid who’s swallowed a watermelon.