Mamma had taken all of his clothes out. Just her things on one side, and the peeling drawer liner with the blue flowers where his underwear and socks normally were. Next drawer down, same thing, a space where T-shirts and polo shirts went. Some of them had been burnt in the bin that time, but not everything.

She was rubbing him out. Using Tipp-Ex and not writing him back in over the top.

It made the achy feeling come, along with a loud, fizzing fury.

Matty gathered all of Mamma’s blouses and shirts in both hands, cotton and silk and polyester, and threw them on the floor. Took out all of her underwear, her pants and bras with the wires in and the silky vest and dumped them on top. Unscrewed a perfume bottle. Emptied it out onto the pile.

Lipsticks. Matty broke one off and clenched a fist around it, watching as the red sludge oozed its way between each finger. Hand open again. It looked like a strange hoofprint, blood-red. Matty looked in the mirror, waterfall sounds rushing in both ears, and put some on.

Bottom lip. Top lip.

‘What are you doing?’ Mamma was there, hand on the doorframe, mouth open.

Matty went to stone, a lipsticky finger held in the air.

Mamma’s mouth shut, slowly, as her eyes moved around the room. ‘What are you doing?’ she said again.

Cold, real fear. Maybe this was how Dad felt sometimes, when they were arguing. She might throw things.

Mamma sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘Come here.’

Matty moved as slowly as possible, as if through pond-mud. Sat next to her. Still feeling sick, wobbly. Head hurting.

She looked at the lipsticked finger and palm. Face. Leaning back, Mamma plucked a lilac tissue from the box by the side of the bed and took Matty’s jaw in her hand. But instead of wiping it all off, she went around the mouth in a long line, her face still with concentration. You couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Then she dipped a finger into the lipsticky mess in Matty’s palm and added more to each lip with a light, precise pressure. The feeling of being a doll, held too tightly. Of wanting to please her, just this once.

‘You might as well put it on properly,’ she said, her voice cool and faraway. She was as close as Nicks had been earlier, the white of his eye and the white of his teeth. She frowned. ‘What is that?’

Matty had got most of the mud off, but there was a still a smudge on one temple. ‘Nothing.’

She picked out another tissue, licked it and wiped at the mark, before turning Matty by the shoulders to face the mirror. Red lips to go with red, tear-stained cheeks. Would Nicks like it better like this?