A month after she left – which to us had seemed like a lifetime – my mother breezed in as though she had just popped out to pick up a pint of milk; if popping out for a pint of milk involved a complete change in image and a personality transplant. Gone was the quiet but increasingly sullen mother who, in unremarkable clothes that smelled of Bold washing powder, unenthusiastically made us fish fingers, instant Smash and peas, followed by butterscotch Instant Whip. In her place was a laughing imp in flared jeans and a T-shirt that said ‘Love’ and showed her tummy; who had frizzy, crimped hair and a giant butterfly on her forehead courtesy of a pale blue bandanna, and who smelled like herbs. It was like our old mum had put her finger in an electric socket – something she had always shouted at us not to do – and had become a super-charged Mum, all lit-up inside.

Dad kept staring at her, as we all kind of stood around in the sitting room. He stared at her so much I thought she would laugh and say something funny to him, but she didn’t. She only really talked to us.

She brought us a Sherbet Dip Dab each. I didn’t even like Sherbet Dib Dabs but she seemed to have forgotten that. I licked the sherbet off carefully, trying not to let my tongue touch the liquorice. We were all sat on the sofa by then and Dad sat behind us, on a chair he’d brought in from the dining room, although there would have been room for him.

Mum had not really been on holiday. She’d been at her friend Janice’s in Hoxton, she told us, not in France or Africa, places in my junior atlas I had imagined her exploring, in a big hat. But she wasn’t coming back to us! She said she was sorry, but she wasn’t! (Everything this new Mum said was in giant exclamation marks.) She was now going on a tour of Europe! Europe! In a van! She was breathless, her eyes were all wide and bright. Didn’t we wish for her to have a lovely time?! She would miss us! She would send us a postcard! She got up from the sofa and squeezed Angela and me in a joint hug and the herb smell was even stronger and I didn’t like it, and then she went out the door, blowing silly kisses at us, and the frayed hems of her jeans brushed the floor and reminded me of the brushes Nana Larry had on the bottom of all her doors.

After she had gone, Angela and I shrugged miserably at each other and Dad said a midge had flown into his eye and he had to get a tissue and then he put the tea on and he let us have Cherryade.