I went into the kitchen; I was starving. There had been barely any food in the house that week. Mama hadn’t been turning up to her cleaning job and had likely been sacked, I thought, though she hadn’t told me so. There was only so far a free school meal could last you during the day, so I hoped there’d be something ancient in the freezer I could fish out and bung in the microwave. I flicked the light switch and nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw that Mama was sitting at the table in the dark. There was a glass and a half-empty bottle of vodka in front of her.

‘Bloody hell, Mama!’ I yelped. ‘You terrified me! What are you doing there?’

She looked at me, bleary-eyed and patted the chair beside her. ‘Siddown,’ she said.

In spite of her failings, Mama was not usually a drinker and so I was wary. I sat down next to her, holding my breath against the waft of staleness emanating from her. She couldn’t have had a shower all week.

‘You know how you’re always asking about your Dad?’ she slurred.

‘Um …’ I’d never seen her in this state before and didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to provoke her. I didn’t ask about my dad that much any more because it always seemed to set her off, but it seemed like now she had decided she wanted to talk about him after all. I figured the best solution would be simply to say as little as possible.

‘He’s dead,’ she said, her voice low and serious. ‘DEAD!’ she shouted suddenly, banging the table and making me jump.

‘Oh.’ Tears pricked at my eyes unexpectedly for a man I’d never known. Why was she telling me this now after all these years? Should I even believe her? ‘What … what happened to him?’

‘That BASTARD,’ she shouted. ‘He … he …’

‘Dad, you mean?’

She banged the table again. ‘NO! His CUNT of a brother.’

I flinched. I’d barely ever heard her swear, and certainly never use that word.

‘His brother? Whose brother?’ For a moment I wondered if she was just drunk and rambling, talking total nonsense. When she’d been in the hospital, some of the stuff she’d said made no sense at all. Anna always said it was the drugs they gave her that made her that way, but this time it didn’t seem like that. In spite of her drunkenness, she seemed strangely lucid. My skin prickled.

‘Will,’ she continued. ‘Your dad was called Will. His brother … his brother made him go out that day. On the mountain. And then he died. His fault. His brother’s fault. Adam’s fault.’

‘What mountain? You said he lived on a mountain before … where? I thought you made it up.’