The terrible bit was every Sunday I asked Dad if he could bring in our prize night dresses, and every Sunday he forgot. Eventually he put our dresses in the back of the station wagon, and somehow spilled oil all over mine. Ruthy’s was fine, and she got to wear it, and it was really lovely. Aunty Jean said I had to wear my usual Sunday school dress, even though even her girls had a new frock for prize night. I possibly had a bit of a tantrum about it, and she put me in the bedroom and told the other two to stay out of there until I learned to be less vain and more grateful.

It wasn’t really about having a new dress that upset me the most. It was that Mum had made that dress for me, and made it with polka dots on it, and hadn’t made it orange, and she hadn’t said goodbye to me but had finished my dress. I continued to be upset and sullen all day before the prize night, until Aunty Jean decided I couldn’t go at all for being so bad, and could stay home with Peter in my room. This threw me into a panic – not because I wouldn’t go on the stage in a new dress, but because I wouldn’t see my dad at all, and he would hear I had been badly behaved and would be very upset with me. I begged. I pleaded. I cried. I made promises. I couldn’t call on Uncle Paul for help because he had gone into Halifax Street early to hear the testimony of a boy called Iain Walters who wanted to be baptised. I didn’t get to go to prize night, and my Dad was so disappointed in my behaviour I thought he might not pick me up and take me home when Mum came back from Scotland. That night, I thought it was possible to die of sadness, but later I learned that it could get even worse.

The third very bad thing that happened was something Peter told me about Daniel. I was hanging around the door of his room one day after school, and he had told to go away and play with the other babies, which made me cross. For some reason I thought responding with ‘You’re the baby’ was a smart reply. I picked up a pen that had fallen out of his school bag near his door and threw it at him. He said he knew I was in love with him but he’d rather marry his mother’s old mop, even after she’d used it to wash the toilet floor, than an idiot like me. I felt the need to comment on the large number of zits covering his face, and I believe I called him Chokito features. I had apparently poked the bear too hard with this comment, and he came back at me in a fury. He rose from his chair, came over to the door and stood over me so his face was only an inch from mine. His breath was very stinky, and right there and then I decided the wedding was off. I didn’t flinch because that would show girls were weaker than boys.