It was my seventeenth birthday, but had that stopped Mum and Dad being really annoying? It had not. I’d been wondering if they were getting divorced or something: Dad was really quiet, and had been for a few weeks; and recently Mum seemed like one of those small plastic toys on a spring – the ones where you licked the suction base, pressed the top to stick down, waited a few seconds for the spit to dry and then watched it boing up and off the table. Mum was boinging up every five minutes, running her hands through her wiry hair, shouting at me for no apparent reason. Even though it was my birthday, after they’d given me and Pete our presents (driving lessons – brilliant – and some new guitar strings from my brother, ten pounds from my uncle and auntie), she asked me to run down to the newsagent’s to pick up a copy of the Times Educational Supplement.

‘I can’t, I haven’t done my make-up yet,’ I said, packing The Anatomy of the Industrial Revolution into my backpack. I couldn’t see why she wanted the teachers’ magazine right that minute, anyway. ‘I’ll bring one back this afternoon. I’ve only got fifteen minutes before I need to leave.’

‘I need it now!’ Mum’s eyes were wild and bulging.

Dad sat on a bar stool at the counter, mute and miserable, like he wished he could be anywhere else.

‘The new jobs will still be there later.’

‘Meredith, please just do as you’re told. It’ll take you ten minutes!’

I looked at my watch. ‘Why can’t you ask Pete?’

‘He’s already left. Meredith. Please.’

I hitched up my backpack – the Industrial Revolution was heavy – and grabbed the only apple with fewer than two bruises from the fruit bowl. ‘Sorry. I can’t go in without my make-up on, and I’m not going to be late. I’ll get a detention, and it’s my birthday. I don’t see why you can’t go.’

To my shock, Mum burst into tears. She never cried. But – being selfish and seventeen – all I could think was, how could she cry on my birthday? Emotional blackmail!

Fuming, I ran up to my bedroom, grabbed my make-up bag then stomped out of the back door and down the garden path, without stopping to comfort her. I’d have to do my face at school, and if any of the boys saw me without mascara on, I’d be mortified.

‘Happy fucking birthday, Meredith,’ I said out loud.

I was, retrospectively, deeply embarrassed at how selfish I’d been as a teenager.