“You will not disobey me,” our father said. “I’ve never denied you anything in your lives, my two precious daughters. And to repay me, you’ve grown spoiled and insolent. I won’t have it. I just won’t.” He didn’t shout, but the restrained softness of his voice was more frightening than if he’d railed to the heavens. He was right about us being spoiled, though. We were so shocked at the newness of his behaviour that we stood frozen in place, utterly unsure what to do. We knew that proper daughters feared and revered their fathers. But because we had lost Mother so young, and because we seldom saw Father, we had never properly learned how to talk to him.

He took hold of the little glass cat that Emily had given him as a birthday gift several years before and hurled it at the wall. There was a fearful thunk, then it shattered into a thousand pieces.

We fled the room.

CHAPTER 3STEAMED FISH

February 16, 1937

No one ever asks a steamed fish what it wants. Everyone wants to eat it—it’s prized above many other more complex and interesting dishes—but no one ever asks it what it wants. They all ooh and sigh when it comes to the table. Fresh, steamed, swimming fish! Ho yeh, ho yeh, very good! Very good and very expensive, often twice the cost of any other dish on the table, and sometimes even three times, if it’s a particularly plump and juicy fish. Steamed until it’s just done and its pale flesh comes barely free of the bone. How did the old cooks know how to do that without sticking in a chopstick and testing? Don’t ask me, I’m useless in the kitchen. If you want to know something, ask my clever sister Violet, who reads books and goes to university.