Sinking down onto the plush carpet, I pull out a pair with silver straps and a dragonfly buckle on the side. Hardly daring to breathe I slip my feet into them, the straps pinching as they are ever so slightly too small. I stand, wobbly on the spindly heels, and steady myself as I am assaulted by a flashback – myself, at around ten years old, trying on my mother’s high heels as she prepared to go out for the night with the man who would eventually become my stepfather, and her second husband.

‘Look at me, Mum! I look just like you!’ I wobble towards her, as she slicks red lipstick around her mouth, pouting and smacking her lips together in the mirror.

‘Hey, be careful!’ Finally, my mother turns to look at me as I stagger my way across the threadbare carpet towards her, arms outstretched. ‘Don’t you snap those heels. I want to wear those tonight.’

I slip the shoes off and hand them to my mother, unsure as how to she could possibly manage to spend the whole night upright while wearing them. I blink back tears at her harsh tone, and when she hears me sniffing, she turns to me, her face softening.

‘Silly thing, don’t cry.’ She pulls me towards her, and I snuggle into her shoulder, the silky fabric of her dress cool against my skin. I breathe in her heavy perfume, something thick and cloying but it doesn’t matter, she smells like my mum. ‘I just need to wear those killer heels tonight. John won’t know what’s hit him, and before you know it, we’ll be a proper family.’ She spins around with me in her arms and kisses my face until I shriek and giggle. ‘Honestly, little one,’ she sobers now, sitting me down on the bed as she puts the finishing touches to her make-up, ‘you don’t want to live here forever, do you? If John and I get married we can get out of here, go and live in his big house, all of us together. You want Mummy to be happy, don’t you?’ She shoos me into bed, and then I hear the click of the lock on the front door and the clacking of her heels down the path towards the man she thinks will turn our lives around.