‘Are you here to clean the room?’ Mum said after a moment. She pointed to a feather duster lying on a side table. ‘Someone left this thingy here. Is it yours?’

Mum had a fresh bruise on her temple, Tully noticed, which wasn’t a huge surprise. Mum always had one bruise or another, even before the dementia. She was terribly clumsy, always tripping or stumbling on something, and as her dementia got worse, so too did the falls. Still, Tully made a mental note to ask the nurses about it. She’d watched a documentary about elder abuse and it was worth letting them know that she had noticed.

‘Is it yours?’ Mum repeated.

‘Oh . . . yes. Yes it is.’

Tully picked up the feather duster and Mum turned to her soup. She looked interested in it, even leaning down to smell it, but she didn’t reach for her spoon.

‘What’s for lunch?’ Tully asked.

‘Red watery stuff,’ Mum said. ‘Smells all right.’

Tully nodded doubtfully. ‘What does it taste like?’

A pause. ‘I’m not sure.’

‘Why don’t you try it and see?’

‘All right,’ Mum said.

Tully only realised what she was doing a second before it happened. Mum leaned down as if to smell the soup, but instead of sniffing, her mother – the woman who used to sit at the end of the table even when she wasn’t eating, simply to ensure that she and Rachel were using their table manners – lowered her face into the bowl.

‘Oh, Mum, no,’ Tully said, dropping the feather duster.

Mum looked up, startled. She had soup on her chin and her nose. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ Tully said. ‘It’s just . . . may I help you?’

Tully pulled up a chair opposite her mother. She filled the spoon and lifted it to her mum’s mouth, which her mother dutifully opened wide. As strange as it was, there was something lovely about caring for her like this. For so long Tully had felt useless when it came to helping her mother. Now, finally, there was something she could do.

Tully was concentrating so hard on feeding her that she almost missed the fact that Mum was looking at her intently. When Tully finally met her gaze, Mum’s face softened. ‘I know you . . . don’t I?’

Tully nodded, tears welling in her eyes. ‘Yes, Mum,’ she said. ‘You do.’

It was, Tully realised later, the perfect storm. She left the nursing home and went straight to the main street of Armadale, the part with all the shops. She could feel it coming, like the change in the air before a storm. She was like a balloon filling with air. The pressure would grow until it managed to find a release.

When she saw the homewares store, she knew it was the place. It had a double shopfront, which was unusual for this strip, and it was jumbled and chaotic enough to allow Tully to disappear deep into the store, where she wouldn’t be seen. She wouldn’t be watched; Tully never was. She was well presented, upper-middle class, and looked like she had money to spend.