We went to Auntie Annu’s for a Double Mega Jackpot Coffee, and on the way there in the car, Mum and Dad explained that the lottery win was a secret not to be shared in nursery or at my friends’ houses or in the shop or on the bus. We were the only ones who knew – that’s why Auntie had made a gateau. This was a secret celebration. I like celebrations and secrets and cakes.

MUM DRESSED UP. Mum has a silk dress with black and silver on it. Mum is tall, because she’s wearing high heels. Her hair forms a swirling peak, as if an ice-cream machine had sucked it into the clouds. Dad looks at Mum, smiling. His chest swells as he tries to stand as tall as Mum. Mum’s wrist clinks. It seems her hands don’t know what to do with themselves, with no hair to push out of her face.

That’s what Mum’s like dressed up.

I wondered what Auntie would look like now, but she looked just like her old self, only with red hair again. Auntie Annu only went to the hairdresser’s when she got a grant or sold a big enough wall hanging. In between visits, her hair went back to normal. She was a big, strong woman, but sometimes she’d be too shy to look you in the eye. She spoke softly, though she had man’s hands. Soap, water and textile dust had made Auntie’s hands rough and red, and sometimes they were so dry, wounds opened up on the knuckles. They were bear’s paws. You could even see the muscles between her fingers.

We crowded into Auntie Annu’s flat. It only had one room, plus a kitchen hidden inside a cupboard. The hall was so narrow and so full of coats and shoes that you had to form a queue to get inside, and Auntie Annu had to flatten herself against the door of the toilet in order to let her visitors pass. We threw our coats on top of a dresser. The whole hall was chock-a-block.

Mum, Dad and Auntie Annu hugged and sighed: well I never, I mean really, who’d have thought, what can you do.

‘Where’s the Jackpot Cake?’ I asked.

Auntie Annu winked and drew me into the room.