It was going to be a fantastic day, and anything could happen! She was sixteen. Sixteen! The kind of age where adults took you a bit more seriously, realising that you were properly emerging from the chrysalis of teenage years and were within snatching distance of adulthood. An age where all sorts of delights were now available, and not only those of a carnal nature, because at sixteen she could, if she so chose, leave school, join the army, get married, work full-time and drive a moped . . . The possibilities felt endless. Not that she intended to join the army or indeed drive a moped – her sights were set on the skies. There was something about the TV adverts for big jumbo jets with their coiffed and lipsticked attendants that fuelled her imagination and spoke to her. They offered the glamour and escape she was looking for. She wanted to fly around the world as an air hostess. She wanted that fitted red uniform and a little suitcase on wheels that she dragged along behind her. A life of freedom and exploration called, and just like her alarm clock, it felt well within her reach.

‘You up, Bessie?’ her mum called up the stairs excitedly.

‘Yep! Coming!’

About to leave the room, Bessie went back to the mirror for one quick check on her teeth, running her tongue over her straight pearly whites, which she considered to be one of her best features.

‘Bessie, for the love of God! Are you coming down or what?’ her mum called again, but with more of an edge this time.

She took the narrow stairs two by two, leaping into the little square hallway by the front door. The summer morning light filtered through the dappled glass of the door and pooled on the green carpet, which, where the sun touched it, had gone a paler shade than the edges. When they had visitors, her mum always moved the rag rug from the bathroom and put it over the lighter spot.

‘Here she is!’ she heard her mum whisper, and knew exactly what to expect next, by long tradition. Bessie paused for a beat, swinging around the corner with her hand on the top of the newel post. And then there it was: the sound of her dad’s harmonica, playing his own version of ‘Happy Birthday’.