“Oh, thank you,” she says, and she blinks. Then she smiles at my reflection, and I see her dentures. Two rows of perfectly white blunt teeth: another person’s smile on her face.

“It’s important that you eat,” I say. I decide not to mention the biting incident. Watching her smile prettily at me in the mirror convinces me that she won’t remember. “But you have to eat in here, okay?”

She looks at me, innocently.

“In here?”

“Yes, in here. On your own.” I feel bad saying this. My mum had said the same thing to me when I was just starting primary school, and so I know how it feels to learn that something so vital as eating has to be kept secret from other people. When I was four, my mum warmed up some pig blood in a saucepan before school and tipped it into a good-quality flask; she’d got me a Thermos with a telescopic, opaque plastic straw that was a part of the top, instead of one with a cup and a spout, so that I could eat in peace and not draw any attention to myself. She had told my teachers that I had a stomach disorder that meant I could only have a liquid diet; and she had told me to never tell anyone what was in my flask “ever. Your life depends on it,” she said. “And if anyone finds out, you’ll be taken away from me forever.” I can’t tell my mum the same thing now, since she has already been taken away from me forever; or, rather, I’ve removed myself from her forever. “People here won’t understand if they see you eating your special food, okay?” I say instead. “They’re fussy, and they only like what they know.”

My mum nods diligently. “Okay,” she says, and I close the cupboard.

“Er, Mum?” I hear myself say. I correct myself: “I mean, Julie?”

She nods. She looks kind.

“I met someone,” I say, “and I did something. I can’t tell if it was a mistake or not.”

She cocks her head at me.

“I . . .” The words “drank his blood” are in my head, turning over and over; but then I realize that it wouldn’t do any good to tell her. It would never do any good to tell her, whatever state she’s in, whoever she thinks she is. When I look into her eyes, all I see is human; she wouldn’t understand.

“Actually, it’s okay,” I say. “It’ll probably be okay.”