But then I remembered the time she took me shopping when I was about seven. We went into the only children’s clothes shop on the High Street, run by a woman she knew from slimming club. I didn’t really like the clothes – they were fussy and impractical, with too many buttons, itsy-bitsy ribbons and voluminous underskirts – but everyone wanted them because they were French. I pretended I did too, because I didn’t want to be the odd one out. Anyway, my mum had no intention of buying anything: the clothes were way overpriced and out of our league. The woman was called Irene; she was short, had wild curly hair and wore scarlet lipstick. She greeted my mum loudly, as though they were great mates, and swooped forward and kissed her. As she did so, her sickly-sweet perfume tickled my nose. My mum was a little ruffled, to put it mildly; she didn’t kiss anyone, not even us that often. Irene then glanced at me and said, ‘Oooh, this little duckling might yet become a swan!’ I felt tears gather as my cheeks burned and my heart beat loudly in my throat.
