‘One day I might tell you the whole horrible story.’ And we’d both chorus, ‘But I doubt it!’ and collapse in a heap of giggles. ‘Don’t ask, Kirby! They were ghastly and I got out of there on my sixteenth birthday.’ Then she’d look at me and grin. She’d shudder and throw her hands in the air. The same way she’d never talk when I tried to get her to tell me about when she was a kid and her family and everything. Whatever the ghosts were, my mother had them well shut back in their box and she wasn’t going to talk about them.

I could have said, because you’re a sucker for a sob story, or because you help Louisa and her kids so much, or because you’re a dizzy flake who shops till she drops. ‘I’m so hopeless with money! Why am I so hopeless, Kirby?’ ‘Not since you took over the budget,’ she said and giggled. ‘Drown them with tears.’ The words were out before I thought what I was saying, but Mum just pulled a face. ‘Aren’t you supposed to get things out in the open? Confront them, and then they go away?’ I’d read that in a magazine yesterday. ‘What ghosts?’ I asked, digging into my ‘disgustingly sinful chocolate pud’. So we went out for tea and Mum was bright and funny like she always is. He was a nurse at the same hospital as Mum and he was a riot but definitely not the type to want to get into a relationship. I didn’t, but the problem probably wasn’t David. Her hands twitched and her body jerked like a marionette. ‘How about we have tea in town? There’s a new restaurant David told me about. Don’t they say Christmas brings out all sorts of stresses?’ She managed an almost normal smile. ‘What’s wrong? What’s the matter?’ I hugged her hard and hoped the world wasn’t ending. I rushed to her, threw my arms round her.

I CAME HOME FROM SCHOOL on the last day of term and my mother was crying.

I am not esther by fleur beale