Today for the first time my magic has let me down. No warning that something - sorry, someone - special was about to enter my life. Not one tingle down my usually sensitive spine, nor one buzz in my brain. An intangible beast, magic, but I find myself searching for it now in my cell, as if it were a lost coin. Oh, of course, the warder told me that, once I'd completed my toilet duties, a prison visitor would be waiting for me. I was informed, but not prepared for who I found there. We're allowed to wear a little make-up and stud earrings; had my head or my heart given me even a tiny inkling about you, I would have made roses of my lips and filled my ears with pearls. Instead I'm forced to admit that I looked my worst, and probably smelt of lavatory cleaner.

Perhaps I'm misreading the situation; after all, your unannounced appearance had, for me, all the panache of the old rabbit-from-a-hat trick. Only this time, the trick's on me.

You must be wondering what this is all about; why the fuss? Meeting you, Matthew Pritchard, visitor extraordinaire, was the surprise of my life. I am - an unusual state for somebody with sixth sense - in shock. This means that you must be as special as me. Nobody has ever before taken away my breath and my magic in one instance.

I intend to make up for that lost opportunity, for my sealed lips, by writing this to you. I want you to know me; yes I know that'll seem odd coming from a woman who didn't so much as nod her head in the Visitors' Room, but nothing matters more to me now. Were you allowed to see my file? I'm new to this, my family had its brushes with the law in the past, but we were cautioned, fined or, in the case of my son, given Community Service. Ironically, Community Service was exactly what my boy thought he'd been doing when he committed his offences, but never mind. What I mean is I've never been either prisoner or prison visitor before; I don't know the ropes. But if they've showed you my file, I suppose you'll have done your homework and read my background. You know my age, will understand that the first flush of youth has faded to a pale colour-wash. And then you must have read about The Cornflake House, about my large and shall we say non-conformist family. I wish you could have met them. We'd have laid on tea for you on a Sunday. The neighbours would've watched you, as they watched everybody else, walking up to our house, and they'd have thought how surprisingly normal you looked, considering. Then one of us, Zulema say, in her dress of midnight blue threaded with silver moons, would have opened the door and welcomed you. I'd have been shy as I introduced you to my relations, but Mum would have given you a nip of something special to break the ice. Before long we'd have been laughing and catching each other's eyes as we sampled Mum's baking and suffered my brother Django's insults.

Also, you must be an intrepid soul to enter a prison of your own free will. The very word, like cancer, fills the weak-spirited with dread. I know when my son was up before the beak I prayed for him to stay out of gaol. Not only is it hard for a mother to cope with the prospect of her child's confinement, but the thought of visiting him, making that journey into the unknown, made me ill with worry. Luckily, I suppose, when I first came here I was in a haze of sorrow and confusion. I heard the infamous clanking of doors, smelt the mixture of chlorine, urine, mustiness and cabbage, but hardly took any of it in to my muddled brain. They say those who fall are often cushioned by shock, and certainly in my case the worst was absorbed, zapped if you like, by the electrifying horror of what had just happened. I've seen that stunned look on the faces of fellow inmates; you're never alone in prison.

Now, brave visitor, I'm about to ensure that we'll know each other better. Something I was lucky enough to glimpse, to marvel at, as we shook hands, encourages me to believe it will be worth my while. As you reached to take my hand in introduction, I was embarrassed to meet your eyes. I focused instead on your hand and wrist. I saw the shine on your worn but clean white shirt, the fluffy fringe where your cord jacket rubs against the world. And I noticed, to my astonishment and delight, your cute cuff link. Are you blushing, Matthew? I do hope not. Why shouldn't you wear something whimsical? What was it made of? It looked like black enamel, with a tiny red collar, on silver. I saw the pair of them, tail to tail when you pressed all ten of your fingers together. Scottie-dog cuff links, wonderful. Wear them with pride. They're inspirational. I'd have fallen for you anyway, but I'm not sure I'd have found the nerve to write this if you'd held your sleeves together with the usual square or oval objects.

So, my turn now; I am the oldest of seven children; seven was an essential number to Mum. I have two sisters, Zulema and Perdita, and four brothers, Fabian, Merry, Django and Samik - my mum favoured the unusual. I promise you shall meet them properly in time. My mother taught me to introduce myself by saying, 'I am Eve, the first born.'

She liked us to take the wind out of people's sails from the first moment, she thrived on giving surprises, my mother. I assume this was because, being clairvoyant, she was rarely taken aback herself. I inherited my magic from her; she was the centre of my universe. Obviously my records will tell of her recent death, of her dramatic and, to some minds, grisly departure from this world. But do they even hint at the grief this death has caused? Well no, how could they? Why should they? It has nothing, officially, to do with my case. Even my family can have no idea how I suffered, am still suffering. Loss; I could write of chasms, of black holes where once there was so much colour, but I would never touch the truth of it. This may sound ridiculous, coming from a daughter, but I had no life without Mum; there's no part of my history which isn't centred on her. I never broke away, as most adults do. I made a few pathetic attempts to leave home, to travel, to fall in love. But The Cornflake House was a powerful magnet, or perhaps I should say it was a comforting roost. I was always the homing pigeon, back before darkness fell.

Magic and death; there is a link the human mind can't handle. In my case, death has caused a halt to magic. For my mother it was the other way around; magic brought about her death.

It wasn't only the magic that made her special. Her warm lap or wide arms were always ready to accommodate a tearful, wounded child. She was seldom cross or critical, as other mothers were. Our achievements met with instantaneous praise and a spontaneous, joyful hug, but her expectations of us never soared to the unattainable. To her we seven were a species apart, elite, infallible. It was wonderful to be amongst the select, perhaps especially enchanting to be the eldest of the tribe, chosen one of the chosen. I grew up with a deep sense of my own importance within my family and within the world.

I imagine everybody feels partly as I do when their mother dies, unsheltered, as if a wrap of finest feathers, not wings but a cloak they never previously appreciated, has been spirited from their bodies. Left standing, bewildered, without the one person who loved us unconditionally, uncritically. Without the one who made us who we are. Ordinary, with the harsh, disapproving population of planet earth to please all of a sudden.

I do understand how curious you must be about my recent past, but I feel happier, safer, beginning with my mother's story. What frightens me is the way control has taken over from chaos. I like chaos; it's what I'm used to. Prison life leaves no room for muddle; somehow I've lost my identity in all this routine. I need to talk about the distant past before we get to the present.

My mother always maintained that she was sold to her parents by the Gypsies. If this was nothing more than a

childhood fantasy, she never outgrew it. She did possess many of the attributes we usually associate with Romanies, a love of the outdoors, the gift of telling fortunes. Besides, my granny, Editha, who lived with us for the last years of her life, never refuted this claim. Granny used to smile and nod at the story, even adding details of her own to embellish it, although these personal touches changed with each telling. The idea that my grandparents had paid a sum of their hard earnt cash for my mother had a faint ring of truth to it, because they'd been childless for years beforehand. Then there was the way my mother looked, which wasn't remotely like either parent. She was brown the year round, tanned even in places which were never exposed to the sun, whereas Editha, like me, was golden haired with pink and white skin. Eric, my grandad, was bald by the time I came along, but you could see from his freckled arms and bushy eyebrows that he'd been a roaring red-head in his day. He was an ugly bugger, physically and mentally. Women who met my grandad didn't fancy shaking hands with him, let alone getting into his bed. Maybe Editha went along with the Gypsy story to deflect people from considering another possibility. Well, if she did spend a blissful moment or two in the arms of a dark stranger in order to conceive, few would have blamed her for it.

It took one of history's worst storms to make my mother feel proud to call herself Editha's daughter. By then the Gypsy story was too deep rooted to be discarded, and so she let it stay and stay. For my generation it was a family legend, and we children were eager to believe it. Apart from the glamour, the romance of being one quarter Gypsy, we clung

to this possible heritage as a safeguard against the taunts of schoolmates. It made us stronger, when strength was needed in a hostile playground, the chance that Gypsy blood flowed through our heated veins. We weren't invincible in battle, but when we fell our enemies were seldom rewarded with the sight of a Cornflake House kid in tears. I know that I for one carried another child inside my soft, blonde self, a dark, bright girl who was light on her feet, swift with her tongue and whose heart was the colour and texture of a walnut. I would never let her down.

Also, there was the question of our relations. We loved Granny Editha well enough, in spite of her irritating little ways, but none of us would have chosen to believe we were related to Eric. He frightened and fascinated us. Much as we all yearned to have a man in our lives, we fled from his company. At least he couldn't chase after us; part of his menace lay in the fact that he had only one leg.

Before my grandmother met Eric she ran her fenland smallholding on her own. When her parents died, she carried on picking fruit, feeding chickens and hoeing the vegetable patch in all the fierce variety of weather. How was she to know, as she accepted the offer of marriage from the knife and scissors sharpener who called on her one day, then came back and called again the next, that she would still be running the place on her own after her wedding? Having hardly ever ventured away from her square, flat homestead, having met so few people before, I suppose Editha thought she'd done well for herself by marrying at all. I once overheard my mother asking Grandma why she'd hitched up with Eric, and the answer was 'because he came, it seemed meant -once he was on the doorstep'. There you have it, as simple a truth as the answer, 'because he asked me,' which must have been given by a million spouses. Editha wasn't young, had no expectations, and Eric can't have been so dreadful at that time when he had both his legs, all his hair and a flat stomach as yet unstuffed with Grandma's chickens and potatoes.

What you also have, in that answer of Editha's, is the seed of one of the ruling factors in my own mother's life. She believed implicitly in certain things being meant to be. Who knows how different our lives would've been if that belief hadn't existed? We would never have been brought up in The Cornflake House without it; maybe never have been born at all.

Whatever else he did - or mostly didn't - do, Eric has to be given credit for loving his baby girl. In that, at least, Editha was always able to defend him. He might have been the fattest, laziest slob who ever sat by a fire day in, day out, but he doted on the brown-haired, brown-eyed baby. Not that fatherhood inspired him to get off his backside and make more money, his grinding wheel lay rusting in an outhouse right through his daughter's childhood, but he was generous with his smiles. He must have loved to see his little girl running around, helping her mother to keep the place going. By the time she was four my mother was capable of dragging a full scuttle of coal from shed to kitchen. According to Mum, she was six when her dad taught her how to chop wood, small pieces at first, of course; Editha tackled the full sized logs.

Then it was time for Eric's little helper to get an education. She walked the mile or so to school alone, her route a dead straight line across the wetlands, following a ditch between raised fields. I've walked that journey with her, a nostalgia trip, and I know how exposed to the winds and the rains she was. What strikes you is the absence of landscape and colour; an artist, especially in winter, would need only to mix greys and dull greens to do justice to that scene. Whichever way you turn, the horizon is spiked with church spires, but no other landmarks are visible. The only trees there are willows which grow along the steep bank. These have been cropped by the locals and stunted by gales until their trunks are dwarfish, their branches skeletal. There was little comfort at the end of Mum's journey either. Like most buildings in the area, the school was a makeshift affair. We looked for it together, Mum and I. After all the stories, I was excited at the prospect of seeing the buildings; but they'd disappeared. New houses stood on the site, their gardens covering the old playground. This is probably no bad thing for my mother's generation, some pretty horrific memories were attached to the place.

Before its demise, the school consisted of one central brick hall surrounded by 'temporary' wooden classrooms with tin roofs. On wet days the rain played these roofs like steel bands and old stoves, which smoked at the teacher's end of the classrooms, were encircled by small pairs of steaming boots and shoes.

It's difficult to picture my unconventional mother as a schoolgirl, but schoolgirl she was. A dark, secret creature, decidedly unkempt, dirty even. Her toes, inside worn sandals, seemed to have been outlined by thick pencil, and her heels were hard as earth in a drought. Her bare legs were tanned all year round and her once green dress had been washed until it was a thin, sad yellow. Around her oval face she wore her hair, which was almost black and hung in natural ringlets, cropped to fall on a level with her lips. Ribbons, slides, hairgrips, she hated all of these. When the ringlets reached her chin she chopped them off herself.

She told us how her class teacher, a washed-out creature called Miss Downy, hated her. Apart from her untidy appearance, my mother had an unusual, perhaps rather silly name. She was called Victory. This wasn't short for Victoria, as many supposed it to be, but was actually another extension of Victor. The Victor she was named after had been, apparently, a bit of a lad and much admired by Eric who was his closest friend.

Victor had died on a train, or rather off a train which had been speeding from London to Peterborough. Both Eric and Victor had been full of drink and bravado on that fateful journey, showing off for the benefit of two unfortunate young women who had no choice but to share a carriage with these loudmouths. Hiccupping into the face of the girl he preferred, Victor had boasted how fast he was in all things.

'No stopping me, is there Eric?' he slurred. No doubt Eric had nodded loyally.

'Well, you'll have to stop at Huntingdon,' the young woman quipped, 'we all will.'

Determined not to be stumped, Victor had told her he could get to Peterborough faster by road.

It was the last word he was to utter. Well, he may have cursed as he hit the ground, but there was nobody with him to record the fact. Eric's eyes would moisten as he told of the rush of wind which swept through the carriage when Victor opened the door ...

I share this little home from home with a lass called Liz who's as dark as I am fair but otherwise similar to me in that she chooses silence instead of chatter. On my first day, using a language of grunts and nods, we laid down a few ground rules; as long as we stick to these I see no reason for the quiet, but not antagonistic, status quo to change. I shall return to rescue Mum from her corner when I have stuffed myself with whatever delicacies the kitchen staff have dreamt up for our delight.

Rice pudding; one of the few foods which manages to be disgusting and comforting. I would describe the main course, but even

'It was then that I began to feel the pain,' Victory explained to us, her children. 'At first I ached all over, but looking around me I could see others were scratched and shaken so I supposed I'd bumped into something when running from my classroom. Those of us who'd been outside were frozen, the sound of teeth rattling was a kind of harmony to the awful noises coming from the weather itself. I tried to concentrate on them, the sounds, but the pain was too strong and then I realized it wasn't all over me anymore, it was only in my right leg. In my right thigh. It was so sharp I wanted to cry out, but I bit my tongue. I must have gone a funny colour, I caught Miss Downy giving me a worried look, probably thinking "whatever next". Then she turned away and I took a peep at my thigh, lifting my frock to see if perhaps my knicker elastic was too tight, praying that I'd find a wound which would take away the feeling of dread. But there was nothing, not a mark on me.'

'We have had a bad storm, a freak storm,' he told them, as if they didn't know, 'but now it has passed and we must all try to calm ourselves, to carry on as normal. In a few minutes it will be dinner time, and I would like my class to get the tables and benches set up, please. A hot meal will do us the world of good. The rest of you can stay in here, but move to the sides please.' For a few minutes the ploy worked, children forgot their fear as they shifted to the sides of the hall or pulled out the furniture for dinner. Many hands were raised because many small bladders could contain themselves no longer, but the Head told them to wait until he had a chance to check the playground. The toilets were outside.

Victory pressed herself to the wall as a few obedient children reluctantly passed by. Then Miss Downy went to the mouth of the roof-tunnel and rang her bell there, making a dreadful echoing knoll to which all but one adventurer responded by coming out holding their ears. When the teacher laid the bell on the ground there was only one sound left, the clear high screams of Kathleen Tucker who had reached the point where nothing short of a slap would calm her.

'She had only found his leg,' my mother explained, his right leg, the only part of Donald Clark which was actually in the roof-tunnel. Poor Kathleen had stumbled on this limb and, thinking it was part of a teasing playmate, had tried to kick it out of her way. But it was stuck fast, a fact she realized when she felt around in the near darkness and discovered there was no body, no second leg or trunk, attached to it. Although she was shocked by the leg and the state Kathleen was in, Miss Downy did the right things. She led the trembling child from the tunnel and gave her into the care of another teacher. She couldn't find the words to answer questions, to say what it was that had upset Kathleen so, but she squeezed her way down the outside of the roof-tunnel and came across the rest of Donald wedged there.

The Headmaster called for the ambulance and the fire brigade, there was some heavy lifting to be done. Donald was freed from his tin prison and taken to hospital. His classmates suffered more from the trauma than he did, initially. He was, thankfully, unconscious when found. As they carried him on his stretcher across the playground his almost severed leg refused to join the remainder of his body, it simply wouldn't lie parallel but dangled at an aberrant angle from under the grey blanket.

It was this sight that woke the children of my mother's school in the nights that followed, this glimpse of the abnormal sent their fingers creeping under the covers, feeling for reassurance. It kept us, the next generation awake, for long hours too, but we were always ready to hear the story again and again.

The teachers, who tried not to mention the storm too often in the company of their pupils, spoke of little else in the staffroom, and they discovered that many of the children had taken to absent-mindedly rubbing the tops of their right thighs in class. As if they, like Victory, were suffering in sympathy with Donald who had, ultimately, lost his right leg and who then lay recovering in hospital.

'Donald had always had a problem with his bowels, they didn't work to order,' Mum told us, 'so although he tried to start and finish what he had to do during break-time, he was often still there, sitting in one of the outside toilets, when the bell rang. He got caught by the storm, stranded on the far side of safety. They found the door of the toilet he'd used hanging by one hinge, whether he'd kicked it in an attempt to get somebody to rescue him - his shouts would never have been heard above the roaring wind - or whether the storm had tried to invade, was never clear. He became a hero overnight, and he'd been a quiet, unassuming little boy 'til then. But once he was back with us we bestowed on him instant charisma, or perhaps his limp and his false leg did that for him. Nothing was more provoking and exciting than to get Donald to tell of how he'd sat, trapped on his throne as the world outside his door churned. How he'd waited and waited and, best of all, seen the Roof Giant land on the hall, watched it coming to rest. Then, once the storm was over and everything seemed calm, how he'd stood up, looked around and decided to make a dash for it. But his tummy hurt him, he clung to the wall and had to take one slow step at a time. He'd heard the roof before he saw it, being doubled up with pain. Then ...

Mind you, in a way he did chop off his own leg, or made a good start to the job. It happened before I was born, one day when Editha was down with a bad dose of flu, far too poorly to carry let alone to chop wood. Grumbling all the way to the wood shed, Eric grudgingly picked up a log, set it too close to the edge of the chopping block and raised the axe. The log shot into the air as the axe came down and Eric, slipping backwards, made an impressive and very bloody dent in his left leg, about halfway between knee and ankle. They had no telephone, besides, Eric, not being a great one for doctors, wouldn't have phoned for help anyway. Instead he limped to the house, called Editha from her sick bed, made such a fuss that she was barely able to clean the wound, then sat for several weeks without letting her change his bandage. Did he not want the leg to heal? We shall never know; only Victory ever had the courage to ask and he gave her a gruesome snarl in answer. As Eric's luck would have it, Editha recovered and was well enough to walk out for help not long after gangrene set in. It was also fortunate for our grandfather that the day they came and carted him off for his amputation, was the very day Chamberlain made his 'no such undertaking' speech; so Eric was able, by a hair's breadth, to boast that he'd lost his leg in the war.

Being an amputee sets one apart, it must be like being blond in China. Although we were a hotchpotch of children and often stared at for our own differences, we were as prone to gaze and gawp at Grandad as any stranger might have been. There's something appalling and mysterious about an unstuffed trouser leg, in Eric's case a tube held together with three fancy safety pins, the kind usually seen at the hems of kilts. It's absence that attracts the eye. His remaining leg was hardly worthy of consideration, we kids seldom wondered how it felt, never asked ourselves did it ache in sympathy, did it pine for its partner? A shining white band would sometimes peep at us from the space between his sock and his filled trouser leg, but that was merely flesh, not nearly as absorbing as the lack on the other side of his groin. Then there was the question, not spoken aloud, but once whispered in the dark from child to child, of what happened to Eric's other shoes. This question had been hanging around, loitering with intent, for years before it made its hushed appearance. There was no sign of these surplus items, they weren't to be found, alone and dusty, under dressers or on top of wardrobes. We'd all wondered at their fate, but never dared to ask, until one day, when we were living in a little caravan at Eric and Editha's smallholding, Editha went shopping and bought Eric a new shoe. A single brown leather lace-up, size eleven. For a right foot. It was January the thirtieth, his birthday; Editha rarely shopped. I watched him unwrap his gift, give a grateful grunt, and discard his old, black, footwear to try on the new. The old shoe was put in the dustbin, although, since Eric's only journeys were from bed to chair, it wasn't exactly worn out.

That night, in our caravan, Fabian and I lay awake long after the smaller children had fallen asleep, discussing in whispers the fate of the left brown lace-up. We couldn't believe that our Granny would simply throw away a brand new leather shoe. She was, by necessity if not by nature, a thrifty soul, such waste would have seemed criminal to her.

'Maybe,' Fabe suggested, 'there's a shop for one-legged people, where they'll sell you a left shoe or a right one.'

'Yes,' I liked this idea, 'and they have stuff for people with only one arm too, like single gloves.'

'Maybe,' Fabe sounded unsure, 'but buying a pair of gloves isn't the same. Everybody loses gloves, but a whole shoe's different. Anyway, Gran only went to Spalding, they won't have special shops there. Only maybe in London.' Yes, in London, we'd been told, you could buy anything, from furnishings to furbelows - whatever they might be; but not in Spalding.

'Well then there's a club,' I ventured, 'and the members swap the unwanted things. This time it was Granny's turn to send somebody, a man with only a left leg, the spare shoe.

Next time it'll be his wife who has to post the right shoe to Granny.' We let this concept swim in the dark with us for a while, but it faded when we thought hard about it. Granny hadn't been seen with brown paper and string, wrapping a shoebox, and surely the box would have been used if any posting took place. In fact she'd appeared in the kitchen, having walked from the bus stop, with the single shoe in its box, and we'd been given this cardboard home to use for Stan, our pet mouse. For a few moments I saw them, an army of odd shoes, wandering tragically through shoe purgatory looking for their other halves, poor lost soles.

There was only one thing for it. We'd have to see for ourselves. The situation called for a voyage of discovery. We didn't possess slippers and there was no hope of sorting out our shoes from the pile in the caravan, so we crept across the smallholding in bare feet. The ground was white with frost. We sprang across it, as if the diamonds of ice were hot coals, until we reached the big tin dustbin. To us it felt like the dead of night, but it can't have been very late as Eric, who slept in the downstairs back room, was still awake with his light on. Good and bad luck for us. The light shone on the dustbin, making our search possible, but if Eric saw or heard us we were done for. Fabian removed the dustbin lid with the care of an expert defusing a bomb. It didn't smell too bad, Editha had a compost heap for peelings, so we leant over and began our inspection. The old black shoe was near the top only now, instead of Eric's foot, it held a sticky collection of chicken bones. Underneath was a blend of household dust, broken china, tins and something that felt horribly like a human brain. We couldn't get to the bottom, we weren't tall or brave enough to try. Fabe was about to give up when a tingling, ticklish sensation played with the back of my neck then spread right over me, and I knew suddenly that I was special, that I'd be able to see to the depths, discern the contents without actually looking, just by touching the freezing metal bin on the outside.

Then she saw Editha, in the distance, a bent figure, small, busy, gathering fallen branches from the fruit trees, salvaging what she could to use for firewood.

'Bloody mess, half the crop I should say. Blown half to bits.'

And they carried on, without speaking again. They were out there clearing up until dusk, then they went in and made Eric his tea.

'He's all shook up,' Editha said in a hushed voice. Victory looked at her father who was dozing in the armchair by the stove and she wished something would shake him up, wished the storm had whipped the seat from under him, or better still, lifted him and his smelly old chair clean away.

My mother used to speak of Days, with a capital D. There were Days Of Deep Sorrow, which need no explanation. We had Days Of Delight, which she planned for us when we looked glum or which fell on us like presents in the post, without warning. We enjoyed Good Food Days and Glad Days and Sad Days. And she spoke of the day of the freak storm as a Day Of Discovery because not only did her feelings for Editha define themselves and settle down, but she also found out how far reaching her magic really was. Until then it had been a toy almost, a bag of tricks with which to plague the enemy. Now she knew what strength she possessed, what pain it might bring, and how little she could do, even when a warning came so clearly, to stop the inevitable.

Those of us who know in advance that death threatens or disaster is on the way are bound to suffer from the burden

of guilt. I used to worry myself to a state of sickness as a child because I could see it, a fire, a flood or whatever, coming, and do nothing about it. But my mother taught me not to blame myself when stories I had 'invented' appeared later as articles in newspapers. I accepted my talent easily enough though, children do. I never found the magic itself surprising; which makes it hard to understand why the rest of the human race can't come to terms with the fact that some of us are born with a gift for music, say, or mathematics, and some of us are able to see a little further, do a little more than average. The only time I'm surprised is when my magic lets me down, as it did today.

There are so many questions I'd like to ask you, Matthew. But even on paper I am shy of being forward. I suppose the only enquiry that matters is whether or not you want me to carry on telling you about myself and my family? Of course I hope you'll say yes, and accept the gift of somebody who wants to be, to begin with, your friend at least. Your eyes, which I believe I only dared to meet the once, struck me as intelligent and deeply understanding. You'll have got the gist.

I wait for your answer, eagerly, apprehensively and, being a born optimist, hopefully.

Also your letter leaves me in the same one-sided tell-all situation. Oh, now I'm assured that you're happy to read my words, and that's a relief all right. But I still know next to nothing about you. I search the letter for clues. Good quality paper, the colour of a spring sky. I bet... yes, there it is, Basildon Bond watermarked right through. A man of taste and big-hearted enough to find me worthy of expensive paper. There is a very faint smell, not of perfume or aftershave. I think it's that pot-pourri stuff people have taken to having in their rooms. A Christmas present? Or did you buy it, bending to sniff the varieties carefully before selecting this subtle lime and spice mixture?

Your handwriting ought to tell me plenty, but I'm no expert. I suppose the long upward lines of your 't's and Ts means you are reaching for the sky, a dreamer. Your 'o's are perfect, pure, like the mouths of choir boys singing. My writing puts me to shame. It's so big. I must seem overconfident to any reader, but in fact I write this way for the simplest of reasons. In school our homework was always supposed to cover two sides of a page. If I covered the paper quickly I had more time to play. My mum used to tell me not to bother sending postcards when I went away. 'They only make them big enough for you to write the address,' she'd say, 'and we already know where we live.'

You write with a fountain pen, a proper pen of the kind never to be found amongst the chewed pencils and snapped crayons in our house. No nib could have survived my brother Merry's inspection anyway. I was once ordered to use a pen at school, but leaking ink stained my fingers and puddled my pages, so I was allowed to use a biro. But I can see the attraction now, I love the way the ink becomes integrated with the paper rather than merely resting on it.

Your letter wasn't posted, it was delivered by hand. Which means you must have been here yesterday. I hadn't thought about you having other, what are we? Clients? Cases? Not here, anyway, under the same roof as me. Useless to pretend I don't care, that I'm not jealous: my envy will seep into this writing like a bad smell. Who is she, or who are they? These others who have your attention? Not that names would mean anything to me. I am still the new girl, I've hardly spoken to a soul, including you, since I got here. Until today that suited me fine. The last thing I wanted was to get into conversation, to have to start explaining myself, talking about my mother to strangers and listening to their own stories or excuses. Now I wish I knew the finer details of each case, not only why they are here but who comes to comfort them. I want to study the face of whoever it was you came to visit yesterday, to see what I'm up against.

Actually, I lie. I have spoken to one woman. She's a bully, the kind I used to protect my son against when he was tiny.

On Saturdays we get extra rations, little packets of biscuits to keep, to take to our cells and hoard for special moments. With a stomach like mine, there's no shortage of such moments and my Rich Teas were a treasure beyond price. This woman wanted them, hinting that it'd be hi my best interests to hand them over without a fuss.

I told her I didn't believe in paying taxes and suggested a part of her anatomy into which she might stuff her collection of biscuits. For my trouble I got a quick clip round the ear, deftly delivered out of sight of any warders. The sting made me proud of my tenacity; as I ate them that night under cover of darkness, the biscuits tasted sweeter for the fight.

I wish I'd seen you. I'd have been delighted by the merest glimpse of your small, neat body as it turned a corner. But more than that, I wish I'd known. Your having been in the building, seeing another and delivering a letter to me, without my knowing about it, this is further depressing proof that, where you're concerned, my magic has stopped working. And that is scary. For somebody who's always had the power to see trouble or happiness coming, and a mother who could do something about it, to find herself motherless and powerless is the loneliest of feelings.

It seems I'm on my own, no hope of beguiling you with the trickery that's worked so well for me in the past. I once told my mum about a boy, Ben Davidson - the focus of many a fifth-former's dreams. I told her he walked right by me at school, didn't even know I existed, a situation which was breaking my tender, inexperienced heart. We devised this plan, Mum and I. When he was nearby I was to tell her, telepathically of course since she was at home and I was suffering the indignities of the local comprehensive. Her magic was always more effective than mine. While I could only feel his approach, she had the ability, even at a distance, to control his shoes. For a few glorious days, until I realized his soul in no way matched the beauty of his eyes, that behind his knee-watering looks there lurked the dull, grey brain of a future insurance broker, I enjoyed long minutes of Ben Davidson's undivided attention. He was unwittingly brought to me, his footsteps carrying him to within an inch of my face where they would halt, his black suede shoes stuck fast to the spot. I saw a great deal of the inside of Ben's mouth - a vision which finally helped me to fall out of lust with him - in those spell-bound minutes. He invariably left this orifice hanging open while I engaged in light, and I hoped entertaining conversation of the 'chatting up' variety. I soon told my mother to stop bothering with him, that he had no personality and nothing to say for himself.

In spite of all my lumps and bumps, I've never been seriously unhappy with the way I look. I'd be uneasy in a different body, uncomfortable with a more perfect face. But right now I wish I was saturated with sex appeal. Somewhere along the line, I've missed out there, because my mother, when young, must have had enough of this magnetism to pull an army. Not everybody realized this, because she never flaunted her appeal once she'd finished having her tribe of kids. I know some people, the teachers who dealt with seven children from the one mother and a heptad of fathers for example, thought my mum must have been so unappealing that she couldn't keep a man for weeks let alone years. But there's always two ways of seeing things; to my mind, my mother was so sexy that seven men, at least seven, found her irresistible and made love to her with the kind of passion I have always believed it takes, although I know this belief is unfounded, to make babies. Seven men in quick succession, one passion hotly following the next. What a variety of men too. We kids had a wondrous, colourful selection of dads. True, many of the attributes we bestowed on these men were sheer inventions - for example Fabian, the eldest of my four brothers, insisted he was fathered by a particularly enigmatic rock guitarist - but their physical glories, passed on to us, are there for all the world to see.

They never bore us any malice, Taff and Victory. To them, kids would be little terrors. They'd have found us far more offensive if we'd tip-toed about being good and nice. I know this is true because my mother fretted more over Perdita in her perfect stage than she ever did over the troubles the rest of us brought on her and on ourselves. I shouldn't hold Taff s friendship with my mother against her. Not having been a mother herself, Taff did her best to be an aunty, treating us to mountains of takeaway food and trailing big but hopeless presents in her wake. Large stuffed animals were favourites, mostly orange and yellow monsters she'd won at Bingo, another of Taff's addictions. One such creature, sporting a vast red baseball cap, was blocking out the draft by the back door of The Cornflake House to the bitter end.

When they first met, Victory and Taff had a lot more than their shared age in common. Both girls had suffered friendless childhoods, a bond which instantly cemented their relationship. Like Victory, Taff was an outsider. Worse, sin of sins, she was actually a foreigner. Her full name was Myfanwy and she was half Welsh. Although she had only the faintest of accents, her voice was ridiculed by other children. Taff reckons this never bothered her, sticks and stones and so on; and it's hard to imagine her sulking or giving a damn, but it did set her apart. Taff is as down to earth as Victory was up in the clouds. She says exactly what she thinks, gets into endless trouble and laughs fit to bust at those who don't like it. The two adolescents seemed made for each other, two halves of an invincible whole. Heaven help those who stood in their way as they bucked and pranced from child to adulthood.

'We met at dancing classes,' one or the other of them would tell us again and again, 'no boy was ever brave enough to take either of us in his arms, we looked a sorry sight in those days. So there we were, four sets of toes in tight shoes, two breasts colliding to the strains of the foxtrot. Most of the class we spent doubled up with giggles or the stitch. Seemed to dance everything at breakneck speed, didn't we Dear? Not a glimmer of timing between us. Often enough we'd finished, worn ourselves out, halfway through the music. Still, the best bit was sitting, panting and watching to see whose hands were sliding towards whose bum, whose trousers boasted the biggest bulge.'

I can hear Taffs laugh now, as clearly as if she was in the next cell. A laugh to shake solid walls.

To be fair, Taff did practise refinement from time to time, and it took some practise I'm sure. She had no choice, few men would have looked at her in her natural state. And she loved men. Or I should say she loves them; I'm sure she's flirting still in her old folks' home, exercising those heavy eyelids whenever a bloke walks by. Toning down the cackle until it sounds more ladylike. Give her a couple of vodka tonics and you'll hear the real thing but by then with any luck you'll be pissed too and that'll soften the edges.

Can you see them? Those two almost-women, dancing together out of time, whizzing round the floor of some dusty old hall in the hope of hurrying the arrival of love and sex? It couldn't come quickly enough for them, they were, in all senses, ahead of their time.

I know my problem. I want to be Taff, in those good old days. I want to giggle with Victory at the boys in all their gawky glory, to feel my knees knock in harmony with hers when a handsome one appears on the scene. To triumph over the good girls, over the prigs in permanent waves. To swing down the street after the rain, a shining girl on the arms of a likely lad, orange lights reflected in the puddles, my stockings damp, my body ready. I want to be there, taking life in great gulps, not being for one second a tease, but offering and accepting the real thing. Going all the way.

Well, I say that Victory was a friendless child, but after the freak storm she grew very close to her mother, Editha, or rather very fond of her. Being loved and appreciated was such a novelty for Editha - the experience came too late for her to enjoy it wholeheartedly. She never achieved that easy, confidential, giggling state that I enjoyed with my mum. There was always a brusqueness about Granny which gave the impression that she didn't care. But we knew she loved Victory and us grandchildren really, deep down, because nothing, not her silent hard-working father, not the endless storms and gales she suffered or the routine of her life, not even her lazy demanding husband, could take the softness out of Editha's smile. I think my grandmother found the seven of us heavy going, but also awe inspiring. She was nosy, interfering and bloody-minded in her old age but she had a way of staring at one or the other of us as if we'd dropped from outer space and then breaking into that special smile of hers which was composed of nothing more or less complicated than inherent love.

At this point in the story Mum would usually hunt for the tiny tartan egg, and if it could be found amongst the clutter she'd hold it up as if offering it for auction. The McDuff Egg was a masterpiece in miniaturization and ingenuity. Made of wood, it hatched, when twisted, to reveal a complete sewing kit with a thimble in the bulbous end of the egg and threads spooled around a central stem that housed pins and needles. Some of the weave in the tartan was outlined in gold, and the name McDuff was written amongst the reds and greens in minuscule golden lettering. My mother had a wicker basket full of impossible tangles of cottons, fat, lethal pin cushions, needle cases shaped like fruits or many skirted ladies, and this she used, diving in to its dangerous depths whenever we ripped or burst out of our clothes. But the McDuff Egg was complete and untouched even when... Oh God, I suppose I should have saved it. I never thought... Zulema was especially fond of it, she has small, neat hands - although she used to spoil these by constantly chewing her nails - she's always liked objects that fit snugly in her palm.

I can't believe my mother is dead. Although I've missed her, cried over her, suffered from her absence; I haven't believed in it, death, the fact that I will never see her again. My subconscious expects her to appear, in this cell, or later, at my trial. When I saw your letter I thought for one second ... I jump when I hear the distant ring of the telephone, still hoping... My ears are strained for the first sound of her voice, a voice that will speak up for me when everybody else talks of me with hatred and anger. But she isn't here, and she will not be there, will she Matthew? She's gone.

We were shy as strangers with each other. Then he said what I was thinking: 'This is weird, Mum. Wrong way round, you inside, me visiting.'

'I can't believe you came ...' I said to Bing because it was true and I could think of nothing else to say. I remembered having used the same phrase to Oliver, my son's father, nearly nineteen years ago. Oliver had appeared on the doorstep of The Cornflake House on the very day I was preparing to go to a clinic and have an abortion. My son was literally saved by the bell, the ghastly 'Avon calling' chimes which heralded the arrival of the man responsible for my pregnant state. Oliver had a hare-lip, or he had been born with one. An operation to free the lip had left him with a twist to his mouth and a lisp to his speech which I found impossibly arousing. I was so in love, I remember confusion and sickness, the joy of touching, the pain of parting. We did more parting than touching, a sure sign that our love affair was doomed. But on that day Oliver came to see me.

'I can't believe you came ...' I gasped. Then we talked; and he convinced me to keep the baby by promising that I would have his manly support - not only throughout my pregnancy but for ever and always.

To be fair to the man, he did reappear occasionally to pat my pod of a stomach and offer words of encouragement. I knew he was dating a thinner, less encumbered blonde by the time I gave birth, but he made an effort and turned up to see me while I was in the maternity ward.

'Well done, Sweetie,' he lisped, as if I'd won a horse race. I grinned. I've always had a thing about men's voices; some, like yours Matthew, are smooth plain chocolate to the hungry senses. Oliver could have talked me into anything -well, I suppose that was how I came to be there, between maternity ward sheets, in the first place. He told me he thought I should call the tiny new being Trevor, an idea that made me laugh out loud until I realized he'd said, 'I think you should call him Trevor,' rather than 'I think we should.' He clearly had no intention of being part of any decision making team. I said I'd already decided on a name and when I told him my choice, it was Oliver's turn to laugh loudly. A reaction that's been echoed by many equally small-minded people since.

'It's quite common in Africa,' I sulked, but this only made Oliver scoff some more.

The last time I saw Oliver was by accident. In fact it almost caused an accident. I was being given a lift by a friend and when we stopped at a junction, I looked to my side and there he was, in a parallel car, tanned, handsome, carefree as ever. I gasped and my companion's foot slipped off the clutch, making us shoot forward until we almost hit a lorry. Oliver didn't see me, he was busy talking into a mobile phone.

I've often wondered why Oliver bothered to stop me from having an abortion. Did he want a child simply so that he could boast of having fathered 'some kid somewhere'? Or was he spurred by the basic instinct to procreate the species? Maybe he was just proud of being fertile. Or possibly, and this only occurred to me recently, my mother took control of his shoes too, so that, like Ben Davidson, he was forced to confront me.

I was still gazing fondly at the silent piano player's fingernails.

'You were a love child,' I said softly, 'did I ever tell you that before?'

A fresh thought occurred to me, 'How did you hear about me? About all of it?'

He hadn't seen any of his relations and he could hardly have been watching television in his cave.

'Papers,' he explained, 'big spread and a picture in the locals, little para in a national.' Yes, of course he'd be getting the newspapers, or having them delivered. I found myself whimsically wondering if his hole had an address. It must have been a shock, searching for articles about himself and his fellow protesters but finding a 'big spread' about his errant mother. As if he'd read my thoughts, he said, 'We were in together, one day, you and me.'

'Ah,' I thought this was rather touching, two lawbreakers united by the snipe and snap of the press.

The look on my face must have prompted him, in this strange about-turn situation, to ask what any responsible prison visitor should.

I was tempted to answer, flippantly, that it had seemed a good idea at the time, because this had been his response when I'd once asked him the same question. He's always been anti motor cars and when he was asked 'Why did you do it?', he'd just punctured every tyre in our neighbourhood. Not only that, but he'd been caught doing so. Still, this was a whole lot more serious and he deserved a decent answer, 'I did it for her, for your Grandma Victory.' I found it impossible to say more, my throat itched, my eyes prickled and I so badly wanted to avoid tears.

'Fair enough,' he said. I loved him the most then, more than I knew I could.

Our time was up. We were standing, smiling gently at each other.

I expect, I hope, that I still smell of him, of his earthy hideout and his unwashed hair, of his roll-ups and his age-old combat trousers. No perfume could have been sweeter to me. Back in my cell, holding him again and again in my

memory, I find it impossible to think of him as Bing. It just doesn't suit him. He chose it because it consists of four of the letters of his whole name. Other possibilities were Les, Sin or Sing and, one which had us rolling with mirth, Bess. I can't say I blame him for discarding the name I chose for him. I suppose I was hoping to follow in my mother's footsteps, give my child a head start in being extraordinary, but now I can see that I went too far. Mind you, my boy didn't shrink from me as I whispered his name in his ear while enjoying that long, lovely hug:

'Thank you, Blessing,' I dared to offer. 'Thank you for this show of strength.'

Eighteen years ago, when Oliver had disappeared through the swing doors of the maternity ward and the echo of his scorn had died away, I lay with Blessing in my arms and wept. Of course I felt abandoned, heavy with the tragedy of unrequited love; but now I understand that those were probably just the usual post-natal tears, brought about by dancing hormones. I don't cry easily or frequently. Only birth and death seem to affect my tear ducts. And before long I felt a gratifying grain of grit mixed with the salt on my cheeks. I knew I'd get by without a man - but I was no fool, I understood that it wouldn't be easy. I'd watched my mother struggle the same way. I looked down at baby Blessing's fuzzy head. 'Son,' I told him, 'you'd better live up to that name of yours.'

Today, at last, my Blessing has proved that he was listening to me all that time ago.

Thank you, Matthew, for your visit and for my frog. I can honestly say I like nothing better than this tiny creature. I love his polished colours, shades of damp forest floors, moss, ivy and periwinkle. Being made of stone, being the colour of plants and shaped in the image of a living thing, he brings all aspects of the outside world into my cell. What a clever man you are. You knew, before I knew myself, that a smooth, stone frog was exactly what I most wanted. He sits in my palm, happy as any of his living brothers and sisters on their lily pads.

See, I was right about you all along. You've proved that you have a heart. Please don't panic when you read this. I understand that the frog is only a token of your sympathy. I heard what you said; it's impossible for you to see me at any time other than on your official visits. And you must stick to only a professional relationship with an inmate. Understood. Honestly. You can relax in the certain knowledge that I'm not about to leap up and ravish you - much as the idea appeals. I'll practise restraint. But things change; all things change all the time. I won't always be here, on the wrong side of the law, gazing longingly at you, on the right side. When they hear my full story, they'll throw my case out of court. If I hadn't been incoherent with grief, I should have explained myself on the night of my arrest, and most likely I'd have been freed on the spot. You see, although my action was dramatic, in a place where drama is abhorred, I hardly think of it as a crime at all.

I had a visit from my solicitor, my brief as they say. She's not quite the forceful character a person in prison would chose. Dress wise, she reminded me of Perdita, my smart, businesslike younger sister, the same neat blouse and tight black skirt. My sister. Sometimes I think Perdita must have been a foundling, she's so unlike the rest of us. Apart from the clothes, my solicitor is softer than my sister, I can't imagine her standing up for me in court. Not that she doesn't have my interest at heart, but she waffles. I did my best to reassure her, explaining that all I need is the chance to tell my tale but she gave me the impression she wasn't quite listening. Her name is Valerie and she has dark, frizzy hair and very white skin which is flecked with moles. Because her voice is so monotonous, my mind kept wandering.

I thought it was a shame Mum hadn't met her. My mother had a way with moles. She had to find some excuse to touch them, which caused problems when they were in awkward places, but once she'd laid her hands on those brown growths, they faded away. Spots and warts also succumbed to her touch. We children had the clearest skins in the county.

I once saw my mum grab a teenage boy in the street. A risky business because he was with a gang of his leather-clad mates at the time. She held his face in her hands. 'Sorry,' she told him, moving her fingers over to the screaming patch of acne near his nose, 'I thought you were one of my brood,' and she patted him as old people pat toddlers, 'but I expect you've got a perfectly good mother of your own at home.'

Then there was the untidiness. My mother tried, she wasn't slovenly, you wouldn't have called her house-proud but she did make some effort to keep those corners clean. It was a losing battle though. The Cornflake House was an average size, not a great rambling home for a hatch of children. We fell over each other and each other's toys constantly. Tables and chairs were hidden under books, papers, security blankets. Until I started dating and visiting, I'd never sat down without first shifting a pile of junk. To emerge from a home like that in pressed, unsoiled clothing, in shoes with matching laces, was unfeasible. We were the misfits, the new scruffs on the block. Rainbow coloured, unelasticated, tied together with bits of chewed string. We were reliably, consistently messy. You could depend on The Cornflake House kids to turn up for PE with one brown and one grey plimsoll, to appear in assembly wearing the wrong school tie. I will never be groomed, I wasn't made that way, but I could happily bask in your spruceness, Matthew. Forgive me for getting personal, but I appreciate your form to the point where I know that you have what is, to me, a perfect body. You would be tidy even in the nude.

At least this time I made an effort and was prepared, as best I could be. I wonder if you noticed the brushed hair and teeth, the pearls? Thank God I sat behind myself, not able to see what you saw. Imagine if we'd been designed differently, how terrible to have to watch every blush and frown, every slackening of our own jaws. Talking of blushes, do you know that your cheeks redden exquisitely under stress? A trait we have in common, at last. I'd thought we might be too precisely opposite. When you shook my hand, secreting my frog there, your jaw, which is very fine by the way, sharply outlined, twitched just a little and your complexion darkened in a way that made me long for a fan to cool you. I can't bear it now, the distance of the law between us. Keeping my distance, trying to win you without being able to make contact, this is the second most difficult thing I have ever had to do. Perhaps life will always be this hard on me now; the second most difficult quest is following so closely on the heels of the first. I only hope that captivating you doesn't bring me as fierce a punishment as the one I am suffering for freeing my mother.

You said you wanted me to try and tell you about myself as a child, to explain how it felt to be Eve, the eldest. It felt brilliant and tragic, marvellous and ordinary. I was both princess and pauper, a clumsy tub with a thin, dainty girl locked inside. A kid who never cared about clothes, yet longed for lace, silk, sequins. Well what child isn't a mass, or in my case a mess, of contradictions? Being me at home was so completely separate from being me elsewhere, it's amazing I'm not schizophrenic. I was confident, self-assured, often bossy with my brothers and sister, yet I was reticent and shy with adults. I'm sure that grown-ups, with the exception of Mum and Taff, found me distasteful. Neighbours in Fisher's Close eyed me with suspicion, as if expecting me to spit or call abuse at any moment, while I was really a quiet girl, keen to be at peace with people. My teachers treated me as if I was a special needs case, although I was bright enough and got good marks. They always addressed me directly, bending their concerned faces close to my own so that I knew whose teeth were brushed and who hadn't had time to say hallo to Mr Toothbrush. I might have been a deaf child or a foreigner. Such treatment baffled and upset me. Fear of looking as stupid as they thought I was kept me tense, tight, on the alert; I never allowed my mouth to hang open or let my eyes drift out of focus. I know I was a sight (and I was the pick of the bunch since most of my clothes went on down through the other six children) but I still find it depressing that not one teacher ever saw through the tatty exterior.

Have you noticed that I make no mention of friends? I had none. I spared no time, made no opportunities for forming friendships; perhaps there was no need. I was one of seven, and then their was my mother, always prepared to listen, to laugh, to help out. Besides, forgive the pathos, but I can't recall anybody making advances, asking if I'd like to sit by them, to walk to assembly in their company, to share a bag of sweets. I know it takes two and, not wanting to be seen to capitulate or conform, I was equally mean with my smiles, my gestures of goodwill. When situations demanded pairing up, for dancing or for the walk to the swimming pool, I was among the last to be chosen, often having to team up with the teacher or with an insipid little boy called Timothy Ross, a creature so nondescript that even when you held his hand you managed to forget he existed. It didn't bother me. I wanted it that way. To join them would have diluted me, or so I believed.

I shall make some friends when I'm free, get out to evening classes, or join a bridge set. You see, I've no idea how to begin. Of course there's always Liz, but she seems intent on maintaining our agreed silence, and who am I to intrude?

On the way back to my cell today, with your kindly face clear in my mind, I stopped to kick the wall in frustration. The warder handled me roughly and I was glad to feel my muscles burning. If nothing else, pain brings an awareness of life going on regardless. Yesterday, I overheard two of my fellow prisoners as they sighed over a magazine. 'It's not all the crap inside that gets to you,' one said, 'it's thinking of the stuff out there you can't have.'

Too true. Until they let me out of here, I must not only practise restraint, I must also learn the art of doing time.

Do you remember the word you used when telling me how you were enjoying the stories of my family? You said you found them bewitching. An appropriate adjective. I was wondering how my mother would have coped with doing time, and the answer is that she would have bewitched time to make it serve her. Not that she'd have ended up behind bars in the first place; she could make folks forget what they'd seen. Or if, as in my case, the evidence was too glaring to be forgotten, she would talk soothingly until the listener's perspective shifted to her advantage. But supposing she had needed to kill time for some reason; can you believe me when I say she was able to do so?

She could make time stand still. It must be hard to credit and it's almost impossible to prove; although there were eight witnesses with her on the night she achieved this feat. Unfortunately they were all family and may be considered biased. Also, of the eight, my Grandma Editha is no longer living and my brothers Merry and Django would be disregarded as witnesses in any situation. That leaves me, an imprisoned criminal, my other two brothers - Fabian and Samik and my sisters, Zulema and Perdita. From this bunch, Perdita is the only one who could convince even the seriously sceptical that time had stopped. And Perdita might well have chosen to forget the episode. She disapproves of messing about with the status quo, of what happened to her in that non-time, and of my family in general. Perdita is a broker these days, she sells stocks and shares. From the bedlam of The Cornflake House she emerged in a trim suit and crisp white blouse to walk the floors of commerce. As strange a phenomenon as a peacock hatching amongst a clutch of scraggy chickens' eggs. No, Perdita could not be relied on to tell the truth about that timeless night.

Maybe I overestimate your reaction, perhaps it isn't so strange or unbelievable. We change the clocks twice a year, moving our mornings on or our evenings back, and few complain that time cannot be gathered up and herded in such a way. It seems I've begun to think in terms of proving every case, like Valerie. Finding evidence and witnesses to bear me out, when I'm only recounting an event.

Before I tell you what happened, I ought to take you inside The Cornflake House as it was all those years ago and introduce you to its inhabitants one by one. You already know my mother. Then there's Fabian, a troubled teenager at this time, handsome and haunted. He dreams of greatness, longs for fame. He needs to escape, fly the nest and join that gathering of musicians who wait for him. But tonight he's obliged to sit with us, pouting, restless, wasted. Fabian had a tough time in Surrey, being half-caste he was the butt of prejudice and envy. He was every teenage girl's fantasy, except the middle-class white girls of our town weren't supposed to dream in glorious Technicolor.

With Fabian, on one of our sagging sofas, you'll see Zulema. Her skin is not quite as dark as Fabe's, but her eyes and hair are black. At twelve she's already a beauty with graceful movements to match her gentle looks. I used to think she was an angel sent to watch over us; even now I'm not convinced she's an ordinary mortal. Well, mortal maybe, but ordinary, never. As she grew up she became lovelier and more remote. I miss her most of all, but that's the future. Tonight you can feast your eyes on her oval face and share her serenity. I won't blame you for finding yourself drawn to look in her direction.

Sitting all by himself, on his special chair, is Django. By rights, he should look wild, reckless. My mother insists he really did come from the Gypsies. He has brown eyes and twisting hair, but he cuts his locks so short that no curl remains. What is about to happen will have less affect on Django than on the rest of us, because he is already in his evening state of semi-trance. Only the stroke of midnight can wake him. He goes to bed then, counting the stairs, undressing from the feet upwards, brushing his teeth thirty-two times. He reads through his vacuum cleaner catalogues for exactly fifteen minutes and switches his light out at twelve thirty-one. You know, he's the most unlovable boy in the world, but I can't think of him without wanting to grab him in a crushing embrace.

The shining example of cleanliness is Perdita, and pinned to her side, held down by her tidy but forceful hand, is Merry. What a scruff. He's how old? About six I should think. Wonderful face, eyes of polished turquoise, the chin of an apprentice garden gnome. Mind out for Merry, he has a way of landing on people, like a comet.

Grandma Editha has moved in with us now that Eric is dead. She takes the fireside chair, sits so close her knees cook slowly all evening. I swear I sometimes smelt them roasting. Last but not least is Samik, the baby of the family, squashed between Fabian and Zulema. He adores Zulema, who doesn't? And everybody loves him. Right now Samik, at five, is as cuddly as a panda. Sadly he's already suffering from insecurity brought about by teasing and bullying. He's not entirely English, he has a look of Eskimo around the eyes which marks him out for special treatment at school.

All right? Ready to step inside? I'll escort you up the garden path, holding your hand as we pass the caravan and the tree house in the overgrown front garden. Together we can peer through the bubbled glass into the hall. This space glows warmly back at us thanks to red paint and stained-glass lampshades. We go inside and are greeted by a haze of warm, sweet and sour air; musk, incense, dogs, unwashed feet. I allow you a moment to get your bearings; it's a house of contradictions and you might want to focus on a few of these.

What do you notice? The worn but expensive Axminster carpet in bright reds and blues, perhaps. Or the variety of Wellingtons that line this Axminstered hall. You might glance down to the kitchen, pink with neon lighting, fitted in best English oak but awash with unwashed pots and pans. We are heading for the door of the cramped, cluttered living room, where I will leave you and yet not move from your side. I have my part to play in the scene you'll watch, but in this instance I can actually be in two places at once. As you stand in the doorway, you'll see them all, two women, three teenagers and four growing children. I'm leaving you now. Yet at the same time I stay and squeeze your hand; don't be alarmed. And please excuse that other me, the overweight, under confident teenager; she has a good heart, under the puppy fat.

It's a story that really should begin 'Once upon a time ...' because its main concern is time. My mother had been experimenting for weeks with the concept of time. Clocks in The Cornflake House had spun backwards, chimed when it was not the hour, jerked their troubled hands forwards as if learning to drive. In those days we children were always in a hurry, late for school, rushing to meet friends, gulping meals. These hiccups in time had been driving us mad. We were used to the unusual but most magic was made to our advantage. On the night that time stopped, we'd been forced to stay in the living room until nearly midnight while our mother hushed us and concentrated hard. We were bored, stiff, fidgety, and then, when she was successful, suddenly stilled.

Tve done it, stopped the clock,' Victory beamed and she waited, momentarily, for our congratulations, before realizing the full implication of her words. She hurried on, 'Sorry, but bear with me, it's taken for ever to achieve this. Not too uncomfy for you, is it?' If it was, we were hardly in a position to say so. 'I think,' she bubbled as she swiped an orange cream from under Grandma's frozen nose, 'that it's the exactness of the hour, or the oh-so-nearly hour, which has made the difference.'

Since I was sitting opposite the fire, facing the narrow mantelpiece on which the clock rested - and I do mean rested - I was the only one who could see and appreciate what my mother meant. It was, as the telephone robot might have said, eleven fifty-nine and fifty-nine seconds, precisely. Midnight hung suspended, frustrated, its throat choked by unchimed bells.

'Ah,' Victory caught my static eye. 'Our Eve can see it, can't you, Love? And can you feel the breeze that holds those hands? The wind of no-change? Course you can.' I couldn't nod or tell my mother how right she was but my hair fluttered obligingly from my face as I stared at the still, silent timepiece. Mum was flushed with success. So much was possible if only there was time to do impossible things. As my mum had pointed out, she who controls time, controls all.

I might have felt more enthusiastic myself if I'd been able to applaud, or at least to speak. Unfortunately for those of us who shared the moment, when time stopped, so did we. Although I was unable now to look around the room, I guessed that petrifaction had taken each of us by surprise. Grandma was almost visible, her fuzzy form sitting stock-still in the corner of my eye. She had her mouth open, having been caught in mid-sentence, and her left hand rested possessively on her precious box of chocolates. The remainder of the family were coloured blurs on the edges of my vision, although I remember I could still smell Merry's infamous feet.

'Dead Lions,' she shouted. And Dead Lions we were, every last one of us. Even Merry was stilled, his body at peace in spite of the state of his mind. We must have been the deadest Dead Lions this world has ever seen. We fell like ninepins, stomachs pressed into the carpet. Each of us could see at least a couple of our friends and so we lay numbed, fully able to appreciate how the mighty Kings of Beasts had been felled by one shout.

'Bit of a close call there, eh, Evey?' Mum teased me when the visitors had gone. 'Worried you, did I?' I nodded mutely, my face so close to hers that I could see it in her brown, brown eyes. 'There's always a danger when you let outsiders in, but I don't think any of them noticed.' She was right, the party, discussed next day at school, was 'brilliant', 'smashing', an unqualified success. Nobody even mentioned Dead Lions, it was as if the game had been wiped from their memories altogether.

Well, outsiders weren't a problem when the clock stopped just this side of midnight. At least I guessed it was only us who sat so still in the night. The idea of the entire neighbourhood, perhaps the whole county, stranded as we were was too horrible to contemplate. One thing was certain, nobody was coming to collect or rescue us, so Victory had all the time in the world, and no time whatsoever, in which to reverse our situation.

Typically, as we sat in limbo, Mum decided to put her extra, hard-gained time to good use.

'Might as well make hay...' she chirped, and whipped Merry's socks from his feet. On her way to the washing basket, with these rancid tubes dangling between finger and thumb, she passed my line of vision. I heard her filling a basin with water, then the sound of scrubbing. I could smell the soap as she counted Merry's toes in an attempt to make purging into a game.

'Pure perfume,' she sighed. Had I been able to smile, I would have blessed my mother with an appreciative grin.

'These things are bad for you, Mum,' said Victory as she removed the chocolates from Grandma's lap, 'especially the hard ones. Now, you won't mind if I take a liberty? Been bothering me for months and it'll improve your looks no end.' She fished a pair of tweezers from her bag and plucked at Grandma's chin. Three long grey whiskers were flicked from tweezers to waste-paper bin, then Mum stood back, admiring her work. 'Wonderful,' she grinned and patted my grandmother's frail grey head.

Fabian had his fingernails clipped, although Mum was kind enough to leave his 'plectrum' finger alone so that he could still twang his guitar. It took an enormous effort for her to get Django out of his cursed 'Henry' T-shirt. She had to cut both side seams and widen the neck before it would leave his body. It must have been seriously hindering his circulation, making him more constrained than ever. Always the thoughtful one, Mum replaced 'Henry' with another gem. The replacement was several sizes bigger but otherwise identical, a marvellous piece of forethought which she held up before my eyes like a designer at a fashion show.

'You won't know the difference,' she promised Django; but of course he would, which was why, as a safeguard, she popped the small version on the fire - the only thing in the room, apart from herself, that was still moving. While she had the scissors at hand, she brushed Samik's hair 'til it shone as nature had intended, a task that involved a great deal of de-knotting. Then she cut it carefully so that it framed his face but could no longer hide his almond eyes. I only saw the full effect afterwards. It looked stunning.

Next Mum painted Zulema's nails with a layer of that foul stuff which stops the biter from wanting to self-mutilate. I could smell this concoction as I had smelt Merry's feet and the burning T-shirt, and yet again I was filled with admiration for the woman who was always as good as her name.

What, we must all have been wondering, could she do to the already perfect Perdita? Here there was no cleaning or trimming needed. That chestnut hair, brushed a hundred times before bed, was neatly pulled from a face which enjoyed a cleansing, toning, moisturizing routine both night and morning. Those clothes were washed and pressed and, fitted like gloves. Her shoes were polished - polished, in The Cornflake House, I ask you - and her teeth flossed. But nothing daunted and never one to leave anybody out, my mother proved once and for all that she was a woman after my own heart. Or I suppose it was my heart that dogged hers so faithfully. She messed Perdita up. Not viciously, as I might have been tempted to do, but just enough to humanize the girl. She undid the top button of Perdita's spotlessly white blouse. She removed the clip and let loose a shampoo-advertiser's dream of shining, bouncy hair. And she removed that cameo brooch which made Perdita look like a member of the lesser aristocracy.

Believe me, I was impressed. I was also, at this point, feeling pretty smug as I imagined I was just fine the way I was. Not perfect in the too well-groomed way of my sister but comfortable and complete. Whereas actually, and I blush to recall this, my mother had been saving the worst 'til last. 'Sorry Darling,' she sighed as she pulled my great sloppy jumper over my head, 'now don't be cross, or embarrassed, but we aren't always exactly as we imagine ourselves. You are blessed, Evey, with a great body. But it's time you appreciated how great it is. You shouldn't be hiding your light...' To my horror she was now easing my vest over my head, leaving me exposed to the world, to the fire anyway. 'I bought you this, and believe me you need it.' She produced a bra, holding it up for my inspection before working my arms through the straps. 'It's not even the first, or the second size, Eve. It'll make a whole lot of difference to your life, to the way you walk and hold yourself. I want you to be proud of what you've got, not to keep on pretending they aren't really there. There,' she stood back and congratulated herself, 'that's ever so much better.' My sweater was returned to me, but I knew that if I could, I would have been shivering. Not from cold but from mortification.

The bra, a black satin affair which I later came to love, the anti-nail biting potion and the 'Henry' T-shirt had all appeared from "victory's giant carpet-bag. As I sat uplifted, upholstered almost, I began to understand how much planning had gone into this evening's performance. I imagined my mother in her bed, night after night, not sleeping but dreaming of improving us. Had she found Grandma's whiskers annoying for months, or only weeks? When the rest of us had complained, 'Not the Henry T-shirt again, Django, you look like a stuffed Hoover bag,' had Victory smiled inwardly, knowing that soon she would cut the dreaded thing to ribbons and feed it to the fire? Did the clicking of Fabian's fingernails and those chewed stubs of Zulema's drive her mad? Did we, in fact, each in our way irritate her to death? All credit to her, she never showed any signs of frustration, she'd always been the one, the only one, who absolutely accepted us as we were.

And then I thought how small her alterations had been. When the world mocked us, seemed often to hate us simply for being ourselves, multiracial oddballs, our mother saw us only as her children. If all she wanted to change was our socks or underwear, then the woman deserved a medal.

Once she'd done with me, she sat on the floor, taking her time, a time that existed only for her. She may have thought there would be trouble when we were released, that a period of noise, fighting and tearfulness was bound to follow. She rested as if in meditation, head down, eyes closed, probably calling on something out of the ordinary, even by her standards. Her breathing, a strange mixture of panting, blowing and deep inhalations, finished and we found ourselves able to move again. Amazingly, we weren't angry with her. Not one bit. Time moved on a second and the clock chimed with extra vigour, each ping resounding joyfully through the room until it was no longer midnight but the next morning, and we were late for our beds. One by one we said goodnight and climbed the stairs, or in Grandma's case went through the kitchen to her flat. I don't know about the others, but I guess it was the same for all of us. I felt such a glorious heaviness that I had trouble getting undressed, especially reaching for the hooks of my new bra. I was more than tired, I was compelled to sleep. I remember falling, sweetly and steadily down through my pillows to a place of perfect peace.

It'll soon be lights out, time for bed. I am wrapped in sentiment; you are my pillow and my blanket. My hand closes on the little stone frog. I wonder, were you aware of any symbolism when you chose him? You are a small man, Matthew Pritchard, and you hair is going thin, but you are no frog in my eyes. Has nobody ever seen the prince in you before? Have I really stumbled on a man who has been overlooked by the rest of my sex? No, I can't believe no other woman has heard the music in your voice, seen the texture and imagined the warmth of your skin, or lost herself in those gloriously grey eyes. If you were short and fat, instead of being so perfectly proportioned, and if your eyes bulged, which they most certainly don't, then I might assume I was alone in fancying you.

A terrible thing happened to me in the night. I woke to find another body in my bed. My first thought was of the frog. It seemed possible that I had energized and activated him. That the force of my longing, flowing from my hand to his stony being, had brought him to life. Not totally transformed. The thing in my bed had all the damp bonelessness of an amphibian, this was no prince. For a few seconds I lay shivering, anticipating a croak. Then I jumped out of bed and my foot landed on the frog. He'd fallen to the floor as I slept. He was no bigger than before and solid as any pebble. Not magically turned to skin and blood. I swooped like a night owl and plucked him up before darting across my cell to the furthest corner.

As I crouched there squeezing my green friend in my left hand, I knew that if the alien in my bed was no life-sized frog, then it had to be human and from the feel of it, dead human at that. Horrifying possibilities flashed by me. Liz had been unwell, that was why she was tearful. She'd climbed down from the top bunk and died by my side. But as I listened, there it was, that deep breathing; Liz was fast asleep on her bunk.

Perhaps it was the ghost of my mother, my grandmother - worse, of Grandad Eric.

I gathered my panicking thoughts and made them rerun the actual events. I'd been dreaming and had woken bathed in sweat, clammy and aching. Pushing myself to a sitting position, heaving my torso off the mattress, I felt, to my horror, not a frog but a hand under mine. Yes it was a hand, lifeless, limp, as wet to the touch as a drowned man. From my corner I stared at the lumpy bed, waiting for the dead to move.

Slowly my senses began to work again. First my eyes had to become accustomed to the dimness; it's never properly dark, lights always burn beyond the grill in the door. I wondered what goes on, in this or any prison, while we inmates sleep. There were faint voices coming from somewhere, I strained to hear them but they slid about like an untuned radio. The whole experience, limp hand, lack of comprehension and not being able to hear clearly, was frightening and frustrating. If only I still had my magic, I could have not only listened better but honed in on certain sounds, seen into blocked distances, known much, much more. Soon, at least, I could make out the bed, with the top sheet thrown back to reveal nothing but the bottom sheet, crumpled but uncovered by any body. Then I could smell my own sweat but that was it, there was no hint of death in my nostrils. Lastly my brain began to work. I reasoned that it would have been impossible for a dead person to climb into my bed unaided. And I would have heard, felt and seen anybody putting a body there, beside me. So there wasn't a body in my bed.

But the feeling of a hand under mine had been real enough and still I shuddered, staying in my corner, cold and shaken. Three of my limbs ached, but my right arm was stinging with fierce pins and needles. I rubbed it gradually back to life, the fizzing alternating between dull and sharp pain as the blood began to flow. I worked from my shoulder downwards, lifting my numb arm, until I reached my hand. And there it was, the limp, boneless object from my bed. Devoid of feeling, my right hand had let my left hand think it was a foreign body, and my brain had believed it too.

Having clapped and slapped my hand back to life, I crawled to the bed where it was chill, damp and lonelier than ever. Not that I'd have welcomed a stiff for a bedfellow but the dream I'd been having before waking so fitfully had been full of life, making me long for voices, movement, company. Staring at the mesh of Liz's bunk, I tried to return to the dream in which I'd been back in that day, long ago, when we had moved into The Cornflake House. The great day when we'd hitched our old caravan to Owen's lorry and rocked our way through England, from the fens to deepest Surrey. In my dream the lorry had become a milk float and our journey, amongst the clanking bottles, had been painfully slow. Not only were we propelled by a single electric battery but we stopped to deliver gold or silver-topped pints to every household on our route. Then there was the orange juice in bottles with shining green tops like beetles in the sun. Merry, just a toddler at that time, made himself sick by drinking milk and orange alternately. Dream vomit, bright yellow with green and carrot-coloured chunks. As the poorly tot hurled himself off the moving float, all arms reached for him and our bodies tumbled after him to land in a sickly heap on the damp verge. I was the last to jump, landing on top of this human pile, with my mother underneath.

Finally the day dawned and we were off on our long-awaited journey. You'd be amazed how much you can fit into one small caravan and an old open-backed lorry. We stacked ourselves high, perching on toys, books, bedding, crockery, and that was only the caravan. Our furniture, such as it was, had been stored in a shed until that day. Now it sat in the lorry, exposed to the sky. Ancient moth-eaten sofas and wormy chairs wobbled under hastily tied ropes and on the very top lay a scratched white table, its legs pointing crudely upwards. We must have looked like refugees.

In my prison bed I lay and smiled to think of the consternation our arrival caused in that exclusive cul-de-sac. What were we? Gypsies? Tinkers? Tramps? A bit of each, all things abominable. The residents' worst nightmares, multiplied by eight and then added to by a number of dogs, cats and rodents. I suppose, if you belong to the middle classes, and if you have invested in a nice, tidy house in a smart location, the arrival of vagabonds in an old, open lorry and a battered caravan is not exactly a welcome sight.

God, it was brilliant to arrive. We were so fed up, having been cramped in that egg of a caravan for hours on end. Except for Fabian who sat like Lord Muck beside Owen in the cab of the lorry. Yes, the rest of us had reached the hair-pulling, head-banging stage, the point where torturing each other was the only way to stay sane.

They had built the houses of our cul-de-sac in an orchard, or on the spot where the orchard had once blossomed. This site was at the bottom of a steep hill and as we descended behind the lorry we were tipped to the front of the caravan and attacked by sliding crockery. Before we could yell at Owen to slow down, he was turning sharp left, swinging us against the windows, then shuddering to a halt. We picked ourselves up, turned around and squashed our faces on the glass to see why we'd stopped.

It took me a while to understand this, because reality was nothing like my expectations. I'd conjured my own Cornflake House from the artist's impression and my version was prettier than any house I'd ever seen, but only two-dimensional. My imagined house stood, a cardboard cut-out in splendid isolation, in a watercolour meadow. I think there was even a thin, paper Eve gazing wistfully from a bedroom window. The sight I first saw through the caravan window was very different; far from isolated, these dwellings stood almost overlooking each other. In the small sphere of my vision I could see three homes at least, trim as dolls' houses and close enough together to share hammocks. Figures emerged from tidy hallways, people imitating goldfish, mouths opening, closing, dropping open again. Then Owen appeared at the caravan door, 'Reception committee's waiting,' he announced in his finest fen voice.

Dogs escaped instantly, yapping, peeing, heading for the goldfish people. Merry followed them, pushing past Owen, running to catch up, tumbling, screaming and, not being encumbered by a nappy, copying the hounds by pissing against a flowering cherry. The rest of us formed a queue behind our mother, picking up on her anxiety, nervous of meeting our benefactors.

'Number three,' Mum informed us, Hhe one with the flags flying.'

Standing by Zulema in the caravan, I watched my mother shaking hands with a man in a suit, practically dropping a curtsey to him and his small party of colleagues. Her mouth moved, presumably she was thanking them for their boundless generosity. The man in charge was winded with surprise. During this, his first encounter with the lucky family, the poor man aged several years. His eyes did a fair imitation of Al Jolson, roving from mother to children, from Owen in his jeans which were held up with string, to Merry who was hanging semi-naked from a drain pipe. Well. What a shower. He glanced dubiously at his clipboard, as if it had lied to him. I suppose Mum's name was written there and my guess is that he was searching for the word 'alien' in brackets. It was their own fault, those Cornflake people hadn't bothered to check us out. We lived so far from London, where the cornflake company was based, that all communication had been by post. I bet companies vet folks nowadays, bet you any money that once this suit-man got back to base he instigated a new regime for checking on those they may later have to meet on doorsteps or at posh garages. His colleagues were pretty stunned too, although one woman - I later discovered she was the interior designer - couldn't help smiling to herself. We were decidedly non-U, I'm afraid. Non-Surrey. It was an embarrassing while before the Cornflake man recovered his composure. No doubt, in this interlude, as Merry fell and scratched his bum and Samik howled for milk, the man considered ways of telling us a mistake had been made. That we couldn't have this house and that it would be best for us to clamber back in that hut on wheels and go away.

There was no escape for him, of course. The home was ours, fair and square. The photograph they took, of Mum smiling over the top of Samik's baby head while flags of many colours flapped round her ears, was later framed and hung in pride of place over the mantelpiece. The suit-man said a few hesitant words of congratulations, then, with a look of undisguised apprehension, he presented Mum with a pair of scissors. The photographer adjusted his tripod and snip, Mum cut the red ribbon. A few hands clapped, a small sound in the great outdoors. Finally, Mum was awarded the key.

Thinking about it, I believe Taff was the first to step inside The Cornflake House. Mum turned the key, held back the door and Taff s stilettos sank into the newly fitted Axminster. By the time Zulema and I crept in, Taff was in full swing, swigging straight from the bottle, filling the empty house with 'oohhs', and 'just get a load of this, Vie'.

She never did snap her fingers to break the spell. We lived in our Cornflake House because my mother believed it was meant to be. Had destiny intended us to stay in our caravan, then Mum wouldn't have bought the box of cornflakes in the first place. The artist's impression of a Dream House on the back of that box, the invitation to try her luck, wouldn't have caught her eye, enticing her to have a go at the competition. What's more, I don't believe Mum would have entered the competition unless she knew, without any doubt, that she would win. She was more than lucky. Nobody played cards with Mum more than once. Dice fell into any pattern she wished and we kids knew better than to invite her to play games of chance with us. I remember one time when Zulema and I were playing Pick-A-Stick, you know, that game where you drop a stack of coloured sticks in a tight formation and have to take them one by one without moving any of the others. Those bits of wood remained still in impossible situations for Mum, until we were forced to accuse her of cheating. 'Can't help it,' she shrugged, and I don't suppose she could.

You had to say which 'luxuries' were best, in our competition for the house, put in order of preference things we'd never seen before. It was boom time, women, having worked through the war, were supposed to be lusting after labour-saving gadgets. These delights would seem primitive to us now, the 'super-twin' washing machine, which included 'Spin Drying!', was the size of a small garden shed, but each item was miraculously modern then. We put the Dishmaster fairly low on our list, it being hard to cope with the idea of a machine doing our mountains of washing-up, but the Kenwood Chef, billed as 'y^our servant in the kitchen' sounded just the job. And as I say, Mum knew only too well that she was getting it exactly right. There was a tie-breaker to finish in no more than ten words ... 'I eat my cornflakes every morning because . . .' We mulled this over for a while, until Mum came up with; 'all year round, there's sunshine in every crispy, crunchy bowlful.' Simple, but effective; nobody had ever equated cereal with the weather before.

Those who doubt the existence of magic should have been there, in that sleepy Lincolnshire village when Mum and I posted our entry. I swear the envelope floated down that post-box. And if that wasn't convincing enough, they should have seen our faces when we opened the reply. Mum might have known she'd win, and I had my suspicions, but the rest of them could hardly take it in.

'A house?'

'Yes, a whole house.'

'And doing a quiz thing, yes.'

'A house? Like Grandma's?'

'No; no; and of course not. It's a house, not a Grand Hotel. It's got three bedrooms, not eight.' But still, three bedrooms, detached, with gardens front and rear - and all for next to nothing, for eating one box of cornflakes instead of the gooey porridge Grandma usually dished up. My brothers and sisters made me read the glorious news over and over '.. . delighted to tell you /please confirm by return of post / we look forward to hearing which carpets you have chosen,' and yet again I read the phrase, 'your very own Dream Home¹. Those five words must have been repeated hundreds of times. The smallholding might have been on a cloud, the air was light with dreams come true.

It seemed, after all, that there was a God. And He was, to quote the hymn, good, good, good, and He smiled, unlike most adults, benevolently down on us. A vast, charismatic figure of the heavens who could change fortunes with a wink of his eye. In my imagination, this deity was a cross between the standard bearded father figure and Hughie Green.

But have you ever considered that expression; dreams come true? Today, with the arrival of the national lottery, there are new millionaires every week, twice weekly in fact. According to reports, instant wealth can bring pleasure and pain in equal measures. In our dreams we omit the pain, naturally enough. Sun shines on us as we drive gleaming convertibles, champagne corks pop, fountains play in the large, well-kept gardens of these dreams. But imagine great riches actually falling on your head, sudden as death. Everything would need to change. Deceits would have to be practised, moves made. We'd discover a fresh set of worries. Where would we be made welcome, where would we belong? I have no answers so I'm grateful to be the child of a wise woman. My mother had the ability to harness chance. For all I know she may have looked down that road and seen a future in which we had limitless funds. Maybe she foresaw one child after another going off the rails, taking drugs, killing themselves in fast cars. Maybe. For reasons best known to herself, she rationed her good fortune, tempered any greed she may have experienced. If she'd wanted to, she could have picked six numbers from forty-nine as easily as you might select a decent wine in an off-licence; but she believed in effort, knew the delight in spending one's own hard-earned wages; understood that some dreams are best left unfulfilled.

Yet she won us The Cornflake House, because we were out-growing our caravan, because she thought that, having only the one parent, we deserved at least the stability of bricks and mortar. Did other families ever seriously consider the possibility of winning one of those prize houses? Did people transport themselves, whilst munching their breakfasts, into the back-of-box world created by an artist who was only allowed to use three colours? I mean I really don't know how carried away with fantasy folks get, when there is only a remote chance of winning - and statistics to prove exactly how remote that chance is. But if they did follow through that dream scenario, I suspect they may have found themselves wondering if winning a home was what they really wanted. Home; an emotive word, conjuring, for most of us, an image of our chosen haven. Does anybody who hasn't won a major, life-changing prize ever realize the stigma of winning? Perhaps the truth is that there are no winners; you are vomited out of one class without hope of being accepted by another. Those who own property are top of the pile, those who rent still have aspirations, ambitions, but those who get their houses by chance have no say and no status. There you have it, do you see? We won and we were grateful; but in different circumstances we might have been even more fortunate. We might have been able to choose where we lived. Supposedly, the essential things in a person's life are their relationships with other people and their relationship with their surroundings. Take one family of vagabonds, move them across England from secluded Lincolnshire smallholding to select Surrey cul-de-sac, and stand back, wait for the fireworks.

The party, Dino and Merry's toilet habits and the sight of the poor caravan rocking to the strains of Taff and her current choice of lover, set the seal on our relationship with the inhabitants of Fisher's Close, the cul-de-sac where The Cornflake House was built. Why the place was called Fisher's Close when it was on the site of an orchard, I never could fathom. I suppose the builder must have been a Mr Fisher, or a man who fished. The other home owners chose more appropriate names, Cherry Tree, Apple Orchard, Damson House. (There seems to have been some confusion as to what fruit had been grown there before the land spurted those little dream homes.) Had we been accepted, welcomed, my mother might have decided on Pear Blossom or the like for our house. But since we were met with resentment and distaste, she painted our legend on a large piece of wood, in letters red as blood, and nailed this sign to a post on our front lawn. She used a sledgehammer on the post, staking respectability through its heart. 'The Cornflake House' sign stood up to all weathers and was repainted each year so that it might shine as a constant reminder.

I ought to point out how very select the area around Fisher's Close happens to be. Across the narrow road beyond the close lies a golf course, open only to those with large bank balances and the correct outfits. The course is serene, paint-box green with puddles of pale yellow sand. It's bordered by the 'rough', a stretch of bracken and shrubs which is a paradise for wildlife and for kids playing Hide and Seek or Cowboys and Indians. Further afield the land is a pleasing patchwork of meadows and copses, dotted with small ponds. The houses there are grand affairs, borrowing styles from many countries and ages, but each hidden discretely beyond drives of laurel or rhododendrons. A walk or bike ride down the leafy lanes of this part of Surrey leaves you with the impression of distant chimneys, half glimpsed tennis courts, a dash or two of turquoise from a far swimming pool. A couple of miles down the road you come to the country's largest cemetery. Acres of graves and tombs are separated by a maze of paths. Quite a playground, for children with a suitable sense of the macabre. Zulema was especially fond of this place, begging me to follow her there on our old bikes, persuading me to play refugees searching for lost families, mothers hunting for the graves of tiny infants, jolly games like that.

For the seriously energetic, beyond the vast cemetery, is a heath, a tangled prickly expanse, not to be explored without a bag of provisions and a compass. After a rare fight with my mother I once ran away, empty-handed, to this heath and hid in a dip. I hoped I would be found, hugged, forgiven and led home. In silence I grew colder and more frightened as darkness threatened. At dusk I clambered out of my pit and raced towards the sound of traffic. A man in a Jaguar gave me a lift. The journey, which had taken hours on foot, was over in five minutes; the row was over too, thank God.

Into this rich man's paradise our family fell like fleas on velvet.

We were lucky to have Owen helping us with the move. Apart from the obvious benefit of his biceps, having a man by Mum's side as we arrived made us seem slightly less outlandish. We must have looked like a complete family, large but not without the correct balance of adults. On the other hand you wouldn't have needed a degree in genetics to see that Owen was not father to many of us. He was a bristly man. I supposed he did shave, but his cheek could make a child's skin sting for hours. We were always hungry for male company. Being fatherless we attached ourselves to Owen, bristles and all, like leeches. He loved the attention we gave him, but best of all, he loved Victory. As usual, this love was not returned. I expect Owen harboured hopes of fathering an eighth child; but my mother was so into the mystical that seven was the number she had chosen and seven we were to stay.

Anyway, back to our first days in our shining new house. Seven children of mixed origins and a mother who looked like a Gypsy fortune-teller. I wonder who was the most stunned? Us at finding ourselves so socially elevated, or our neighbours who must have believed the god of housing estates was playing a bad joke on them?

Now I'm terrified. I try to curl up like a foetus, to give them less area to attack, to appear headless. But they find me again, hate me more than ever, hit me harder. This time the blows take out the centre of my face, ridding me of a mouth and a nose with well-aimed punches. I have no features now, just a throbbing mess of offal under my forehead. The back of my skull hits the floor a second time, and a kick finds my left breast which erupts instantly in pain. They are saying things, spitting words down on me, hateful, untrue accusations that arrive on my pulped face in gobs. Through my tears I can see a tooth, not white but pink with saliva and blood, a few inches from my left arm. I reach for it, my hand travelling through a pair of stocky legs to make the rescue. Then a foot comes down hard on my fingers and I make a sound that is an ending in itself. Not groan or scream, it's more of a siren. It frightens them; it scares me too. Muttering, my attackers turn and leave.

From my spot on the floor I can see the underside of the porcelain basins. Not too clean, considering there's a toilet duty every day. There are lumps of gum stuck to some of them. I might be able to reach a rim, to haul myself up, but my arms are jelly. Besides there are mirrors up above. No it's better here, safer here. The floor doesn't feel cold anymore, although I'm shivering now, but that's shock, isn't it? Not cold, not dead, just shaken to the core. My wounds are beginning to make themselves felt, the sharp pain in my back, the throb of my breast, the crushing ache in my hand. As for my face ... I start to move my good fingers tentatively towards my mouth, but think better of it, afraid of finding only a hole filled with liquid. Of course I'm crying and there is comfort in these tears, I let them wash the wounds I can't lick. They ooze from between puffed eyelids, flowing with ease, like urine from a bed-wetting child. It would be wise to call for help but that siren-sound has finished me, the only noise I can offer is snivelling, self-pitying sobs.

'I want my mummy,' I think, and it makes me smile. At least the corner of what was my mouth moves and I taste blood in my throat. Now I remember, I've been here before, down on the floor with a thick tongue and swollen eyes. Am I dreaming or remembering? Is there that great a difference? My poor eyes close, my head spins recklessly.

I'm fourteen again and it hurts. I'm sorry for myself and sorry I disobeyed Mum. I ought to be at home, looking after the others. I said I'd stay while she nipped up to London, I promised. Now look what you've done, silly girl. And you can stop saving that, repeating that as if it will make everything all right. They'll think the blow has knocked the sense out of you.

'What's that, Love? Never you mind now, we'll soon get you sorted.' It's a man, his face is close to mine. I think he's a Nazi, there's a suspicious looking badge on his black jacket. Am I dying? Maybe this is hell, peopled not with devils but with fascists. There are people all over the ground, some with injuries, some sitting stunned. The place is foggy, full of smoke. A child is crying nearby and somewhere a man is groaning. I feel very sick so I lie back and think of home, screwing up my eyes to concentrate on the picture of Mum that's gradually coming into focus.

'Mmm,' she nods, 'trying to get the buggers to listen, in vain, of course. I was behind glass, Evey, not floating magically over your head. I was in the Station Master's office. He's got a good view from there, long windows looking down on everything. I thought if I held him, just lightly touched his arm say, that he'd see what I saw. Danger coming, that's what I saw. But he pulled away. Thought I was batty. Too late now. Lucky that St John's man found you, and a good thing you called for me.' Had I called? In my head I had, I suppose.

I swallow blood, my lip is badly cut, and I swear by every drop of blood in my body to take better care of my mother from now on.

'Leave me,' I tell him, thinking it's the St John's man again, trying to move me so Mum won't be able to find me, 'leave me here.' Of course it's not him, it's a member of the prison staff lifting me from my now familiar patch of floor to lead me to the sickbay.

Here is the doctor, a woman with a long face and hands like a jellyfish, covered in cream latex. She seems a bit flustered, for a professional. Maybe she'd have liked to have trained as a hairdresser, but had ambitious, pushy parents. No, it appears to be me who's unnerving her. Do I look that bad? Obviously I do. She checks for broken bones, tests my reflexes, covers me in ointments, and the whole examination is done with an air of distaste. Clearly she'd rather be somewhere else; even through the gloves her hands cringe from touching me. I understand. She longs to be curing just your common or garden murderer. She's heard the accusations then, and believes them.

Now I'm resting in a bed, not in my cell but in a quiet cubicle, under fresh sheets. I ache all over, even my toenails are tender. Also it feels as if my innards are composed entirely of liquid; perhaps I'm haemorrhaging. I would call the doctor back but her distaste clings bitterly to my tongue, leaving me speechless. I ought, after such an outburst of hatred, to be able to deal with a little antipathy. Now it comes rushing back to me, the venom with which I was attacked. To be hated so passionately, it winds you for ever. I've never hurt anyone. Never killed so much as an insect, knowingly. Yet those women, who must have sat near me at mealtimes, passed by me in corridors, maybe even smiled at me in that very toilet, crushed me to within an inch of my life. I can sense the build up of violence now, now that it's too late. One word leading to another, Chinese whispers turning to spit, poisoned glances. Are they a different breed from me? We're all prisoners, shouldn't we share a common pain? Ah but I ignored them, kept myself apart, because of grief and love I may have given the impression of thinking myself too good for them. I didn't communicate with my fellow inmates. Except for that one time when I had a confrontation about biscuits, making an enemy by refusing to give in. Is that what filled them with self-righteousness? I mean I know they hate me for what they believe to be my crime, but it had to begin somewhere. There must have been a seed, venom grows slowly in dark corners, it doesn't arrive fully fledged.

Best not to dwell on it. Better to think back to the past, beyond the loathing in the toilet and the distaste in the sickbay. I've met that distaste before, first and second hand; I guess we all have. My mother told me, in an attempt to demonstrate how desirable Taff used to be, about the night two young men nearly killed each other for love - although it sounded a lot like lust to me. It was in the early fifties, excessive days by all accounts when, because sugar and sex were no longer rationed, life was sweet and spicy. The two friends were working together, serving meals in a canteen for the bus drivers and conductors of Lincoln.

'We wore green headscarves to keep our hair off the food, and flowery wraparound pinnies, made us look like upside-down gardens,' Mum recalled, 'but in the evenings we became exotic birds. There were the long promised nylons to make our legs shimmer and shoes had deviated from frumpy to flimsy, from solid round toes to dangerous points. Waists were all the rage and we were lucky there. Working in a canteen, sliding eggs from greasy pans all day, put us off meals. We lived on bananas, oranges and tinned pineapple, the things we'd missed during the war, and we could squeeze ourselves into the tightest, widest belts.'

I expect the violet perfume and bright lipsticks were used unsparingly. I've seen photographs of them arm in arm, Taff a few inches taller than Victory and with longer, fairer hair. Both are glowing with anticipation. It was a double date, set up by Taff who was, for once, uncertain of her man. Mostly they dated bus drivers and conductors, enjoying, after a film or a dance, the luxury of plush seats, upstairs or down, to themselves in the dark, deserted depot. But this time they were going out with a taxi-driver called Mac who had strayed into their canteen and stolen Taff from under the nose of her current beau. Taxi-drivers were a bit classier, or so Taff thought, although this one had a shifty look. She agreed only to a double date.

Til bring me brother,' Mac had winked at Mum. 'He likes 'em dark and stormy.'

'What's his name?' Mum thought that names contained the essence of people.

'Kenneth,' Mac said, his eyes focused on Taffs floral figure. Kenneth sounded a solid, dependable name. The women consented to meet the brothers outside the Odeon, Friday, at seven sharp.

'They dragged us straight to the back row,' Mum told me, 'no ifs or buts. I was on the end, by the aisle. Well, I thought, at least I'll be able to grab an ice-cream in the interval, or to make a quick exit. Kenneth sat between me and Taff, fidgeting, eating boiled sweets without offering them round, sniffing, crossing and uncrossing his legs. He was most unlike his name, small and oily. I didn't fancy him one bit, and the feeling was mutual, I could tell. Fine by me. I settled down to watch the film as best I could, considering I was next to an eel. To be honest, Eve, I didn't see that one coming. I was disengaged, sort of, from the vibrations, lost in a black and white world of soppy American romance. I knew Mac was well away with Taff, that was only to be expected, other than that I was unaware of my surroundings.'

They were thrown out, all four of them. A fight began when Kenneth's hand, exploring Taffs left leg, met Mac's hand, exploring Taffs right leg, somewhere between her thighs. The air turned blue. As the manly film star whispered soft words of love, the flesh and blood men swore obscenities at each other and eventually at Taff who tried to separate them by swinging her handbag from groin to groin. My mother told me she was almost hysterical with glee and responding to a demon in her guts, she took off one of her wonderful pointed shoes and prodded Kenneth in the buttocks with the heel of this fashion item. All around them couples were giving themselves stiff necks turning to shout for peace. It took the manager, an elderly, timid man, both usherettes and the projectionist, to disentangle the four fighters and evict them from the building. During the fracas the reel of film ended and the audience shouted and booed at the poor man who had left his hideaway to help out so gallantly.

They none of them saw the blood, because of the street lighting and their eyes adjusting from the cinema. Taff was cursing the fellows, her stockings were laddered and her handbag hung by a broken strap.

'Bloody fools,' she told them, 'great pair of bloody babes, fighting like schoolboys.'

Then, at last, my mother's intuition returned. Sensing that Mac was about to make a getaway, she grabbed him by the back of his mohair jacket and he found himself pinned to the spot. Next, Kenneth let out a groan and fell flat on his face. My mother was seriously worried for a second, imagining her heels had done the damage, but the blood, and there was quite a pool of this, was seeping from his front, oozing under his flattened belly.

'Get an ambulance,' she ordered Taff. She only released Mac once the doors of this emergency vehicle were open and he'd climbed inside.

It seems, like his namesake hi the song, Mac had been carrying a knife. I don't know which came first, Taffs date or the record, but I do know that Mac wasn't back in town for quite a while. What struck Mum was the way they were all shunned by the authorities. It was fair enough to expect police, doctors and nurses to handle Mac roughly, to dismiss his complaints of pains and cracked ribs, but they were equally full of condemnation for Kenneth and the women. Taff bears a scar to this day, a silver line across her right hand which she got when she clashed with Mac as he aimed for Kenneth's guts. It was some time before this was stitched and then it wasn't neatly done.

A bedtime story. It might be bedtime, I have no idea. Whatever the hour, here I lie, telling myself stories when ...what should I be doing? Considering my plight, I suppose. But I refuse to reflect on the words used as weapons by my attackers. All right, I've committed an exceptional crime, but then I come from an exceptional family. Besides, they're wrong, I'm not the fiend they make me out to be. I'm not about to be tried for that, not for anything so dreadful. I wish it was over, much as I dread the trial, I want the whole business behind me. If I could scream, I might drown the accusations.

There are pale neon lights burning beyond the door, giving the illusion of evening, an insipid sunset. Whether or not it is night, I'm in no fit state to sleep. If I close my eyes, feet kick at my face again, or fists fly in my direction. I'll lie here, awake, alone with my memories and thoughts for days and days. Three monkeys rolled into one, not listening or speaking, and seeing not a soul.

The best laid plans... Even after I'd been dismissed and returned to my cell, where I managed not to look Liz in the eye but merely to keep my sore head down, I meant to stick to my plan of seeing no visitors. This includes you, Matthew. I'm not proud of my newly arranged face. But I had to meet with Valerie. The trial date approaches and she will insist on talking to me, although I try not to hear because what she suggests is absurd.

To add to my distress, I had a visit from Merry and his carer. I wasn't going to see them either but they'd come a long way and I was told Merry was in a state - when is he ever not? - so I gave in and limped to greet them. It was a mistake. My body hadn't finished trembling; I wasn't ready to be confronted by those goggling eyes or that vacant, innocent face. We hugged and cried, Merry weeping in imitation. Other prisoners and their visitors stared open-mouthed at my brother but he was oblivious, concentrating on his planned speech:

'Oooh yes.' He pushed his mouth into what he thought might be an appropriate shape. His carer, a kind, heavily tattooed man called Jim, held Merry's arm with exactly the right blend of force and sympathy. He'd sensed that Merry was about to start jumping on the spot.

'He's been pretty good,' Jim told me, 'until last week.' Since I didn't understand the implication, he explained, 'Time for his visit home. He looks forward to it, you see.'

'Oh, Merry,' and fresh tears oozed from my puffball eyes. Jim studied his booted feet. Merry studied me.

Guilt came with all the force my assailants had used, hitting me where it already hurt. The importance of home in Merry's cheerful and uncomplicated world hadn't occurred to me before. He was in a Home, well fed, constantly entertained, cared for, and I'd not thought of him looking forward to visiting me and Mum. Until then I would've said that Merry was incapable of looking forward to anything. He seemed to live entirely in his own busy present. But of course he has a memory, a limited, more selective memory than most of us; I could see that if he had a past he might also have sometimes given thought to a future.

This fresh onslaught of guilt was just what I didn't need with my body bruised and my mind already shuddering in my skull. Much of my childhood had been spent worrying over Merry, tugging him from trouble, making excuses for his behaviour, defending him. Whatever I did for him, I invariably failed because then as now I couldn't solve the essential problem, which was Merry himself. Of all my brothers and sisters Merry was the one who could never be guided, who wouldn't sit on a knee and listen while Mum or I explained the ways of the world. Well, only reincarnation or similar miracles would help my brother now, or me for that matter.

We, of course, were Pagans. To us Sunday was a non-school, no-shops-open kind of day during which we must make our own entertainment. It was the day for discovering why our bikes wobbled, or for finding out exactly what was stuck between the wheels of our roller skates. On Sundays we exercised the dogs, throwing sticks and balls across the garden, taking them on treks around the perimeter of the golf course, losing them in ponds for heart-stopping minutes until they emerged yards away with duck feathers in their jaws. Thinking of Sundays, I can see that we never shed our caravan mentality. Unless it was pouring with rain, we inevitably spilled outside, setting up artists' studios on the front steps, making complex housing estates for soft toys on the lawn. Listen, you can hear the conversations of our neighbours as they tuck in to their dinners.

As I said, the Day of Deep Sadness was a Sunday, and it was a scorcher. The sun was relentless and since we didn't possess a hose, the only way for us to cool down was by wading in one of the golf-course ponds. We had been playing Indians. Not one of us wanted to be a Cowboy. Why be a boring Baddie in denim when you could be a glorious Goodie with a screaming redskin and a headdress of magpie feathers? Samik looked the most impressive, he had the right shaped face with skin that cried out to be painted for war. Around his head he'd strapped one of the dogs' collars, having first stuffed the holes with quills that pointed skywards and left white tips hanging over his brow. Zulema had lovingly adorned his cheeks with Mum's brightest, reddest lipstick and her greenest eyeshadow, in Italian flag fashion. Slung across his naked shoulder was a felt pouch full of home-made arrows and in his hand he carried a bow of willow and strong twine. We all made an effort, but only Samik looked the part. Off we marched, to the Land Of Many Waters, a colourful tribe in shorts and flip-flops, with Fabian, who'd 'borrowed' an old fringed leather jacket of Mum's, whooping ahead, being the chief. Big Chief Big Mouth we called him behind his back, but he was Chief Standing Tall when we addressed him. We made a great deal of noise as we passed the silent houses in our cul-de-sac but once we reached the rough at the edge of the golf course, we began to stalk quietly through the undergrowth. Only Merry found it hard to get the hang of this. Quiet isn't a word he understands, or a command he obeys. His continued warlike whooping sent jays and pigeons flapping from the trees, made the squirrels panic to the point of performing dangerous leaps and, no doubt, set the rabbits shivering in their burrows. At the pond we formed a circle, hands held, feet sunk happily into the cool muddy water, and squelched our way through a tribal water dance. As we moved we chanted a mantra Chief Standing Tall had taught us, a rhythmic little number which I thought sounded more African than American but which, I later discovered, was European in origin. We sang, paused and paced, sang, paused and paced again, in time to the chant. It seemed to us the words concerned the weather and a religious recluse called Jenny Ree:

Once we warriors had cooled down and had a battle or two, we crept back to Fisher's Close. That is, six of us crept but Merry ran on ahead, shouting Whoa, Whoa, Whoa until it seemed his lungs must burst. Ahead of us there was a great clatter, as of metal being thrown against tarmac and a loud cry, as of small boy in pain. Merry had caught his foot in a car-washer's hose, collided with a tin bucket full of soapy water and smashed head first into the curb. By the time we got to him he was a soaking, bloody mess, so much blood and water that it was hard to see where his injury was. Every bit of him that we touched, as we pulled him to his feet, seemed to be either red or pink. People were coming out of their houses, their Sunday peace destroyed yet again by The Cornflake House kids. Everybody was talking at once, some speaking directly to Mum, who had appeared but seemed unable to make another move, some muttering to themselves. I remember only wanting to get away, to drag my bleeding brother home so as to comfort him, heal him and remonstrate with him. If Merry's injury had been less dramatic I might have managed but the blood, diluted with half a bucket of car shampoo, kept on pouring.

'Let my dad have him,' a voice said, 'he's done First Aid, let him do it.' The voice belonged to one Philip Bamford, a boy of ten who hadn't previously thought us worthy of his attention, except to sneer at in passing. His dad, who was now examining Merry gently, was a smallish round man with fat but competent fingers and a bright ginger moustache. He lifted Merry's head, an action that covered his competent fingers with blood. I saw Mr Bamford blanch, for all his having First Aid. A second later I caught the merest glimpse of Merry's chin and no doubt I also did an impression of a sheet. There was something shining in the folds of raw, ripped flesh, something so white it was almost silver. Bone. It was chin bone exposed like a gruesome smile amongst the parted skin.

'Two of you, in the back of the car with him,' Mr Bamford barked, 'hold him down, keep his head up. Out of the way the rest of you.' Fabian and I obeyed mutely, sitting one on each side of Merry in the back of the Bamford's elegant Riley while Mum pressed both her hands against the window and mouthed words we hadn't a chance of hearing. We were in deep shock, accidents hardly ever happened to us, not major ones; Mum usually managed to foresee and forestall them. Until we arrived at the doors of Casualty, I didn't even notice that Philip had slipped into the passenger seat and made the journey to hospital with us.

'My dad's brilliant with things like this,' Philip told us as we sat waiting. He proceeded to describe his own accidents, giving details of the methods of healing practised, in each case, by his amazing father. He used words we'd never heard before, turn-nick-hey, ab-race-shun, until First Aid became, in our eyes, a complex, foreign science and Mr Bamford a professor touched with genius. While we waited and marvelled, doctors, nurses and porters passed us by, each making some apt comment about our appearance:

'Never mind, you'll be back in your tepee before nightfall.'

'Is this a private pow-wow, or can anybody join in?' One doctor walked by clutching the top of his head, a visual gag it took me some time to understand.

'Your jacket's wrong,' Philip told Fabe. 'It's more Buffalo Bill than Indian.'

'I stole it off him, didn't I?' Fabe responded, quick as a flash. 'At the Battle of Wounded Knee.'

'My dad's got a pair of real moccasins,' boasted Philip. We believed him, we'd have believed him if he'd told us Mr Bamford was actually Sitting Bull himself, in disguise.

And so we passed the time until our brother was brought back to us, guided by his ginger saviour, with a bandage the size of a bedspread wrapped around his swollen chin.

'Six stitches,' Mr Bamford announced, as proud as if he'd done the needlework himself. On the way home Mr Bamford let Merry sit in the front of the Riley while Philip squashed in the back with me and Fabian. I think the man had grown rather fond of the odd little boy, but he made a mistake in letting Merry near his dashboard and his gear stick. At one time, as my brother yanked the stick and sent the car crunching from top to bottom gear, I thought we'd all be back in Casually any second. This was before the days of seat belts and by leaning forward Merry was able to play with the windscreen wipers, honk the horn and pull dangerously on the handbrake. Mr Bamford sweated profusely and gave Merry ineffectual pats on the knees. As we pulled into Fisher's Close I'm sure I saw him cross himself in gratitude.

When I was little and couldn't sleep, I used to imagine how it felt to be Merry. I'd open my eyes so wide they would ache, then I'd stare at something with manic intensity. Fisher's Close was lit by dainty mock-Victorian street lights. A lemon glow filled the bedrooms of The Cornflake House and through this I'd glare at the end of my bed or the wardrobe mirror. I never actually jumped about but I'd bounce on my bottom and turn my head from side to side until I was dizzy. Being Merry for two or three minutes sent me practically into a coma. How he copes with himself day in day out is one of life's unfathomable mysteries. Glands are to blame, I guess, juices flowing through him like electricity. If only they saturated his brain as they do his muscles, he'd be a genius. Imagine that energy and good humour put to use. He might have been capable of anything, politics, business, environmental miracles. I mean if Bing, for example, had Merry's glands, road planners would throw up their hands in defeat. I think this combination has occurred to my son, I've seen him gazing wistfully at his hyperactive uncle.

To be honest, the rest of us often hid our misdoings behind our non-stop brother. He had no problem with taking the blame. He had no problems, full stop. Life for Merry was one long round of activity. Moving, doing, was all. Words meant very little to him. On his first day at school, before it entered my mother's head that this child needed special care, he had to be caught like a wild animal. If the staff had been allowed to use tranquillizer guns, I'm sure they'd have aimed these, without a qualm, at Merry's backside. He liked school, there was so much to do there. He treated the place like one great leisure centre, splashing through the goldfish pond, skimming up the poles that supported the entrance canopy and swinging doors backwards and forwards with his feet.

'To class. He might think it's a game.'
It worked. Teacher, mortified sister and problem new boy skipped down the corridors to the intake class. Perditascurried off, leaving Merry to his fate. The real difficulties were about to begin. Merry simply couldn't sit still. For awhile he bounced on the spot, or jumped from side to side which was distracting for the others but not too terrible. It was when he struggled up on to his desk that the teacher knew things weren't going to improve. Perdita was called. She arrived to find her brother playing hopscotch from desk to desk while several tiny, bawling children nursed their crushed fingers. They wouldn't tie a child to a chair today, would they? Even in the most impossible circumstances they'd find another solution. But on Merry's first, and last, day at an ordinary school, it seemed the safest, sanest answer. When school was over, the rope was transferred from chair to sister and Merry led Perdita home at breakneck speed.

Perhaps you're thinking that my mother was mad or cruel to send Merry there at all. Remember, she saw only the positive side of her children. To her Merry was a happy, non-aggressive little boy. He wouldn't fight or bully any of his school friends. He'd take part in anything physical with unbounded enthusiasm and he could be relied on to eat every scrap of those soggy school dinners. When Perdita wailed out her story, Mum was genuinely amazed that the day had been a disaster. Long before Perdita got to the part about Merry having been tied to a chair, my mother was blaming the school.

And he'd correct us, 'It's not a Hoover, it's an Electrolux Portable Cleaning Unit.' He had the original box to prove his point, although this had been left in the sunny window of a shed and now read 'rolu able ning nit', a description the rest of us found appropriate.

'Obsessive?'Janet guessed. She attempted to whisper but her voice wasn't designed for quiet. Mum nodded. Janet promised to do her best and before long Merry and Django were sharing outings to a child psychiatrist in London. (A while back, Zulema and I confessed to each other that for a short time after hearing of the child psychiatrist, we both pictured an under-age doctor struggling with our brothers.)

Because the first trip was so fraught - Merry wanted to get into the luggage rack on the train and Django refused to travel without half a Hoover under his arm - Mum decided to take Fabian, then a surly boy of thirteen, to help and support her through the second visit. The child psychiatrist was, to Mum's consternation, much more interested in Fabian than in the two younger boys. He positively shone with enthusiasm the moment he saw Fabe. Apparently the shrink was midway through a paper on teenagers of mixed racial origins. What especially delighted him was Fabe's refusal to cooperate:

'You feel an outcast?' the man guessed hopefully as Fabian pouted at him. 'You suffer from a feeling that you don't belong?'

'No,' Mum chipped in, 'he's sulking because Merry,' she had the child in question clamped between her legs, 'trod on his guitar and we can't afford to mend it. Merry does that, breaks things, he's always on the go.' What was the use? She'd been through this before, trying to describe the indescribable, and it seemed to be getting her nowhere.

The last thing she needed was for someone to decide that Fabian was a problem too.

For the third visit she chose me as travelling companion and helper.

'He won't be nearly so interested in you,' she promised. I was sitting on Merry in a crowded train compartment at the time. It was the only way to control him. Nothing daunted, he jogged his captured body to the rhythm of the train. Having suffered the motion in stereo, I was quite queasy by the time we reached Waterloo. I was fourteen, an age at which I found my family mortifying under any circumstances, and the looks on the faces of our fellow travellers are clearly imprinted on my memory. Not only were they compelled to watch a fat, tangle-haired girl sit on a weird little boy while glaring at another freakish child who appeared to have a vacuum cleaner welded to his armpit, but the conversation they overheard must have sounded obscene.

'It's only boys like Fabian that get him going,' Mum continued, 'that's why I've left him with the animals this time.'

'Course, by rights,' she carried on, oblivious, 'he should have noticed Django's colour, but he's too young. Teenagers, he said, and you should have seen him, Eve, he was practically dribbling with excitement over your dark-skinned brother.'

Brothers, I thought, from rising rock stars to domestic appliance fanatics, who needs them? Only little Samik, who was tearful and insecure but otherwise fairly 'normal', was worth bothering with.

'His need to repeat patterns, his overwhelming interest, to the exclusion of all else, in one topic, in Django's case the workings of vacuum cleaners, these are our indications,' the shrink told Mum. She wasn't convinced; and her instinct was right. Several weeks later, after Django had told the psychiatrist many truths about himself, the man changed his mind. He said it was another syndrome altogether, this time citing Django's want of social grace as the basis for his findings:

'He has no concept of correct social behaviour, I have advised him many times that telling me I have, for example, hairs in my ears, is not a nice, friendly thing to do. But your Django is unable to see the difference between the things we should and should not say.'

'He tells the truth,' Mum said, no doubt giving the doctor cause to wonder if Django's problems were inherited.

'Absolutely, but he cannot distinguish between the truths most of us keep to ourselves and those we may speak out loud.'

Django lives in Chatham now, he chose it because of the docks. He has a flat within walking distance of the ships that interest him so. At school he only ever developed one talent, apart from the ability to mend the cleaners' equipment for them, and that was in geography. In those days the subject was colourful; pink blotches, yellow continents, blue oceans. Books were illustrated with drawings of tribes out hunting, crossing deserts, paddling canoes down wide green rivers. Django was brilliant at maps, spending hours with his face inches from the paper, perfecting every cove and inlet. Ultimately this passion overtook his love of vacuum cleaners. I've often considered Django's luck. If Mum and I hadn't got the order of those electrical gadgets just right in our competition, we wouldn't have had a house, let alone a Hoover. What would Django have done then? He might have become intensely withdrawn, staring into space, longing for something he couldn't name. Who knows? Fate is often a kind beast.

As I say, maps took over from cleaners, and now he works for a company who publish maps old and new. Having ruined his eyes with the close work, he wears thick glasses which, I discovered when I went to look after him one time when he was ill, he puts on at seven-ten a.m. precisely, after unbuttoning his pyjama top but before taking his arms out of this garment.

It's true that maps won the day from Hoovers, but it was an uphill struggle. I once took Django with me to a party, he was seventeen and I thought it time he met some other teenagers. He wouldn't drink because I'd forgotten to take his special cup, and I knew there was no point in offering him a snack. He only ever ate his own 'meal', a red and green affair of peas, placed in a mound, centre plate, two whole lettuce leaves curling upwards, opposite each other, and one tomato sliced in half and laid, wounded side down, on the lettuce. But the party appeared to be going well, Django was talking to another boy, advising this lad on ways of banishing spots, when I went to dance with my boyfriend.

Then I lost him. He'd vanished. I thought he'd walked home. I wasn't that worried, he was seventeen and he knew where he lived. Several hours later there was a cry from a girl who'd gone to fetch her coat from the understairs cupboard. There was Django, bent over the party-giver's rather ancient vacuum, a tubular object that he'd taken to bits, sitting with a torch in his hands. He held his light before his face as people gathered to stare at him. The ghost of Hoovers past.

I found it impossible to envisage my own father, and I was scared of doing so. Much as we were filled with fascination and yearning for our dads, we Cornflake House kids lived under their shadows too. Who knows? These almost phantom men might come at any time and reclaim us, whisking us away. These scenes of abduction altered, for me, as I grew. When I was little, in Lincolnshire, my dreams were of a huge, sandy-haired man who wore sandals, so I wouldn't hear his coming I suppose. It was always night and there was a full moon in that dream landscape. He was big but agile, and he carried a sack. As he swung his way to my bedside, leaping over ditches and dikes, he plucked small animals from the ground and crushed their bones with his bare hands. His sack grew heavier as he approached. By the time he arrived, squeezing his frame through the caravan door, the sack was so full it had to be dropped by my bed as he bent to lift me.

My dad shrank as I grew. The sack became a trunk, then the boot of a car, but there was always a dark place in which he wanted to throw me. Not was, is; I still dream of him. My subconscious has allowed him to age, letting his hair fade from sand to ash, but the expression on his face hasn't altered. He peers at me with greed, 'You're mine,' he says, possessively, and I can only suppose that a part of me likes this idea of being wanted, for whatever reason.

No, I never asked about my own father, fearing the worst, perhaps even fearing the best. What if he's a wonderful man, bright, intelligent, witty? Think of how much I might have missed. Now that I'm motherless, I wish I'd been braver, more inquisitive, and found out who he is while I still had the chance. On the other hand, for all I know, he may have been in contact with Mum from the day I was born. If so the least he could do now is to get in touch, to hear my side of the story. This is one place where his agility would come in handy, the only place I've lived where being rescued, even if rescue meant being shoved in a sack, would be a treat.

The little girl in me says 'what the hell, he wouldn't love me anyway'. Our dads; did they ever have a chance? Or were they discouraged by Mum and her magic? As I said, when I felt able, I did ask the odd question about Django's father; and I got the odd answer.

'Only about sex,' Mum grinned. 'Sex and sugar. He ate sweeties all the time. Humbugs.'

That was about it. Either she would drift to a world of fantasy, making up stories she thought I'd enjoy, or she'd make my head fizz until I dropped the subject and went to find the aspirin.

Ten minutes to lights out. Can you imagine what it's like to have your life regulated by somebody else? I am tired, but I shan't sleep. There is more I'd like to tell you. But it's lights out and I'm condemned to lie in the dark. Remembering. Alone. Panic struck. I've had a change of heart, Matthew. I do want to see you, I need to talk to a friend. I need to repeat, out loud, the accusations hurled by the women who attacked me in the toilet. They called me Mother Fucker, and it shocked me, but it's just an expression, an Americanism, isn't it? I could live with that. Then they called me Mother Killer. And that's what Valerie was trying to tell me earlier. Somebody somewhere has got hold of the idea that I killed my mother.

'We don't take kindly to Mother Killers here,' they said as they kicked the shit out of me. Numb with shock as I was, I didn't respond. Later I almost laughed. It was ridiculous, the thought of me taking the life of my mum, destroying the thing I lived for. Yet it seems likely that I shall be tried for exactly that.

Sorrow and nervousness are eating my insides. Causing weight loss; there, a positive thought. I must have mislaid several pounds with all the worry. I used to eat in times of crisis, as if buns and biscuits would cure a broken heart or get me through exams. It was a whale who sat my GCEs for me. Come to think of it, I used to eat in times of calm too. Meals in The Cornflake House were random affairs, it was a case of grab it while it was there or go without. Mum was an unwilling cook, not a regular meal-giver, not one who prepared food when it was needed. She cooked when she saw us pigging too many snacks. She could mix a cake as light as air or blend herbs and spices to make mouthwatering stews when the mood took her, but the mood didn't take her nearly often enough. We kids developed arm actions to accompany meals and some of these, embarrassingly enough, linger on. If you and I ever settle down to enjoy a quiet dinner in a smart restaurant, please feel free to place your hand on mine when I seem to be diving across the table to grasp the last remaining bread roll. No, I'll be fine really, either my glands have altered, or prison food has worked a transformation on my psyche. Somehow I'm not tempted to eat myself stupid anymore. An entrepreneur could make a fortune by prescribing instant mashed potato and lumpy gravy as a cure for obesity.

Since I'm hated for having cut myself off from company, perhaps I should write to other people, not confine my letter writing to you. I have been getting post, as it happens. I suspect Valerie of circulating my address, possibly even of writing to my family for character references, then adding a postscript to say she thinks I might appreciate letters or cards. I had a postcard from Fabian. Sea, sand, outrageously blue sky, made me long for freedom. I miss the weather. Of course I go outside but I'm unaware of the skies, in general. I'm excused exercise, my back hasn't recovered well, sudden movements bring spasms of pain to my spine. Flitting from block to block is about my limit now so I'm not out there long enough to notice what kind of day it is. And I haven't seen a night sky for months. No doubt the stars shine on, the moon glides through her phases, but all unseen by me. Whereas Fabian probably sleeps under a clear star-studded sky most nights. He didn't say much, always a master of the understatement, Fabe, but it's good to know he cares and that he lays no blame at my feet.

I once wasted a whole summer's afternoon begging Zulema to help me create a tidal wave in a pond. It was only a small pond, on the edge of the golf course opposite Fisher's Close, so I wasn't prompting a major environmental disaster. Two particularly obnoxious boys were rowing around this little haven, terrorizing shoals of fish and families of ducks. We could have upset their boat and dumped them head first in the water if we'd put both our minds to it. While I tried and failed to stir the waters by myself, Zulema stood at the pond's edge, her attention divided equally between willing me to stop devising horrid punishments for the boys and willing the lads to turn from their evil ways and become keen naturalists. All this wishing she managed without speaking a word, the only sign of life was her eyes moving sadly from one miscreant to the other.

Retribution can be sweet. I've been tempted to name the women who attacked me, or the ring-leader at least. I know her; she's the one who tried to 'tax' me by taking my Saturday biscuits. I'm too afraid of repercussions to give in to the temptation, a fear she banks on when putting in the boot, no doubt. Nobody names names here. I must have made a bitter enemy when I clung to my little packet of Rich Teas. Funny to think of her stewing in her cell, plotting how to get back at me. How pleased she must have been when she heard about the new charge, it made it easy for her to drum up support you see. Almost everybody hates a 'mother killer'. It's a pity my magic has ceased to work. Before it left me so abruptly, I could have made her itch all over or given her a nasty dose of the runs. She ought to suffer somehow, though, don't you think, for having irrevocably damaged my confidence? It's impossible for me to conceive of standing in a court, never mind speaking up for myself. Come to that, I'm not sure if I can speak, my mouth's in such a state. Did I talk to you? I don't recall uttering a single word since I was beaten. Oh yes, I spoke to Merry; it must have been the first time we actually sounded as if we were related. I shall try another word now; two syllables, no prizes for guessing what they are.

Well, a sound of sorts, a poor thing. The 'M' is difficult, let's hope I'm not obliged to say 'Me Lord' frequently. Court; the idea fills me with dread, sending my mind on a crash course of history, cases and outcomes through the ages. On the toilet floor I discovered that some think beheading is too soft a punishment for the likes of me. Valerie smiles at our meetings but I see she has little faith in my case. As this rolling stone speeds downhill, I'm beginning to think my mother asked too much of me, not looking, for once, into the future at all. I wrote down the events of the last days of Mum's life. It's the truth, in black biro on white paper, but who knows if anyone will believe it? I would show it to you but I've already given it to Valerie. She wasn't overjoyed, funnily enough. Is she reticent because I've written a confession, more or less, or because she hopes to plead temporary insanity on my behalf? If it's the old mad-with-anxiety plea, I can see her point. My statement doesn't give the impression of a woman who is out of her mind. Words do little to express my feelings, in this case, so I aimed for being matter of fact; and that's what Valerie got, a list of facts.

Once, I was about nine I think and at the local village fete, I saw a flicker of doubt cross my mum's face, witnessing the moment of decision. She was buying tickets for a raffle. The prizes included a walking, talking doll. It was every little girl's dream, blonde with a rosebud mouth, wearing a pink gingham frock and miniature white ankle socks. Standing at Mum's side, I grinned, imagining myself taking this cute creature for a stroll around Fisher's Close, showing the doll off to Fiona Powell. Fiona, who lived in a pretend Elizabethan monstrosity about three doors from us, was a pretty, spoilt blonde whose mother would have moved mountains to buy her anything she wanted; but the doll wasn't for sale. The raffle provided a rare chance for me to go one better than this brat. 'Mumma,' the doll would have said as we passed Fiona's black and white residence. Dolls had never really interested me, if I wanted to dress and undress small beings, there was always a younger brother or sister needing attention; but this raffle doll wasn't a replica of real life, she came from an alien, exciting world where all eyes were sapphire blue and knickers never got soiled. Besides, I wanted that prize because I knew Fiona had her beady eye on it.

As I said, I saw Mum falter for a second while she chose her tickets. I knew something was up and was disappointed but not surprised when we won, not the doll but a bottle of home-made elderberry wine, undrinkable stuff unless your name is Taff and you visit friends at Christmas and consume everything in sight. The doll went to an old man in a Panama hat. He looked baffled rather than pleased by his win. I remember following him around the fete for the greater part of the afternoon. The soles of the doll's pale pink plastic shoes stuck out under his arm, enticing as ice-cream. He only put the doll down once, while he bought himself a cup of tea, and as I sneakily touched her nylon hair with my fingertips, I marvelled on life's injustices.

It was spring and we'd just inherited a horse from an unknown benefactor. Mum had whispered to me that she believed it had been left in our garden by Django's father, the Gypsy. As she rarely mentioned fathers, I'd felt a current of excitement and envy when told this. I couldn't stretch my imagination far enough to guess what kind of present my own dad might have brought for me, but I longed for something as big and mysterious as the horse to arrive from him. Ironically, of all us children, Django was the least interested in the horse; he might have liked it, had it run on electricity, but flesh and blood meant nothing to him. The poor horse was groomed until he was sore that day. I stood brushing his coat, unmatting his mane, untangling his tail, my eyes on the house opposite, my mind intent on the affect I was having on that tantalizing new boy. I was hot and uncomfortable, having changed, inappropriately for playing at being a groom, from my habitual shorts and tee-shirt into a long sleeved blouse and an embroidered skirt. The skirt was the only one, apart from my grey school uniform, that I possessed. Not only was I baking, I grew cross too, with the horse who, being tempted by the long grass of our front garden, refused to keep his head up. Then I was angry with Merry who insisted on using my bent back as a springboard from which to mount the horse. The animal itself was nothing more or less than a slide to Merry. Then, to top it all, Django appeared:

'Here,' I pulled a bribe from my pocket and handed it to him, 'take this and go away.' He did. I always kept some parts of a vacuum cleaner handy, they were essential tools for those who wanted a quiet life.

She was humming as she turned back to her parsnips and swedes. We reckoned, as we dug a hole in the grass, that Taff had been only joking but Ariadne was still laid to rest with undignified haste.

'Do you use him to pull your cart?' he asked, having introduced himself and got a muttered 'Eve' out of me. It took a couple of seconds for light to dawn, then I instantly wished for the return of dimness. He really did think we were tinkers, scrap merchants, rag-and-bone folks. Blushing to my scalp, I looked down at my filthy feet which were only inches from the horse's latest offering. Finally I managed to move my head stiffly from side to side. Marcus was patting the horse, smiling like a toothpaste advertisement. For once I was glad to see Django, who reappeared by my side.

Saturdays. Do you remember those teenage Saturdays? The agony of being left dateless and at home while the world parried. The ecstasy of having somewhere to go and somebody worth going there with. Throughout the week it loomed, Saturday night, either empty and depressing as death, or too golden, too frenzied for a soul to bear. At fourteen I felt the degradation of being housebound and boyfriendless on Saturdays profoundly. My problem was being a close neighbour of the boy I loved. How could I forget Marcus and flirt contentedly with less exceptional beings when I saw him every day? Six days of the week I was filled with dreams and possibilities but when Saturday came around I was forced to face a cold truth; I was getting nowhere. I never asked my mother to help, not in Marcus's case. It mattered too much, I needed to know that I'd succeeded or failed by myself. It was first love, and it hurt like hell.

Lord knows how I came to be at the bus stop alone, without the usual flock of relatives in tow, on that fateful Saturday morning, but there I sat, dangling my legs, picking at the oak tree's bark. There was a stop but no shelter, so those of us who waited for the cantankerous number sixty-three, the bus to Woking, used the oak as seat and canopy. In its early days this vast tree must have suffered from a trauma because its trunk grew along the ground, not upwards, for the first six feet, then it turned at a relieved right angle and did what trees should do, pointed to the sky. It made a perfect bench, a seat smoothed by the bottoms of many reluctant schoolchildren. Buses were stubborn in those days, in that part of the world. Although the sixty-three had to chug up the hill, passing Fisher's Close at about two miles an hour, it didn't stop by our houses. As they hadn't been built when the route was laid out, they were ignored. The driver would stop on remote corners to let old women off or to drop more privileged children at their doors, but only if these remote corners had been inhabited from the day that buses were invented. Kindly, obstinate and never, ever on time, that was the sixty-three.

For me, bus travel, kissing and Murray Mints are inextricably linked. I used to suck those smooth, oval sweets as I waited in my leafy shelter; and I'm almost certain that there was a slip of one left in my mouth when Marcus finally shuffled along to find my lips with his. If we were playing Botticelli, if Marcus was a sweet, he'd be a Murray Mint, flawless, flavoured to the core. Add to this the way the sixty-three bus was bullet shaped, cream with green trim, and considered itself too good to hurry, and you have an explanation that would have satisfied Freud himself.

I've almost managed to blank from my memory the fact that Marcus, unusually, was broke that morning and needed to borrow the bus fare. I was the only other passenger, so he asked me for a loan, after he had kissed my astonished lips. I would have walked the five miles to town, gladly waving my fare goodbye, for that kiss; but I'd begun working, babysitting for local families, and was wealthy enough for two. We rode side by side, both hushed by what had passed between us; I guess, while I was stunned with pleasurable surprise, Marcus was perplexed by his foolhardiness. He'd needed only to ask and I would have handed him my life's savings; but he had kissed me. A kiss was a seal, it meant much, amch more than it does now. You didn't press your lips against another's unless you intended to be, if only for a short time, theirs.

And mine he was, as we ambled around Woking that Saturday morning. I meant to buy personal items, sanitary towels for my new status as a woman with periods, Amplex tablets in case ... but too late for that now. Not having the courage to visit Boots the chemist with Marcus, I spent my money on records - the ones he liked - and refreshments for both of us. The coffee bar and the park were meeting places for young people; my dreams came true as I sat first on painted chairs drinking a steaming, frothy cappuccino, then on damp grass licking an ice lolly, showing Marcus off to girls my age or older. A return journey on the sixty-three took us to his house to listen to the new records. Everything he owned, including his record player, was more modern and expensive than in The Cornflake House. We'd managed to reduce our own prize gadgets to scrap by then.

Later, being mine, Marcus suggested we go to Youth Club together. Saturday night, a date, and no Amplex tablets; my heart wasn't so much racing as speeding dangerously. I staggered across the road to attempt the impossible conversion of self into superstar. After several hours of bathing, shampooing and worrying, I looked much the same as before, only redder in the face from steam and stress. It's hard to imagine, it wasn't easy to believe at the time, but we, the world's most unlikely couple, had fun together. Carried on a high of disbelief, exhilaration and vodka, stolen from his father's drinks cabinet and slipped into my orange juice by my thoughtful date, I sailed through the evening, not the most beautiful girl in the church hall but by far the most amusing. When Marcus kissed me goodnight on The Cornflake House porch, it was with less caution and more enthusiasm than at the bus stop. An even stronger seal. We were a pair, boyfriend and girlfriend, and although I was delirious with joy I didn't think I was kidding myself when I saw a dim reflection of my own pleasure in his eyes.

He never came. I had to gather information from my sisters, an exhausting process involving many questions and not nearly enough answers. Perdita fancied Marcus herself, although she was much too young. She was happy to watch out for him but less willing to relate her findings. I wanted to box her ears or shake her unsullied head, to swap her thoughts about until she gave me some consideration. Zulema was reluctant but reliable, she couldn't help telling the truth, when pressed. She told me what I needed to know but didn't want to hear. Marcus was leading another down lovers' lane while I lay pale and poorly. How could I ever have imagined that pale and poorly was what would appeal to him?

Hence, as I began to recover, the holiday. Two weeks for two people in sunny Spain.

'Please leave Merry and Django behind,' I begged when Mum said she was putting the spending money, part of her prize, towards taking some of the others with us. It was still a lot to ask of Taff, a fortnight babysitting a pair of awkward boys, one bloodyminded girl - Perdita was to stay at home - cats, dogs, small mammals and of course, Cecil the horse. All credit to her, Taff rallied round, arriving a couple of days before we departed 'to get the feel of the job'. She brought with her enough clothes to cover a football pitch and a man called Steve who instantly endeared himself by giving me magic-carpet rides. The floor of the bedroom I shared with my sisters was by then covered in green and yellow lino. The Axminster, upstairs, had suffered enough, having been singed by an electric fire, sicked on, peed on and shaved (don't ask), it was finally pulled up and turfed out.

'You're never too old for a whiz round the lino,' Steve promised as he sat me on a rug and tobogganed me in and out of the spaces between the beds. He was not wrong.

It may well have been my last fling as a child, and I loved it. I'd been cooped up and sorry for myself for so long that my laughter came back like an old friend.

Needless to say, those who stayed in The Cornflake House with Taff and Steve had a far better time than we who packed and left. In Spain, Samik proved once and for all that half his blood was Eskimo and heat didn't agree with him. His skin erupted in tiny, blistering spots, his appetite vanished and his bowels exploded. Since we were squashed into one small room, the rest of us had to tip-toe about while the poor lad tried to sleep through his itching and aching. Fabian, usually starved of the company of girls who looked remotely like himself, fell heavily for a lass from Birmingham, but since she was also sharing a cupboard with her family they were obliged to do their snogging on a beach covered in rubbish and sandflies. And he missed his guitar, having eventually found somebody worth serenading.

Mum spent hours staring at the walls, trying to 'see' how things were going back home.

'Taffs drunk,' she told me, and a hiccup escaped from her chest.

'How about the kids?' this from a girl of fourteen; but then I considered myself a woman, after all hadn't I already loved and lost?

'No, I mean Perdita isn't merely tipsy, she's out cold. Here, feel my hand.'

I obeyed. It was icy. The image of my sister staggering, dishevelled, possibly even vomiting before she fell, acted like alcohol on me, flowing warmly through my mind. Most of the time, though, I was miserable. It was too soon, my glands hadn't quite settled down, and my heart was still at the raw, stinging stage. Which left Zulema to wander the streets of the little town alone, buying bright presents for her brothers, sending postcards to everyone she knew or had ever known.

That was my holiday. Two weeks with a sick kid and a psychic mother. I did try the brave new world beyond our cramped room but the sun hurt my eyes and even the most bronzed and beautiful boys paled by comparison to my Marcus. When I got back to England, hungry for one kind glance, the bugger couldn't bring himself to face me. He took to using his back door. I'd see him sneaking out, clambering over the hedge at the bottom of his garden, snagging his cord Levi's on brambles. Serve him right.

Mind you, during our fortnight's absence, Taff had transformed The Cornflake House into a shrine to bad taste. There was cut glass everywhere, great ugly bowls on tables, shelves blessed with shimmering vases, swans floating over the window sills. The toilet roll was hidden under the knitted skirts of a '"Victorian' doll, the butter lay buried beneath a Chinese version of Anne Hathaway's cottage. Our first, welcome, cup of tea was poured from a giant pink and silver pot which rested on a set of lion's feet. She'd painted our scruffy old kitchen chairs gold and re-covered them with purple brocade, making it feel, when we parked our weary behinds, as if we'd entered a nursery-rhyme world. I gave an audible sigh and got a scowl from my mother in return. For a second I was glad Marcus had ditched me; I could never have let him see my place like this.

In his own, less offensive way Steve had worked miracles too. Merry was worn out, I kid you not. The child was

exhausted from days of football, cricket, horse-walking, swimming and of course magic-carpet rides. Django was engrossed in an entirely new collection of vacuum cleaner catalogues, while Perdita had been taught how to play chess, a game that obsesses her to this day. I ask you, who had the better holiday?

Now, all these years later, I need another chance to find out what drives folk to leave their comfortable homes and fly in silver machines to distant places. Please Matthew, let me sit on warm sand with a whole heart this time. If you don't want me, try not to say so until... well, try not to say so. I have my frog nearby. I rubbed my bruises with him, when they hurt like hell, to see if he was magic and could heal. No luck, but the comfort of holding him tight in my fist is indescribable.

You know, in a bizarre way I'll be glad when the day comes. You wouldn't think a woman waiting to be tried for one crime she didn't commit and one she most certainly did could be bored, would you? If I'm not exactly bored, then I am restless. Thank God I've got these letters and the memories they allow. As I'm no longer capable of leaping around the netball court with my fellow prisoners and since I never achieved the honour of working in the laundry like my lucky pal Liz, I'm grateful to be using some of my brain cells at least.

My life has gone into fast forward. I have frequent meetings with Valerie while we try to think of some way of proving my innocence, and fail. The evidence for half of the crimes of which I'm accused was more than plain for all to see. Although this was intended at the time, it leaves no room now for pretence. Valerie sighs often and has taken to chewing her bottom lip, while I've developed a quiver in my hands and a habit of swinging my left leg. I hit my solicitor's feet under our table several times but she was engrossed in the law and barely noticed. I'm instructed to sit quietly in court, not to mutter under my breath when the police give their account of what happened, and to speak clearly when my turn comes. It has also been hinted that I should chop off my locks, or at least tie them back so that my pale face can shine across at the judge. My hair was used to get me to the floor in my attack. I don't think I'd miss it, not if I'm to spend much more of my life inside. I'll leave it to you, Matthew, will it stay or will it tumble? No, on second thoughts I'll pin it up, the word tumble brings frightening images to mind. Scenes from the film of A Tale of Two Cities have begun to flash in my head. An overactive brain is no friend in times of crisis, believe me.

I had another visit from Bing. He appeared to have shrunk, I had to scour the Visitors' Room to find him hunched in his chair. He's been evicted from his hole, a painful business - emotionally and physically. He hardly spoke and his eyes roved around the room longingly. I don't think he'd sat on a chair since his last visit here. In our mutual silence, once he'd raised his eyebrows at my still bruised face, I was compelled to face the fact that I've made my only son homeless. Possibly even motherless, to all extents. What have I provided for him? Not security, that's for sure. In a feeble attempt to make good, I suggested he might go and stay with his Uncle Samik for a while. There's a bond between those two which holds tight in spite of Margaret, Samik's boring, possessive wife.

It wasn't surprising that my youngest brother should marry and raise a family - he has four children, all of whom he adores - but none of us expected Margaret. She's as straight as a bowling alley, has no conversation and collects, wait for it, porcelain dolls. Dolls of all sizes and in a great variety of costumes, but mostly sporting frilly bloomers. Their painted faces stare at you from glass cupboards, pouting, smiling inanely, begging for freedom. A visit to Samik's semi, on an estate just outside Guildford, is like going to a museum full of shrunken, stuffed people.

I know why Samik settled down while the rest of us raved and parried. Not being able to have a father, he did the next best thing and became one himself. But I think he went to unnecessary extremes in marrying Margaret. She was faintly pretty until it stopped mattering, now she is more nondescript than plain, with the dress sense of a three-year-old let loose in her mother's wardrobe. Old-fashioned? Well, not if you like half-pleated skirts and twin-sets. And Margaret hides a heart of granite behind those pearly buttons. She can be tough, stubborn, immutable, but never passionate, which is what makes her so tedious. Whereas Samik is a beautiful man with a sweet nature; he could have done much better. I'm never sure if he sees it that way himself, if so he gives no hint. His loyalty to his chosen life seems total. Family and boats, those are his twin preoccupations. He owns two boats, one a floating bar which keeps the lot of them in food and clothing, the other a small yacht moored on the south coast and called - you'll appreciate the irony - Spirit Of Adventure II. Spirit Of Adventure I was destroyed when it ran into a rock.

I've become famous, notorious, in my own social circle. On my rare trips to the Visitors' Room, voices drop at my entrance, whispers hiss from the lips of other prisoners. 'That's her,' they say, urgently, 'that's the one who killed her mother.' My fame encompasses those who visit me, being a friend or relation to such evil singles people out. Not that Bing needs any help there, he looks exceptional enough, God knows; and as for Merry, well he'd stand out, even if he managed to stand still, at any gathering. But you must have found your back burning from the stares and glares, haven't you, Matthew? I'd rather be on my own than put you through that humiliation. That's part of the reason why I'm going to ask you not to come to my trial. The other part is that it's important for me to keep something separate, to have a person I care about who isn't involved in the past, the trial, the whole mess. I'm not playing the heroine, the martyr who prefers to stand alone in Joan of Arcish glory, I only want you waiting in the wings instead of on stage witnessing the tremors. Does it make sense? Sense being a tad elusive these days, I really have no idea.

Odd that I choose to stand alone. Until my mother died I'd never been alone. I'd always known there was one person who cared unquestioningly about me and my welfare. Do you believe in soulmates? I certainly do. For each of us there has to be another, a twin of the heart. Most individuals find this person through romantic love, don't they? Once they've fled the nest they substitute lover for mother, or father. Not in my case, until now. Maybe Mum's magic did outlive her, otherwise how can I account for the way you turned up just as her curtain fell?

My jealously of Taff is based here, somewhere. She was more than an ordinary friend to Victory. As I said, I didn't get around to making friends in my earlier life (I think of life as divided in two, neatly sliced down the middle by the death of my mother). It's true that Taff took lover after lover, but it was in Mum's company that she shone brightest. And, if I'm woman enough to admit it, Mum was happiest, most alive when that silly lemon-on-legs came to visit. It has to be said that they were good together, once they got going their humour was a game of tennis, jokes bouncing from player to player with us kids turning our heads to watch for the next shot. They joked on most subjects, twisting everything in blazing innuendos:

'Well you don't have to watch it. You can always turn the knob.'

'You know me, Darling, just show me a knob worth turning...'

(Knitting. Taff knitted extraordinary objects on vast needles, using fluffy day-glow wools of shocking pink and orange, mixed.)

'Can't see why. You've got two perfectly good' ones already.'

Mum and Taff would go for weeks without contact, months even when we were little and time consuming but, the second they screeched into each other's arms, their friendship resumed exactly where it had left off. I've had lovers who mattered a great deal to me but the seat on the top of my pedestal was always taken. Being the first-born, I felt it only right I should be the apple of Mum's eye. It didn't occur to me to be envious of my brothers and sisters, they were loved and protected as was to be expected, but they would never push me from the front of the queue. It was only when Taff came by, or telephoned for hours on end, and Mum's face lit with undisguised delight, that jealousy gnawed inside me.

I remember one day, during the Christmas holidays, when it snowed. I woke to find the room transformed into a cave surrounded by mystical light. I'd seen snow before, but not here, heaped against this window, inviting me out. The world was a child's heaven, roofs were giant slides, trees had been covered in cotton-wool and cars were rounded and white, drawings waiting to be coloured in. The pure, untrodden ground called to me. For once I was entirely selfish. I dressed silently, not waking my sisters, and tip-toed from the bedroom in my thick socks. I knew that later there'd be snowball fights, and seven of us making a great grinning snowman. We'd take trays to the slopes on the golf course, compacting the snow until we could race downhill with our legs in the air. Low branches of trees would be shaken, covering us with falls of freezing snow, gloves would go soggy, noses run. Later we'd enjoy this together. First I wanted to own the hushed, white world, to tread softly, making the first footprints, to be a fallen angel on a fresh, white lawn. One rush of icy, exhilarating air as I opened the door and I was outside, alone while the others slept.

That was the outdoor terrain, while inside there was a warm, extremely loving woman whose life was seeped in beliefs and superstitions. A womb of a house in which one never wore green clothing, or passed another on the stairs, where knives on floors meant visitors were on the way; and as long as you flung any spilt salt over your shoulder, all would always be well. A place far removed from the offices, restaurants and banks of the Mr Powells of this world.

During those years I dated many men. Some were of the check-shirt variety, schoolmasters, with inky fingers and pipe-stained teeth. A few were hippies, gentle folk breezing through Surrey on their way across Europe, staying with us for a week or a month before the road called and they ignited their camper vans, jolting off to catch a ferry. Mum provided good food, fascinating conversation and gallons of hot water in which they might wash themselves and their smelly socks. I met these elusive beings at festivals or in jazz clubs, doing well at the game of picking up. It was contrast that attracted men to me. I was in a black phase then. Drop your eyes to the ground and you'll see black suede shoes, black tights, travel up to a short, straight black skirt and on to the equally inky polo-neck sweater, but then onwards to a white face, caked in the palest make-up, and lastly, above it all a crown of long, waving, golden hair. The swarthy opposed to the milky, ebony and gold. It worked every time.

Once the pressure was off and her own children grown, Mum became relaxed about her magic, more ready to experiment. With my generation she'd been careful, never doing anything out of the ordinary when the ordinary would suffice; but Blessing was treated to special showings of tricks which would have made the average conjurer give up and take to selling insurance. I was on the porch once, saying goodnight to a date, when the lights in The Cornflake House began to flash. Not haphazardly as in a storm, but rhythmically like Christmas-tree lights, one on then off, another the same, then all off, all on, upstairs only, downstairs only. It was dizzying, mesmeric. I pulled my young man's hand and led him backwards until we stood not far from Marcus's house, watching the garden fall under small spotlights. Now you see the caravan, now the tree.

Mum did some amazing things in those between years. Not just displays to delight her grandson but, as I said, a great deal of fortune-telling and healing. She mixed and matched these talents. People who came to discover whether they were about to meet Air or Mrs Right often found themselves being cured of aches and pains at no extra cost. Mum could sense pain from across the room; 'You've had a lot of trouble with your back, have you?' she'd ask unsuspecting visitors as they sipped their after-session tea. 'Come here and sit in front of me.' Then she would touch the trouble spot, gently. Her hands were warm when healing, not lukewarm, more the temperature of the average hot-water bottle. Pain bowed out under the mild pressure of those hands. I experienced that touch several times and nothing in the world compares with it. The blood would tingle in my veins, the skin on my scalp would tighten as a warm sensation flowed through every part of me. While I felt my headache clear, I knew the true meaning of the word luxury, for my mother's method of healing was a salve to body and spirit.

Was it you, Matthew? Were you the one I was supposed to believe in? Or did she mean the trial? Maybe she knew I would suffer prison, attacks, loneliness, love-sickness, and triumph over these afflictions. Shall I be stronger for it, more able to live without her? You see, even now, at the lowest ebb, I do believe in magic, her magic. I panic, but I have an inherent seam of hope. She was a clever woman, my mother. Not educated, not able to read or write easily, but with a given instinct and an intelligence capable of planning beyond the grave.

I didn't kill her, Matthew. I must share that responsibility with everybody who grasped any part of her powers. Do you think she took my talent with her to the grave, saving me from having to suffer the same fate as herself? I wonder if Zulema has also lost the ability to foresee events, to change things. Did Mum bestow these gifts on us, perhaps? I assumed they were inherited, but now I'm not so sure. If given, they could be retracted. I appreciate that death entails a loss of energy, but at the moment of her death, my mother sighed as if she had nothing left; as if crushed by rocks. Was that because she consumed all the magic in our family? I'll never know. My only comfort is that I gave her peace of mind, before and after her dying.

How could I take you through hell if this was mere infatuation? I would only show my poor, dead mother to the man I love. Look at her, grey ringlets laid on her pillow, mouth set in a wistful smile, taking secrets to the other side. I bend and kiss her cheek, inhaling the smell of her skin. Should I cover her face? My hand is shaking, I drop the counterpane before it reaches her chin. She wouldn't have hidden in life, she shall 'see' it through to the end. I have to cling to the banister as I go down the stairs. I turn on the kitchen tap and gulp cold water from my hands, splashing my face, mixing tears and drink together. Then I hear her voice. Oh I don't jump, I know it's a ghost, and a loving one at that. She encourages me, calms me. I do what has to be done automatically after this, one action following another, just as we planned.

As I stood and stared at The Cornflake House on the day of my mother's death, I saw how nature had navigated around the minor setback of Fisher's Close, and how we'd provided an oasis for butterflies and bees in a desert of clipped lawns and trim flower beds. It was a sight, our house, paint chipped, windows cracked, curtains hanging at odd angles; but it was more at home with the tall trees behind the little estate, more at peace with the ferns and hawthorns than any of its companions. Perhaps if we'd bought it, paying good money for the privilege of living tidily, we might have kept the place in better repair. Maybe if there'd been a man about the house ... On the other hand, my mother had a purpose in all she did and all she left undone. Knowing what she was to ask of me, she'd probably intended to let the house go partially to ruin.

I'll take the upstairs, it's my responsibility and I know what to do. In my mind I've carried these cans, their contents splashing, that smell escaping through sealed tops, a hundred times. But nothing prepared me for the real thing, for the sound, almost comical, of metal banging the stairs, of my breathing as I heave the blasted can, of my nails as they rip to shreds while struggling with the clasp. Considering the age I live in, I've spent exceptionally little time in motor cars. The fumes catch me unawares, filling my eyes, making me cough. Half the contents, one sixth of the total, ends up on the landing as I tip too violently. My right hand is soaked and I leave the can and tip-toe into my mother's bedroom. I anoint her forehead with the liquid, not making a sign but stroking her brow, feeling her skin move under my fingers, across her skull.

From then on I move like the wind, before nerves overcome me. The rest of the petrol is poured, scattered haphazardly here and there. The stink is unbearable now, I'm worried it will drift to next door, to the other houses. Leaving the front door open, I exit, taking three backwards steps, stumbling over a pile of papers, holding the long taper in one hand, the matches in the other. Fumbling, trembling, I pull out a match and place the taper in my teeth. I have both hands free to strike. I do this quickly, dropping the box of matches to the ground as soon as my chosen one ignites. The flame touches the taper. The taper touches the petrol-drenched papers in the hall. The Cornflake House roars. It is done.

Yes, it was done. I wonder if my mother ever doubted me? If so there was no need; it never occurred to me not to obey. Had she asked me to walk through the fire, I wouldn't be here, telling my tale.

Tears streamed down my cheeks as I stood watching The Cornflake House burn. That old song's right enough, smoke does get in your eyes, and up your nose. I smelt of it for weeks, as if I was made of ash. Can you imagine how bright a house on fire can be, how much heat it gives off? I'd invented a million monsters, flames sprang from nowhere, breeding more flames. Once created they were instantly vast, eternally hungry. They devoured everything, furniture, floors, curtains, the worn Axminster. And upstairs, the body on the bed, the corpse for cremation. I thought nonsense, Ladybird, Ladybird fly away home ... nonsense. Anything to keep my feet planted on the spot, to stop me from running back to my home, to rescue treasures; to carry my mother to safety. Then I wished the fire brigade shouldn't come soon. The image of my mother's corpse, charred and hanging over a man's shoulder, danced in the haze before my eyes. Too terrible. I was limp with heat, scarlet on the outside, melting beneath my skin. How mad I must have looked. A demented soul on the edge of hell.

To begin with everbody was very kind. An ambulance man told me to let myself go. 'Have a good howl, Love,' he advised, 'nothing like a flow of tears to help get over shock.' I expect I stared at him as if he'd just arrived from Mars. They seemed to be giants, green giants, yellow plastic giants, joke policemen and women looming yards above my head. The faces of the yellow-plastic-fireman giants changed from white to black as they emerged from the rubble that had been my house. Colour wasn't the only change. The light of sympathy, which had been glowing behind the look of efficiency, had gone from their eyes. With the first whiff of petrol, I switched from victim to criminal. From where I sat, in the open back door of an ambulance, it sounded like a load of kids swearing; 'Arson. Arson. Arson.'

What followed was a polite battle. Everybody wanted me to themselves. The ambulance folk were certain I should be leaving with them, the police said no, I was uninjured and could ride in their gleaming white vehicle. At one time I was having my left arm pulled in one direction, my right in the other. Or so it felt. I was light-headed, practically stoned on the smell of smoke and decay. The people from the hospital wanted to treat me for shock; but what's the cure for death followed by fire? Had I been a true pyromaniac I'd no doubt have been lapping up the attention; I was certainly at the centre of this, for the time being. The inhabitants of Fisher's Close had left their bridge parties and tottered out, some with whisky glasses clenched in their fists, to view the downfall of The Cornflake House with what must have been mixed emotions. I'm sure they were glad it had gone, but then there was this mess to be cleared before another, proper family could build on the site. So there was quite a crowd around me that evening as I stood in our smouldering clearing praying that my mother had vanished, bones and all.

I have wondered, in spite of all I've said about being the loyal, dutiful daughter, whether or not I did the right thing. I'm not convinced that Mum thought it through, that she took the strong arm of the law into consideration when asking me to torch The Cornflake House the moment she died. In retrospect, now that I've had more than enough time to contemplate the full implications of my action, I see that I made my brothers and sisters homeless. Some of them have other homes now, of course, but the house you grow up in, that's the core, isn't it? No matter if we were unpopular in Fisher's Close; we won our home fair and square and built a mountain of memories around the place - like any other family. Have I sentenced them to wander the earth, or to live in semis or huts, without a base for the rest of their days? I'm not talking of inheritance. Lord knows one tatty house, even in such an exclusive cul-de-sac, wouldn't have gone far divided by seven. This isn't about money, only about value. I deprived my family of the thing they valued most.

Would it have mattered if I'd said one thing, and done another? Would it have made any difference to Mum if I'd agreed with her plan, acting my part sincerely until the moment of her death, but then walking downstairs and telephoning a doctor and an undertaker? Stupid even to wonder. I couldn't have fooled her with play-acting, not for a second. Anyway, it's the life after death question again. The trouble is that none of us, in the wake of death, want to believe in its finality. Most of us organize moving services, selecting the departed one's favourite music or poems, in order to please them; because we can't admit that it doesn't matter, that they have gone beyond caring about arrangements. Will they understand in court that I was conforming, in my way, to this common human ritual when I lit the match? That I was in the sorry state of make-believe known only to those who suffer loss? I doubt they'd sympathize. Might as well say the Devil himself visited one night and told me to set fire to my home.

'It'll be no good for you, Eve, living on here by yourself,' she told me when there was no denying how ill she was, 'having your brothers and sisters visit, sensing them wanting this and that possession, knowing they were whispering about your right to live in the place while they had to make their own ways.'

'Then there's the neighbours,' Mum told me. 'Just as one lot get used to us, another bunch moves in and the snobbery starts over again. It's been fine as a family, uniting forces, turning more than one cheek, but a single woman ... You'd use up all your strength in the battle, Eve, and grow old and eccentric meanwhile.'

This was a confusing description, because if the inside of The Cornflake House was reminiscent of anything - other than a jumble sale - it was an old, wooden caravan. My mother had won a characterless, modern house, and transformed it, slowly, lovingly, into a vast Gypsy caravan. I was amused as I looked around at the red walls, the pictures in their painted frames, the brass ornaments winking from every surface. Not a ship in a safe harbour, but a stranded caravan, one that had wandered from the train and become too inflated, too overloaded to return to the road. The egg-caravan in our garden had been the best Mum could manage before her win, but once she'd got something bigger to transform, well, she'd really gone back to what she believed was her nature. I remembered Cecil the horse, now long gone to that great pasture in the sky. I didn't doubt Mum's story of him having been brought to us by some man, but why, it occurred to me, would this happen? Why the sudden generosity, even if the man in question was the father of one of us kids? Because Mum had wanted a horse, that was why. It seemed likely that, having set her heart on perfecting the Gypsy image, she'd ordered one, the way folks order sofas or built-in wardrobes.

There lies the way through the tangle. Valerie should use this information: my mother was obsessed, from an early age, with the idea that she was of Gypsy blood. She asked me to burn her home because that was how it was done, or used to be done, by the people she believed she came from. I can try to explain, if I'm allowed, how hard it had been, living under the shadow of death with such a strong and single-minded woman.

'Will you tell me,' I asked tentatively, 'about the fathers?' The second the words passed my lips I wished I'd kept my mouth shut. No other question could have brought the situation home to me so clearly. To begin with there was the chance she might answer, and that diversity from the normal lack of willingness to speak of those men would indicate that Mum had reached a turning point; that she considered her death not only inevitable but imminent. That there was nothing left to lose and she might as well take this final opportunity to fill the gaps in my knowledge. On the other hand she could keep quiet, evading answers, as always. But this option made my skin freeze too, because it meant that we, mother and daughter, had not reached that roundhouse in our relationship where the mother, being old and in need of care, relinquishes authority to the daughter. If Mum refused to reveal secrets, to unload burdens of memory on to my shoulders, then she was in full possession of her faculties; she was dying too young. We were about to miss a stage of our lives. Since childhood, I'd accepted that there would be a time when I would take control and look after my ageing mother. I'd assumed that I would stay on when the others had left home, keeping Mum company. I'd foreseen this time in our lives without a scrap of regret, giving no consideration to what I might have been missing elsewhere. There was nothing saintly about it, I wanted it to be that way.

I followed the turn of her head in order to see what she saw. Samik's father was conjured to stand in the doorway, a small, narrow silhouette who made me shiver yet stare. His head was round as a football because, I was just able to appreciate, his hair grew straight against his skull, like a tight cap.

'You liked him,' I said with surprise. Hadn't we always been led to believe that our fathers were great brutes who came, practically raped and plundered, and left a trail of blood, sweat and tears in their wake? But there was Joe, an innocent abroad, and the boot seemed decidedly on the other foot. I'd seen my mum as Victory, tarted to the nines, ready to knock 'em dead, and I knew my own way around the mating game; it wasn't hard to imagine how it had been when Joe's boat docked.

'Right, now, Merry's dad,' Mum clicked her fingers and this time the shadow was the size of dreams, or nightmares. 'George,' Mum introduced him, 'built like a rock, but with a big heart to match.' Again I was taken aback. Another kind-hearted man. What had happened to the monsters we'd imagined? 'George was a clever bugger, with his hands, he could mend anything. Merry's condition wasn't inherited. George was just a slow mover, deliberate. Liked to think things through before taking action.' The soft light was shining on a face which reminded me of Merry in many ways. Beneath shaggy eyebrows, George's eyes were large, pale and decidedly hangdog. He had a vast beer belly but was otherwise thickset rather than fat. 'A self-taught man, aren't you, George?' Mum smiled. Of course he gave no sign of having heard. 'We were at school together. He was bullied and teased too, left school with nothing, then studied mechanics at home. Runs his own garage now, don't you? Wonderful with engines, but still a little uneasy with his fellow humans. I suppose,' she smiled kindly at our visiting ghost, 'in that respect, you're more like our Django than Merry.'

It occurred to me that Mum might have got muddled, that George bad fathered Django, not Merry. Although there was a physical resemblance between Merry and this man .,. maybe George had been father to both my unusual brothers? It hadn't struck me before, because Mum never let her men friends hang around, that two or even three of us children might share the same dad. I couldn't cope with the idea of sharing mine, however I might like or dislike him when his turn came. It would have been the same as sharing a security blanket, or letting another child suck your thumb. Mum was busy bidding George goodbye and concentrating on conjuring up a new face. For once she appeared to have no idea what was going on in my head. I tried to steady my racing heart with more rum. Then I realized that Django's father was next in line and George was fading, so I'd been wrong on all counts.

'Jake,' she said, 'not as clear as the others on account of our only having met in the dark,' and she laughed warmly, a sound of rum and flirtation. The accompanying smile took years off her face leaving the impression of a girl who was capable of enticing anybody she chose. While Jake was in the room I saw her, young Victory, more clearly than I saw him. She was bright and a little drunk, young but knowledgeable, teasing but deadly serious about having her own way. For once there was no Taff to hang on Victory's sleeve, to giggle out of turn and transform romance into tat; only Victory, dressed in crimson, smelling of violets, smiling, confident, happy.

We were getting fairly sloshed by this time and apart from that sinking, apprehensive feeling I had at the prospect of meeting the skeleton from my own cupboard, I was enjoying the evening as much as any I could remember.

When Jorge had gone and Fabian's dad appeared, I gave an involuntary gasp. The man was beautiful. It's rare to meet such beauty head on, even if the handsome face belongs to a ghost. My jaw dropped and I felt myself blush. If this man had been there, in the flesh, I'd have been unable to speak to him. Fabian is good-looking, tall, striking even, but his darker, more streamlined father was a god. Mum laughed at me. 'That was the effect he had on all the girls,' she assured me, 'and best of all, he'd no idea how lovely he was. I rescued him, Sidney's his name by the way, from the clutches of a very undesirable character. I didn't want to spoil him, his innocence was part of his beauty, but somebody had to teach him a few hard facts.'

Then it hit me. I'm not a complete fool, Matthew, and it struck me just in time, seconds before my own dream was to come true, that what I was witnessing was nothing more than a conjuring trick. All done by lighting and wish fulfilment. Nothing to do with reality whatsoever. I was seeing what I wanted to see. Had I been absent, and Perdita sitting in my place, Colin would have been so much more the man, upright, intelligent, important, and my father, Eve's dad, would have been a scruffy, insignificant bloke with holes in his shoes.

Later, in my bed, I wondered if it was for the best. Had I wanted to know each of my mother's secrets? Didn't she have the right, as we all do, to take some of them with her to the grave? That night I was painfully aware that I'd soon be without her, and in my state of dread I was prepared to forgive her anything. Besides, maybe those men were nothing more than dimly remembered shadows to her, ghosts whose shapes and personalities had been altered over the years by the yearnings of her children. She may not have been behaving dishonestly in presenting me with personified dreams; dreams might have been all she herself had to draw on. Also, now that she's gone, I remember The Night Of The Fathers with gratitude and affection. It always used to puzzle me, the way my magic drew the line at managing to tell me anything at all about the fathers. But as the effect of the rum receded and sense returned, I understood that my mother controlled the extent of my powers. That night she'd made an allowance, letting us fuse our magic to conjure those images; a rare and special amalgamation.

Within days, the trial will be in full swing. I wonder if I'll see a sandy-haired man in the gallery? If so I'm afraid I might burst out laughing. I do want to give a good impression of myself and I know, although I'm not certain I understand why, that frivolity isn't acceptable. Best to keep my eyes down, on my regulation shoes, and my mouth shut except when answering questions. People don't die of being in court, do they? Hundreds go through the courts daily and you hardly ever hear of anybody dying from fright there, from fear of standing or sitting in the judge's line of vision, being Public Enemy Number One.

Forgive me for having neglected you for the last few days. Especially when you sent those roses, well the card with roses on which I take to be the next best thing to a real live aromatic bunch. Everything came to a head so fast I hardly had time to wipe my nose, as Mum used to say. Now, as I write this I'm aware, for the first time in days, of the feelings of other people. Liz, for example, has been heading surreptitiously towards a nervous breakdown while maintaining our agreed silence. She probably wouldn't have noticed my kicking foot as she herself is a mass of twitching and jerking. Plus she cries constantly - but without making a sound which excuses me a bit for not having noticed before. Tears drip like water torture down her cheeks and she collects them in her sleeve. I asked her if she'd care to break the habit and talk things over. She shook her head but fell mutely into my arms and soaked my shoulder. The first real hug I've had in ages. Her hair smelt of ash but I don't think she indulges in cigarettes. Maybe this angst is due to a broken love affair with a chain-smoker.

I'm dithering. The truth is that it's hard to begin, especially if I'm to talk not only of what's been going on in court but my reaction to this. I think I said that I might have enjoyed the attention on the night of the fire, had I been a true exhibitionist. Well, I'm not, and walking into court, with all eyes turned on me, I felt exposed and humiliated. I kept my head down, not wanting to see faces familiar or unknown, hoping that I'd become magically invisible. A murmur ran round the room, the rumble of unfriendly thunder. When I did raise my head, I found myself facing the judge, a man. I'd vaguely hoped for a woman, believing a mother or a daughter would have a better understanding of my plight. Mind you, far from being inhuman, the man I found myself staring at was a surprisingly sympathetic looking creature with curly hair and a pink complexion. But his voice, when he told us to sit, was impressive and my hands were shaking as they hit my lap. I'll be very critical of films and television shows when they portray the accused casually wandering into court. I don't believe any but the hardened criminal could make that entrance nonchalantly.

The case went public while I was trying to remember the words to a very rude rugby song that one of Taffs blokes had taught me.

'You cannot then rule out the possibility of foul play?' asked the prosecuting counsel. The forensic expert said she couldn't. But then my side, sorry if the terminology has a ring of Cowboys and Indians but at the time it felt a bit like Custer's last stand, my side called some witnesses and saved the day. They called Perdita. I was shocked by this, hearing her trotting in from behind, then seeing her face before me. Who had I been expecting? A guardian angel I think. By then I was feeling quite queasy, with memories and nerves, and I'd have liked to be taken out and given a cup of hot, sweet tea instead of having to sit still and listen to Perdita talking about Mum and her illness. She assured Valerie that our mother had indeed been ill, very ill, for some time before her death. Perdita looked as if the BBC had dressed her for the part, young up-and-coming businesswoman, in some courtroom drama. There never was a suit so firm and neatly cut, a blouse so white on a throat so scrubbed. Then, as I mocked, Perdita turned to me and smiled. It was a genuine smile, full of sisterly affection and sympathy. It made the hairs on the back of my neck prickle with guilt. I smiled back but it probably looked as if I was trying not to gag. She frightened me, my little sister to whom I had been a bully rather than a friend. Suddenly she had the power to hurt me, in fact I was hurting very much. I wanted more than anything to be out of that place and free to tell her how sorry I was, not only for making her homeless but for ridiculing her over the years. I wouldn't have felt more restricted if I'd been wearing a ball and chain.

The second witness who confirmed that Mum had been dying was Merry's carer, Jim. He explained how Merry was in the habit of making monthly visits home and how these had grown shorter and more strained as Mum got weaker. Instinctively I searched the court for Merry, expecting to catch sight of him leaping over the jury box or charging at the judge. Without Jim he was sure to run riot. I thought it kind of Jim to come and speak up for me but reckless of him to bring, and then abandon, Merry. Of course the two of them aren't joined at the hip. The Home has other staff. It's just that Jim always accompanies Merry on outings. In my head I must have switched this to 'Merry always accompanies Jim on outings.' This time Merry had been left behind, thank God. I hadn't thought of Jim as anything other than a carer. In court he was an anxious, quietly spoken man who was prepared to help a friend. He'd made an effort for the occasion, his sparse hair was combed out of his eyes and his tattoos were hidden under a pale blue shirt. I was touched by his consideration and tried, in spite of the emotions Perdita had aroused, to give him an appreciative look, but he was nervous and didn't meet my eyes.

The prosecution wanted to know why, if my mother had been ill, no doctor had been involved. They also inferred that the lack of a death certificate was very dubious. Doctors, medicines, bits of paper. Mum hated the lot. Valerie doesn't have the kind of skin that blushes but I could see she was getting hot under the collar at this point. I didn't envy her. I wouldn't have wanted the job of explaining Mum and her quirks to that lot. Having been moved by the support of Perdita and Jim, I tried to distract myself by searching for other familiar faces. Witnesses are kept outside, so that they can appear like white rabbits, but surely if I looked around I'd find a few friendly folk amongst the punters. It took a while, I couldn't turn my head for long, it would've looked rude, but finally I spotted Bing, bless him, sitting with his head down, dreadlocks covering his eyes. I have horribly underestimated my son and my feelings for him. Then more than ever, I wanted to be free, to have time to share with him.

On my next exploration, I saw our next-door neighbour, Mr Lee from Fisher's Close. Not friend but not quite foe. He always was a nosy old fart with no life of his own. I hoped he was enjoying the show, it was the last one he'd have at my expense.

I wasn't running on a full tank (Taffs expression this time) so it took a while for the proceedings to sink in. The judge was gathering papers to his breast, the jury checking their watches.

'There,' Valerie was smiling, 'that's one relief.'

'Not manslaughter?' I guessed, wondering how many reliefs made for an easy mind.

Right, so I wasn't being accused of killing Mum, only of burning her house to the ground. It sank in, slowly.

Day One was over. I had no clear idea of how things would progress but I felt relieved. A cell is positively cosy compared to a court. I longed for my bunk bed and the almost dark of a prison night. As I was being led from the court a man stepped up and whispered to Valerie who in turn whispered to my warder.

'No,' the warder said, 'I don't think she can have it, not right now. But you can show her it, then give it to her after, if all goes well.' The man, who looked at me like a long lost friend but whose face I didn't recognize, opened his hand. Zulema's moon pendant lay curled on his pink palm.

'I was covered in soot when we last met,' he explained, 'but I'd rescued this from the fire and I didn't know what to do with it.' I couldn't have smiled, any movement of my facial muscles would have brought tears. I stared at the opal until the shape blurred and only white light remained.

'I'll keep it safe for you,' my fireman promised. If I hadn't done so recently, I could have fallen in love on the spot.

I slept well that night. It's the unknown that keeps me awake. Going to court had been my nightmare. Now I knew what to expect the next day, more of the same and not pleasant either. The outcome of the case had paled in comparison to the ordeal of being in the hot seat.

I'd been kidding myself if I thought I knew what was coming. Day Two was far more nerve-racking. For a start I was in the box, being cross-examined by Valerie, knowing the prosecutor was itching to have his turn.

'Would you describe your mother as having been eccentric?' Valerie asked.

'Yes,' I felt like Judas, 'to some she must have seemed that way, but I think of her more as a person who had firmly held beliefs.'

People began to mutter expectantly at this. Although I was pleading guilty to arson, this was to be the first time I'd admitted setting fire to my home.

I never had the chance to answer that essential question. There was shouting from beyond the closed doors, a woman's voice yelling about being, or not being, a witness and the firm voice of an official telling her to quieten down. Her refusal to obey was heightened by the way in which the entire court hushed. We could hear her cursing amongst light thuds, presumably as she and the official collided with the doors.

'Evey!' screamed the woman. 'Tell 'em to let me in.' My heart stopped. I was instantly chilled to the bone. Even through solid doors the Lincolnshire accent was unmistakable. Mum was the only one who called me Evey. My mother had come back from the dead to plead my case. My prayers had been answered. I was practically gagging with joy. I had no doubts, Mum was greater than death, just as she'd always been larger than life. Instinctively I raised my arms for the long embrace.

'Evey!' cried the voice beyond the door. 'Tell 'em.'

'Mum!' I shouted, concentrating on the doors in the hope of opening them from afar. Time raced, whole scenes ran through my head. Mum and I hugging, kissing, promising we'd never part again. The judge smiling, shaking his curly head, banging his mallet to declare the case closed. Valerie looking bewildered as Perdita pushed her way towards us with tears of joy running down her face. All this I experienced in a split second. Then the doors burst open and a round figure stumbled in, tripping and swearing in her hurry to reach the judge. Although it was far from funny to me, I can see now that it was a classic comic entrance. A pair of bandy little legs staggered under the weight of a tree-trunk torso, wide feet squeezed into tight high heels twisted under the strain. As she appeared I let out a cry, the wail of the broken-hearted, of the utterly devastated. You may have heard similar sounds on television, when reporters film women who have lost their children in violent, pointless wars.

My mother hadn't risen from the dead. The combination of the accent and the use of the endearment 'Evey' had tricked me. Air rushed from my lungs as the colour rose in my cheeks. This was magic gone mad, and I was the lady who'd been accidentally sawn in half.

'You got to listen to me,' ordered the flustered new arrival, as the officials made grabs for her and she fended them off with an outsized pink handbag, I'm your prime witness.' Another one who'd seen too many TV programmes. I sneaked a look around and saw amazement and amusement on every face, including Perdita's. Even those of us who grew up with Taff are continually taken aback by her being so over the top.

'Madam!' the judge bellowed. 'You are going about this the wrong way. We shall adjourn while you speak to the counsels, then if you have anything of importance to say, you will be given the chance to do so in a civilized manner.' That shut her up, long words always made her gape with wonder.

'The letter,' she hissed at me as she was escorted from the court, 'why the bloody hell didn't you read my letter, Evey?'

'Sorry Taff,' I said to the departing figure. I meant it, I could see she'd come to help me, in her inimitable way, and I needed all the help I could get.

I had to sit in a dingy ante-room while Taff talked to Valerie. I wish I could say that as I sat there I thought kindly of Taff, but the truth is I was horrified by her appearance and still angry with her for not being a reincarnation of Mum. Of all the ironies, this just about took the barrel full of biscuits. I'd prayed for a saviour, begged to be rescued, but by whom? Not for me the loving father, watching from the gallery until his moment came. Oh no. I got my worst enemy, a loud, ludicrous woman, someone I'd never been pleased to see under any circumstances.

To give Taff her due, her appearance had turned my case around, moving me swiftly on from dread to shame. I felt I was trapped in a Whitehall farce or a Carry On film. No it was worse than that; it was as if a perfectly good drama had been taken over, halfway through the making, by the director of Lassie. When I was led back to find Taff standing in the witness box, looking very pleased with herself, I couldn't help wondering if her great handbag contained a rescue kit, small bottle of brandy, bandages, glucose sweets.

With an effort I reminded myself that this woman had been my mother's best, most constant friend, but I wasn't much comforted by that. Now she was my confederate, I assumed, an ally in my camp. I wasn't greatly comforted by this either. I believe I gave an audible sigh as I sat down. Valerie looked at me as if I'd belched loudly. Then she crossed the floor and began to question Taff.

It was hard for Taff to restrain herself. She wanted to blurt out her story in one breath but Valerie kept her on a tight reign and guided her until it seemed almost as if we were listening to a sane, ordinary person. Throughout the opening questions my mind wandered around in a daze and I thought of other visitations I'd suffered from this witness. I remembered one time when Taff had arrived on the back of a motorbike, her hair knotted round her face, her body encased in red leather. What a sight. Taff has never been slim, her womanly curves may have attracted men in her youth but they spread to Humpty-Dumpty proportions by middle age. All right, I'm not slender myself, but then I'd not be seen dead in tight red skins, motorbike or no motorbike. Her companion, a man half her age glorying in the name of Shane, had a matching set of leathers in bright blue.

'We had to make do with red for Taff,' he told us regretfully, 'because they don't do these in pink.' This comment was the final straw. I had to be taken away by a kindly Zulema as I snorted with hopeless laughter. The idea of Taff trussed up in pink leathers, looking naked but fit to burst any moment, was too much.

Then there was the time she brought a poodle with her. Maybe she was beginning to lose her charms, the poodle appeared to be instead of a man. It was an unhappy dog, with eyes that collected clumps of brown sleep. She carried it about under her arm.

'Is that a child substitute?' Mum asked, for once speaking just a little harshly.

'No, it's a fucking poodle,' and Taff laughed until her smoker's cough turned to a choking fit.

'Well then put it down and let it walk,' Mum ordered. The dog was lowered to the floor where it was instantly attacked by our own mutts. As I've said, we were never cruel to animals. Perdita grabbed the poodle, disentangling him from the jaws of our dogs and was given, for her pains, the job of looking after the little visitor for the duration. I think the thing she minded most, as she carried the poor soul around, was his scruffiness. Taff, having only just acquired him, hadn't had time to take him to a parlour and have him clipped down and puffed up.

Then, another time ... I was brought sharply back to the present by hearing my name. Not only my name but the endearment which had previously been Mum's prerogative.

'Tell 'em where the letter is, Evey,' Taff was begging. 'What've you done with that letter I sent?' For a while, as she gave me her most pleading look, I wondered what the hell she meant. Then the scent of violets drifted in my direction and I knew Mum was prompting me to concentrate harder - because Taff had been sent to help me.

'The letter,' I muttered while Taff gave me encouraging nods. The unopened post. Yes, I remembered, it was in my cell, lying under your frog. I was allowed, with my warder, to leave the court and search for this missive. Of course I knew where it was, but I didn't want anybody else to touch the frog. The letter was found and we marched back to court. It was not unlike a historical scene, with the King's pardon arriving seconds before the executioner raises his axe. I knew that sealed envelope contained information which would save me. My magic was returning. I honestly felt the air about my head clear. It was rather like having my ears syringed. There was a spell of painful but exquisite tingling noises and a low hum, then a popping sound and Hey Presto. After that I found myself smiling, a kid with the present she most wanted. I smiled at Taff as I was led past her, I gave Valerie a grin, I even beamed at the judge. Only Taff smiled back, flashing her undoubtedly false teeth.

The return of my magic has enabled me to look at this gift anew. Perhaps magic consists largely of the ability to absorb information not only about myself but about anybody I single out. Is that magic, or merely common sense? I shall sleep tonight, and dream not of fathers but of lovers, of a frog who turns into a prince when the imprisoned princess places her lips on his.

Thanks for your letter, Matthew. I can't repent and let you visit, the three months apart has become part of the process of healing for me. I need to hurt before I can fully enjoy. But believe me I'm delighted to hear that you're missing me. Not falling into the arms of another woman yet? I'm astonished to find you haven't been snapped up, but then I'm biased. Of course I'd know if you had found a new love; the magic has stayed, making my life in this hell-hole a lot easier. The other prisoners don't bother me. I walk in peace, surrounded by an invisible iron curtain. Big Bad Eve, don't mess with her. Sometimes it seems I've been inside so long I shan't know how to be free; freedom is a lesson I'll need to learn from scratch. I've taken on a prison persona, a tough, abrupt woman of whom I've grown quite fond. She and I shall have to say goodbye in a month's time. One month, surely you can wait 'til then?

I have had one persistent visitor here. She won't leave me alone, although at first I refused to see her, sending messages to say I was ill or busy. I am busy, funnily enough. I've been given the task of rearranging the library. Not simply A-Z, but sub-divisions in the existing categories. Now fiction is split into Romance, Thrillers, Sci-Fi etc. It's made me realize how much reading I've yet to do, so many authors, so little time. Since I stopped writing to you, I read until my eyes ache, until they turn out the lights, but I'll never catch up with myself. And I've made a new friend, well two actually. I said I'd try this out, friendship, and I rather like it. I share a cell with a woman called Maggie who is so ordinary that at first it was hard to think of her as anything other than a housewife who had popped in for a chat. She is middle-aged, has a kind, honest face, a Birmingham accent and hair which is growing out from a fairly disastrous perm. Our conversation centres around ideal ways of cleaning sinks and how to get stains out of T-shirts. Not my specialist subjects, but Maggie has knowledge enough for two. For days, assuming she was simply missing her kitchen and her pile of washing, I humoured her, nodding when she recommended this soap powder over that, playing interested. Then I discovered that she's in here for stabbing her husband eight times with a carving knife and that the T-shirt and sink in question had been haunting her since the night she tried in vain to wash pints of blood out of one and down the other. Suddenly I wasn't playing interested any more. Sadly Maggie has blanked all but the washing from her memory and can tell me no more about her night of crime. I don't even know how the husband fared; neither, it seems, does she. Frustrating, isn't it? Was the man a complete bastard, making her life a misery for years on end? Or did he play around, meaning to leave his homely wife for a younger, more attractive woman? Maybe neither, perhaps Maggie just flipped from boredom, finding herself tied to the kitchen one day too long. We'll probably never know. Maggie is stuck at her sink, in her imagination, a modern Lady Macbeth, endlessly trying different cleaning products.

But this was no ordinary caller, not one to be fobbed off, never one to take no for an answer. She came repeatedly, leaving little calling cards, notes scribbled on the back of bus tickets, written on the inside of chocolate wrappers. 'See me,' they pleaded. There was one worked painstakingly between the lines of a telephone bill. She must have picked this bill up on the bus to the prison, I suppose, where it had been dropped by another visitor. This is how it reads:

My mother. It takes a bit of getting used to, I can tell you. Such an emotive word, that and its companions, mothered, motherless. I'd begun to get used to motherless, now I have to adjust to the likelihood of being mothered again. Loved in that unique way, as I love Bing. I have no mother. I have a mother. Very little difference, on paper; but away from the page, everything is changed.

The woman simply will not leave me alone. Burning The Cornflake House was supposed to liberate me, to free me for the remainder of my life and to release Mum's spirit. Instead I'm a prisoner, physically constricted and mentally trapped in a web of family which even my own death wouldn't unravel.

I mentioned the letter, didn't I? The one that preceded the scribbled notes? I'll copy the letter out for you. It's a classic, a schoolteacher's nightmare:

You must be wandering why you was asked to burn down your house,' she wrote, 'and now you must be feeling cross' (cross!) 'because you've landed up inside. Don't blame her, Evey, there was things inside The Cornflake House should never have been kept, but Vie was like that, kept every bloody thing, specally papers cos she thought these should be kept when others would have throwed them out.'

It rambled on in this vein and I almost gave up on it. Almost. Now I wish I had chucked it in the bin unread. Not that I'd have escaped. As I said, the writer was intent on being either seen or heard. To continue:

'These papers that got burnt I suppose along with your clothes and stuff told to many secrets, I'm not saying Vie wasn't a true Gypsy and wanted to go that way and take it all with her, but most important was those papers. They had to go. Do you see, Lovey? Are you following? It was all written down and stuffed in a box somewhere then knowing Vie it got lost, about your Dads, the truth about them and about your Mum as well. Not one of you was her own flesh and blood. I can't keep quite any more. Maybe III be sorry, but my days are numberd and I have to have my say. Sorry to shock you Sweetheart, but Vies gone, God bless her, and I kept shut up to long.'

Are you following, Matthew? Can you love a woman who's been duped right through her life? Can you love the bastard child of an old tart like Taff ? More importantly, can I love myself, or at least learn to like being who I am? The letter went on to explain, gushingly, how Taff had given birth to me in a place far from home. But being 'a flighty soul' she hadn't felt able to give me the love I deserved. Victory, on the other hand, wasn't flighty, didn't even like male company, and therefore, not being driven by similar urges, was happy to take on the role of mother. So happy that she offered this service not once, but seven times. We Cornflake House kids were as good as orphans, seven souls without a proper parent between us.

I was shaken at first. Mum was not Mum, but Taff was. It look hours to sink in. Then I was embarrassed for having been simple-minded. I was eight when Samik was 'born'. I didn't know the facts of life in detail but I understood that babies came from a mother's stomach. Shouldn't I have noticed the flatness of Victory's tummy? I suspect her of trickery. She must have been capable of puffing herself up. I can't have been the only one who was fooled. After this I grew angry. Secrets are all very well, but we are talking basic human rights here. A child should know its parents, or at the very least, its parent. Neither Victory nor Taff had any right to leave me in the dark so long. I'm in no fit state to receive a shock of this magnitude now, either. How dare they? I hated them both for a while, and Grandma Editha who must have known too. What fun they must've had, all in on the act, cosy together. I wished I had a kitchen of my own, I was in just the right mood for smashing some china. Beyond anger was a void, numb surprise; back to being staggered, in fact.

I couldn't believe that during our formative years, while we were dreaming of and searching for our fathers, we children should also have been looking out for our mothers. No wonder Victory could only conjure phantom men for me that night, she probably never even met our dads. Perhaps when I eventually capitulated, walked to the Visitors' Room and sat opposite Taff, it was because at least she really did know who's sperm had made me. Except, in retrospect, having been flighty and given to urges, she's not a reliable informant either.

Well, I've seen Taff several times since reading that letter, very awkward meetings at first, with her weeping into a pile of Kleenex and me studying her wrinkled brow for family likenesses. It is from her that I get my fair hair and my tendency to put on weight. It seems my dad was a dark, handsome hunk; but then she would say that. Taffs been with some pretty horrendous men and I've yet to hear her admit that any of them were less than perfect. Please God I haven't inherited her lack of taste. At night I lie awake imagining my future self in a home full of orange glass ornaments and plastic flowers. During these bedtime stories, as I grow older, I begin to resemble Taff in every way, getting fatter, coarser, more eccentric, until, having also inherited her sense of humour, I can see the funny side of the situation. My inheritance isn't a home or possessions, it is Taff. If I couldn't be Victory's daughter, I might have been anybody's; but I'm not. I'm the flesh and blood of the woman I've spent my life loathing; of the woman my 'mother' loved best.

I, who mourned the loss of my mother deeply, have been given a second chance. Isn't that what bereaved folk long for? You lose a mother, you want a mother; it's every motherless child's dream.

It was during my second meeting with Taff that a blinding thought occurred to me. I hardly dared to ask, not sure which would be most alarming, an answer of yes, or a disturbing no. She was chatting away at the time, telling me how she'd got something for me, how she hoped the size was right. I wasn't paying much attention, my mind being occupied by my blinding thought.

'Here you go, Lovey,' she said and passed a Tesco's carrier bag across the table to me. I put my hand inside before looking. The contents were soft as candyfloss, but without the stickiness. When I pulled the gift out it was actually the colour of candyfloss but garnished with a bright orange. Three knitted tubes, joined at the shoulders by thick blue thread.

'It's a woolly,' Taff told me. I was grateful for this information.

'Just,' she grinned. My blinding thought was momentarily banished to a dark corner as I pictured her in the Home, knitting furiously into the night so as to have this thing ready to present to me on time.

'Thanks,' I offered as graciously as I could. 'Taff?' I hadn't yet managed to call her mother, and the name Mum was taken, but since her revelation I used the name Taff awkwardly. She waited. 'I've just had a thought. Maybe it's absurd but I have to ask. You say that you're my mother ...'

'I am, I am,' she cried and many heads twisted to look at her earnest expression.

'Yes. Well, I was wondering if that was it, surprise-wise, or if there's more you'd like to tell me?'

The woman blushed deeply, turning her thick make-up from suntan to sunset. She played with the Tesco bag, twisting a corner into a horn.

'Please,' I prompted, 'I need to know.' For a second I thought she was going to begin an I-don't-know-what-you-mean routine, she looked coy enough to do so. She's no coward though. Leaving the bag alone, looking me straight in the eye, she told me I was a smart one and no mistake. At this I picked up the sweater and crumpled it in my hands, holding it under my chin like a security blanket. It would be taken off me when the visit was over, for a while, kept back. It made my skin itch anyway.

'No use denying it now,' she admitted. Some might have expected her to look a little ashamed of herself, or at least to pretend to be abashed. I knew her better than that; the pride on her face was no surprise to me.

The answer, being yes, seemed both better and more upsetting than a no might have been. Yes, she had given birth to each one of us kids. This meant that I still had a family, people other than Taff were flesh of my flesh, which was, as Oscar Wilde would have said, a good thing. It had been lonely out there, in the wasteland of only-childness, but now I could return to cosy shared bedrooms, big family meals, the joys of being a family member. On the other hand, Taffs yes meant that I'd been carried in the womb of a monster. The woman had left not only me but Fabian, Zulema, Perdita, Merry, Django (well... ) and Samik (how could a mother leave Samik?) to be brought up by her best friend. Then, while Victory mothered us, she'd popped in and out of our lives, like an auntie, or a granny or, it has to be said, just as a lot of fathers do.

I studied her, sitting opposite me, and saw no resemblance to any of my brothers and sisters. Just my luck to have been the only one to inherit her colouring and her bulk.

This, Revelation Number Two, puts me in a tight spot. Do I tell my siblings the ghastly truth, or let them live in blissful ignorance? Maybe I should inform the strong and fool the weak. Perdita would probably keel over if she knew, not from shock but from mortification. Fabe, I think, will find it hilarious, I can hear him laughing now and crying, 'No way. Taff? No way.' Merry and Django are unlikely to take any of it in; Merry isn't capable of understanding and Django wouldn't allow himself to absorb information which could unbalance his precarious status quo. What about Samik? This might be too confusing for him to grasp. On the plus side, it might finally drive him from the safe but dull arms of Margaret. My God, to think of Margaret with this new mother-in-law; it almost makes the whole mess worthwhile. Taff might also, perhaps, be able to provide him with that long-lost father he so craves. I think I'll make a deal with myself, I'll only tell Samik on the condition that along with this new, alarming mother, comes a father to complete the set.

That leaves Zulema. I shall have to tell her, to stay silent would be cruel. Besides, I have to share my feelings with somebody close. Not having seen her since Mum, or should I now say Victory?, died has been agony for me. I miss Zulema every day. Maybe this news will persuade her from her hideaway, back to the real world of people as diverse as me and Bing and Taff.

It's not easy having two Mums. I feel a traitor if I so much as think of Taff as 'Mum', because no matter what, I can't abandon Victory, can't dislike her, let alone desert her. She may not have given me life, but she saw to it that I had a life worth living. There was never a time when I felt, as many natural children must, that my mother didn't love me. Victory's love was all-encompassing and unconditional. If you need proof of that you only have to look at Merry and Django. People joke about 'sending them back' when children are difficult or different. Victory probably could have done this, if she'd been less of a mother.

I feel such a fool. There I was, rilling pages with what I considered to be essential information about myself, telling you stories to express my love for my mother, to help you appreciate the real me, when I was not that woman's daughter in the first place. Who or what are we? We must be more than seeds surely, more than chemical infusions. I came, not from a magical, marvellous young woman called Victory, but from Taff. Cut me to the bone and find 'made in Taff printed there in sticky peppermint. In this farce, it's my turn to lose my trousers.

There are a million questions I need to ask Taff. She knows this and the knowledge gives her confidence. I'll have to go on seeing her until every one is answered. There is the issue of whose issue each of us is, if you see what I mean. The father question rears its fascinating head yet again. Where are they now? Which ones are alive and which have passed away? I doubt if Taff has kept in touch with these seven special men, there having been a fan club as long as your arm in her life. Once her relationships ended, we never clapped eyes on the old loves again. But to meet them, it's still a dream that won't end. I didn't find the courage to ask, when gleaning details about my dad, whether he is still with us. Only part of me wants to know.

One question I have posed was about the magic. It puzzled me because I'd assumed it was inherited, passed down through the genes.

'A gift,' Taff told me, 'like that Sleeping Beauty story when the fairy godmothers came to the christening. Not that you were christened, like the princess was, though I'd have liked to be godmother myself, but Vie gave you and Zulema sort of christening prezzies anyway. She said she could tell you two wouldn't confuse them.'

'You mean abuse,' I said.

'Yes,' the smile she gave me was permeated with affection, 'you always were a clever girl.'

Here is yet more proof that Victory pulled all the strings. Had my powers equalled Mum's, I would have felt in my bones that Taff was more to us children than unrelated 'aunt'. As it was, I never suspected; I was never meant to. It was a measured dose of magic Victory bestowed on her two most reliable daughters.

Odd, isn't it? While I was fretting because I thought Victory might love Taff more than she loved me, Victory was probably worrying that I'd form a bond with my natural mother. Maybe I did sense something, and that was why I felt such antagonism towards Taff. Hate and love, two sides of the same coin, they say.

What the hell, Matthew, Taffs a mess, but she's warmhearted. She's devoted to me, and she's alive. More than alive, full of life. And she is a constant; a vital link with my past. But she's not exactly young, she may not be around much longer. I don't fancy years of feeling guilty for having spurned her. I reckon I should give her a chance.

When I get out of here I'm going to learn freedom; to discover how to eat decent food again, how to get drunk, how to live a little and love a lot. I'll begin by taking you, Bing and 'my mum' out for a slap-up meal: five courses and silver-wrapped chocolate mints with the coffee.