At eighteen I had no proper understanding of the ways that constituted encroachment. I had a feeling for them, an intuition, a sense of repugnance for some situations and some people, but I did not know intuition and repugnance counted, did not know I had a right not to like, not to have to put up with, anybody and everybody coming near.

Some too, would make mention of the actual word ‘rumour’, as in ‘Rumour says’, before going on to personify rumour, as if it wasn’t they who were launching or perpetuating Rumour themselves.

Next came abortions and I had to guess them also, from ‘vermifuge, squaw mint, Satan’s apple, premature expulsion, being failed in the course of coming into being’ with any doubt dispelled by, ‘Well, daughter, you can’t disappoint me anymore than you’ve already disappointed me, so tell me –what did you procure and which of them drab aunts did you procure it of?

So yes, keep the lid on, buy old books, read old books, seriously consider those scrolls and clay tablets.

I used to puzzle over the extent of this anger, of all of ma’s blaming and haranguing and complaining. It was only much later that I came to realise that this was a case of her not forgiving him for many things – maybe for all things – and not just for not cheering up.

The truth was dawning on me of how terrifying it was not to be numb, but to be aware, to have facts, retain facts, be adult.

If only I’d done such and such instead of such and such, gone there instead of there, said that and not that, or looked different, or hadn’t gone out that day with Ivanhoe or that night or that week or anytime during the last two months.

Cats are not adoring like dogs. They don’t care. They can never be relied upon to shore up a human ego. They go their way, do their thing, are not subservient and will never apologise. No one has ever come across a cat apologising and if a cat did, it would patently be obvious it was not being sincere.

That relative, that temporal plane – where sensitivities vary, where no one has the same personal history even if they have the same communal history, where something which is a trigger for one person passes off unnoticed by another person – definitely was the place where the raw living of life and the imperfect mental response to that raw living took place.

If we were in a proper relationship and I did live with him and was officially committed to him, first thing I would have to do would be to leave.