If things don’t improve, I’m going to end up like Beryl next door. The old dear is watering her plastic tulips and won’t let her white cat outside “in case he gets dirty”.
It’s 1990 and Mother is at it again. “No, Natalie, ” she says to my three-year-old daughter, “you will wear the red dress and not the other one because I say so.” Her house, her rules. We’ve just moved in with her - Natalie and I – to make ends meet. I’m late for work, no time to intervene. Natalie glares at me, her tiny hands clenched into fists.
