hair which she only stopped dyeing, gradually, in her seventies (my mother was mousy brown, though I inherited hair somewhere between fair and blonde, apparently from my maternal grandmother).  Mrs Telman had a wide mouth and long fingers and an accent that sometimes sounded American, sometimes English, and sometimes something else entirely, something tantalisingly foreign and exotic.  There was a Mr Telman, but he lived in America; the two had been estranged since barely a year after their marriage.

Mrs Telman had Gerald drop Simon at his house and then took me to the local shop where I bought my two replacement bottles of fizz.  We arrived at my house just as my mother was staggering up the path with her carry-out, fresh, if that's the word, from the pub.

I think Mrs Telman decided she wasn't going to get much sense out of Mother right then, and so arranged to return the following morning.

My mother threatened to slap me for talking to a stranger.  That night, very drunk, she cuddled me to her, her breath sweet with the smell of fortified wine.  I tried not to squirm, and to appreciate this unusually drawn-out burst of physical affection, but I couldn't help thinking of the rich, subtle, beguiling odours in Mrs Telman's car, some of which seemed to come from the car itself, and some from her.

She reappeared, to my surprise, the next morning, before my mother was up.  Once my mother was dressed we went for a drive.  I was given a Milky Way and got to sit up front with Gerald, which was good, but I couldn't hear what was going on in the back because of the glass partition, which was annoying.  Gerald kept me entertained by telling me what he thought the other drivers were saying and thinking, and letting me work the indicator switch on the dashboard.  Meanwhile my mother and Mrs Telman sat in the back, swapping my mother's Woodbines and Mrs Telman's Sobranies, and talking.

That night I got to sleep with my mother for the first time in years, all the way through to the morning.  I was hugged even more fiercely, and I puzzled over her hot tears.