Her relatives had considered Griff an embarrassment – no, an abomination. Not the kind of person you’d care to acknowledge as cousin or nephew. Her relatives would rather Griff had never existed at all… None of them came to the funeral. Nor did Griff’s father for that matter. Eleanor had no idea where her former husband was. Perhaps he was abroad – he might be dead – or in jail. Lyndon had left her when Griff was seven. That, her shrink had told her, was when the trouble started. Absentee fathers had a lot to answer for.

It was nonsense to suggest that she was in any way to blame for the way Griff had ‘turned out’… A mean, unpleasant creature, Alma. Her name should have been ‘Alice’ – then it would have rhymed with ‘malice’… Well, current rumour had it that her marriage wasn’t going at all satisfactorily – it was even suggested that Alma had been driving her husband to drink! Eleanor wasn’t the type to gloat, but she couldn’t help a little smile at the thought.

A terrible parent indeed! Eleanor hadn’t been a terrible parent. Quite the reverse. She had been a marvellous mother. She and Griff had got on extremely well. No, they had got on stupendously. Griff had been her companion, her confidant, her playmate. Why, they had adored each other!

Eleanor told Griff things she wouldn’t have dreamt of telling anyone else. She never bought a dress or a hat without asking his opinion first. (How many mothers did that?) She introduced Griff to great literature – to the very best of popular fiction as well. She made life for both of them exclusive and amusing. She took him to the Hamptons and Palm Beach for the vacations, and to Broad-way every other week – together they had seen Oedipus Rex and Rent, The Boyfriend and Dorothy After Kansas. She let him read her copies of Vanity Fair and Harper’s Bazaar. They had pillow fights to the accompaniment of Leroy Anderson tunes.