Achild of four or five sits colouring at a low table. Memory can be tricky: the image is dim and rather unstable. But I know that the child is me, and that she's been caught showing off by her grandmother, who is looking after her. (Where are the parents? I don't know.) 'I'm going to show my mummy and daddy,' says the little girl, about her picture. 'They're not your mummy and daddy,' says the old woman on the sofa, witchily. 'You have a real mummy and daddy somewhere else.'