Hattie and I were lucky – blessed, doted upon, challenged and truly loved by our mother, who had done a bang-up job of making up for our father’s abandonment of us. This didn’t stop me, though, from tormenting Hattie, whom I blamed for everything. Sometimes I let her find me, crying dramatically in my bed, and I would tell her I missed Daddy.
‘You wouldn’t understand,’ I said. ‘You didn’t really know him.’
I was both the tormentor and the tormented. I felt insecure at times, like a failure; I didn’t know where to put my arms, I sucked my thumb too long, and hated my hair. Hattie was a pain and a drag and got all the attention, and I loved her and hated her. Life was a tricky balance, but in the end, I knew I could curl up in Mum’s lap at any time and listen to her slow heartbeat and voi
