She pushed past, and suddenly my mother was strange to me. The front door slammed, then the car door, I feel sure, and my memory narrates the getaway with cinematic melodrama: screeching tyres, a furious engine. Dad explained that this was what women sometimes did, and this was explanation enough at the time – learning then consisted mainly of discovering new realms of ignorance. Later on, she rang: I picture myself answering, but it was probably him. He went to get her, and our mother returned. This vague memory is still a mystery: my mature mind cannot make sense of it.