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I smiled wryly to myself: Phoebe was definitely feeling at home. Mum stared at her with one of her frighteningly stern looks, the type, I’m ashamed to say, which still had a shrinking effect on me. Phoebe looked away.

After a moment, Mum continued: ‘Where was I? Oh yes, Chris. He’s only gone and …’

‘He’s only gone and …’

‘Don’t interrupt adults,’ Mum snapped. ‘It’s rude.’

‘Fuck off, whore!’

Mum’s jaw dropped about two inches. Emily and Jamie spun around, astonished anyone would dare speak to their grandmother in that way. If Mum hadn’t recovered quickly and said, ‘Wash your mouth out with soap,’ I would have laughed at their reaction.

I cringed. ‘It’s alright, Phoebe, she doesn’t mean it.’ And to Mum I growled through gritted teeth, ‘You mustn’t say things like that – you’ll get me struck off.’ What did she think she was doing?

‘Send them social workers around here and I’ll give them short shrift.’ Mum waggled her finger at Phoebe. ‘She’s the one coming into my house with the filthy mouth.’

Despite our close relationship there were days when my mother was capable of driving me nuts. Did she not realise the trouble she could get me in for saying such a thing? I remembered another foster carer telling me that she had a baby removed from her care because during a visit from her supervising social worker, her own mother, who had offered to change the baby’s nappy, exclaimed, ‘Ooh, look at that lovely bottom! Don’t you just want to eat it?’

Horrified, the social worker had stared at the foster carer as if she’d been raised by cannibals. She was reinstated soon after the investigation was completed but the baby had gone through an unnecessary move and the foster carer had almost given up her vocation through the stress of it all.

I suppose I should have been grateful that Mum hadn’t threatened to ‘cut her tongue out’ as she often did when my brothers were young and repeated something they’d heard in the playground.

Mum was still staring at me belligerently. No surprise there, but what did amaze me was Phoebe’s reaction to the whole exchange. Her eyes were filled with amusement as she stared at both of us and then, to my surprise, she began laughing.