It all happened again soon afterwards when I came home from school and found the house full of relatives and flowers. I worked out later that the funeral had taken place; it had not crossed anyone’s mind that I should go. When I walked in they looked at me tragically. What were they expecting me to do, to say? I felt nothing. Perhaps deep down I simply did not grasp the concept of death. My mother had so often disappeared before and had always come back.
