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soda breads and pancakes, which we packed into the car along with saucepans, packets of groceries and fuel.
    Saying tearful goodbyes to my grandmother, we loaded up the car with our suitcases. Then, with Judy and I tightly squeezed into the back, we started our journey to our new house. Behind us followed a van containing our meagre furniture from England, none of which my mother could bear to part with.
    Main roads became country ones, then we drove down a lane where the hedgerows were wilder and gravel replaced the tarmac, until we came to a dirt track leading to double wooden gates.
    My father jumped triumphantly from the car, threw open the gates with a flourish and we saw the thatched house for the first time. It was not what I had expected.
    Back in the hospice cold touched my skin as the memories churned in my head, and I felt incapable of movement. The hardness of the chair prodded me awake; Antoinette was gone and Toni, my adult self, was back in charge.
    I poured myself a vodka from my flask, lit a cigarette and rested my head against the back of the chair to reflect on the happiness of those early years. Why, I wondered, did I feel overcome with feelings of impending doom? There was nothing in this place to scare me.
    ‘Yes there is, Toni,’ came the whisper. ‘You’re scared of me.’
    ‘I’m not,’ I retorted. ‘You’re my past and the past is dealt with.’
    But the denial was hollow. As I looked into the corners of the empty room through my cloud of smoke I felt the power of Antoinette drawing me back through the gates to the thatched house.

Chapter Four
    I n an expanse of gravel liberally studded with dandelions stood a small square house. Peeling white paint exposed grey patches from earlier days and brackish stains ran in streaks from the guttering. There were two water butts held together with rusty iron brackets, a padlocked stable door and four grimy uncurtained windows.
    To the side of the house stood two tumbledown sheds with corrugated iron roofs. A tangle of brambles and nettles barred the double doors of the larger one and missing slats left black gaps in the walls. The door of the smaller shed hung open, revealing yellowing squares of newspaper hanging on string and the worn wooden seat of a chemical lavatory. Planks formed a path almost obliterated by brambles and weeds and damp had rotted away the wooden square in front.
    My mother, I knew, saw the pretty cottages of Kent. Saw her handsome husband and felt the love for a static memory that was locked into her mind. It was that of a dance hall, where she, older than most of the women there, had been danced off her feet by an auburn-haired charmer to the envy of her friends.
    With that picture in her head and her optimism still intact, she started explaining her plans. The large outhouse would be turned into a deep litter barn for chickens, a vegetable garden would be grown at the rear of the house and flowers would be planted underneath the windows. Taking my hand she led me inside.
    The draught from the open door sucked the dust balls from their corners. The last struggles of hundreds of trapped flies had ended in the giant dusty cobwebs that looped from unpainted rafters and windows, and a trail of old mouse droppings led to the only built-in cupboard. The walls had been painted white but from the floor to the height of my waist they were speckled with the dark green of damp.
    A black peat-fuelled range stood at one end of the room and under a window was the only other fitting, a wooden shelf with a metal bowl on top and a tin bath underneath.
    Two doors at opposite ends led into the bedrooms. By the front door a staircase, not much more than a ladder, provided an entrance to the attic. When we climbed up to explore we found a large dark space where only the thatch protected us from the elements, and a damp musty smell made me wrinkle my nose.
    My mother set to work on her dream immediately, vigorously sweeping the floors as the men