When I returned to the car, I found a cross note, written on the back of the petrol receipt, now damp with the winter dew, placed under the windscreen wipers.  "Not your parking place," it read.  Being a strong supporter of the 'Keep Britain Tidy' campaign, I put it in my pocket before driving off.

A few minutes later, I drew up outside our house and squeezed out of the driver's side door, brushing against wet hydrangeas and our neighbour's fence.  We lived in a very ordinary semi-detached house, red bricks and bay windows, at one time mother and father and four daughters, squeezing into two moderate-sized bedrooms, and the box-room, where Sophie and I used to sleep, one above the other, in bunk beds.

"I was so worried about you!" exclaimed my mother, as I opened the door.

"Why?" I asked.  "I'm all in one piece and so is the car.  "

Mum was sitting in our living room, which was crammed with furniture cumbersome red and green covered chairs, heavy brocade curtains, dark-wood dentist waiting-room style bookcases and far too many “occasional” tables.  Whilst opening Christmas cards, Mum had managed to get a paper cut, which was bleeding all over a card with a photograph of Pope John Paul II on it.  Good Catholic girl that I was, I dabbed the Holy Father's white robe with a tissue before going to get my mother a plaster.  "Who's this card from?" I asked, and, without waiting for her reply, I opened it.

"From all in Gdansk," it read, and I had this vision of the whole population of the city, standing in the streets, waving and cheering - including Pyotr Murkowski.  Someone called Monika had signed it and, on the left-hand page, she had written family news - her mother had had an operation, and her daughter-in-law was expecting a baby.

"Who’s Monika?"

"Your father's cousin," said my mother, with a sniff.  "Common people.  Shipyard workers."

My mother was such a snob.  She had a greater capacity for annoying me than any other person, and part of me blamed her for Sophie's disappearance.  No, all of me blamed her.  She had always been at Sophie, what she said, what she did, what she wore, and she didn't even know about Jake.  Small wonder that Sophie had taken comfort where she could, at an American air base in Suffolk, but Mum didn't even know about that.

Now, she was sounding off, very fast, in Polish.  "What will become of us?  Your father's in hospital.  We won't have any money coming in.  Oh dear, oh dear.  What are we going to do?"

"He'll get sick pay," I said.

"We don't want charity.  "

"No, Mum.  If you are sick, you get sick pay.  "

My mother's eyes glazed over. 

"Anyway, we shouldn't be worrying about money.  We should be thinking about Dad."

My mother compressed her red painted lips into a thin line.  "There's nothing the matter with him, just a bit of indigestion.  He's no business to be taking up a hospital bed and the doctors' time.  And I saw him looking at those pretty young nurses."

"No, Mum."  Tightening my fists into hard balls, my knuckles into white jagged knobs, I walked into the kitchen - Marya the gobby, not so gobby now.  I had promised my father.  And besides, she was always accusing my father of going after other women.  She did it so often that her words had lost their impact.

Now I was in the kitchen, I decided to cook cheese omelettes, this being about all I could cook, but, after a few minutes, she followed me.  "I don't want that," she said, looking at my grated cheese and beaten egg, and, pushing me aside, opened the fridge, pulled out a big pack of sausages and put them in the grill.  Still, I said nothing.

She never ate very much, but she would always eat very quickly, and in complete silence, and afterwards her demeanour would improve.  She told me, as I was eating my omelette, that English sausages were inferior to the Polish sausages, what she had eaten as a child and how her father, who had been a baker in Krakow, made cakes and pastries.  I'm sure that, every time she mentioned him, she added another shop to his business empire, but I let her chatter on.

As I was washing up, Craig rang.  "You coming out tonight?"

"No."

"It's Rob's birthday and we're going to the pub."

"I'm tired, aren’t I?  I went to Cambridge today."

"Cambridge?  What for?  Oh… your interview thing."

"Yes."  It annoyed me that Craig, who was supposed to be my boyfriend, couldn't remember that I had an interview at Cambridge. 

A long pause.  "Was it all right, then?"

"OK.  "

Another pause.  "You're not coming out, then?  "

"No, I said I wasn't, didn't I?"  In the background, I heard my mother's television, the 9 O'clock News, all about the American hostages in Teheran.  "See you later."

“OK then… You want a lift tomorrow?”

“All right."

After putting the phone down, I joined my mother, who was watching the News in the living room... President Carter now, looking haggard and hunted, saying he would not leave Washington until the hostages were released. Then it was Mrs Thatcher, wearing her signature blue suit, talking about "not paying ourselves what we have not earned ".  After her, a group of trade union officials were muttering the usual things about "money on t' table" and expecting 'beer and sandwiches at Number 10'.  It never occurred to them that, since Maggie had moved in, seven months ago, the taps might have run dry.

As I watched, memories of that dreadful interview swept into my consciousness like an insidious wave.  My grief and disappointment settled about my heart like a heavy wedge of phlegm.  I felt the stiffness of my aunt Magda's letter in my jeans pocket, and, making the excuse of being tired, I retired upstairs to read it.  An avid people-watcher, Magda must be the only person who could write about standing in a food queue and make you laugh, but I skim-read her epistle in just a few minutes, then started writing myself, pouring out everything that had happened this morning, in intense and agonising detail.

Next morning, Craig was driving me through the Chenham rush hour, in the car bought for him by his father when he had joined the family estate agency business last summer.  Throughout the sixth form there had been a group of us who did things together, but now everyone was at university except Craig and me.  "You don't have to go in just yet," he said, drawing up beside the school playing fields.

I looked at my watch.  "Well, I do in a minute."

He put his arm round my shoulders and started to kiss me, his hand moving under the collar of my school blouse, and, in a few seconds, he would be inside my bra.  "You really turn me on."

“No, Craig."  I shook myself free of him and straightened my blouse.  "I've got to go." I grabbed the door handle.  "I'm not in the mood, Craig.  In fact... I'm not in the mood at all..."  I opened the door and swung my legs out the car.  "Bye, Craig."

His eyes widened.  He opened his mouth to speak.

"I mean...  Bye Craig."

Without looking back, I strode into school, pausing only to post Magda’s letter into the pillar-box outside the school gates.  The headmistress called me into her office, full of expectation, and I told her the interview had been "OK" and I said the same to Mrs Carson, who had prepared me for Oxbridge. “Just OK?” Mrs Carson said, raising her eyebrows under her thick, square black-rimmed glasses.

"I mean…I don't suppose I'll get in.  It's all very competitive, isn't it?" I had let her down. 

Her eyebrows stayed in their finely drawn arc. 

“I don’t want to talk about it."  Then I burst into tears.

She pushed a box of tissues in front of me.  “It’s all very stressful, isn’t it?” 

“I don’t want to look at another book… any more… so-called literature!  All I've done this term is read books in the school library."  I grabbed another tissue.  “My father… he reads for pleasure.  He reads what he wants.  I've lost that, Mrs Carson.  I want to do something else,"

“Yes.  Has the head talked to you about what you might do, before you start university in October?”

“No."

“Councillor Mrs Patterson, one of our governors… in the past, she’s found several girls temporary jobs with the Council."

I blew my nose.  I was trying very hard not to cry again, but the tears kept rolling down my cheeks in tickly rivulets.

“Marya, I never force confidences.  You know that.  But I hope you’ve talked to somebody about this – mother, father…”

I sniffed.  “I’ve written to my aunt in Poland."

“Good."

“She’s really understanding, my aunt,"

“You could go out and visit her.  You’ve got some spare time now."

“I have thought of it, many times.  No money, though,"

“You will have if you get a job."  She got up from the desk where she was sitting.  “Now, Marya, it’s not the end of the world if you don’t get into Cambridge.  Manchester’s a perfectly good university.  Isn’t it?" 

“Yes."