Aesthetics are at the core of the relationship between my mother and me. Perhaps the most puzzling aspect of my reaction to the emotional abuse I suffered was how I returned to its poison like an addict. No matter how shattering a recent visit to Mam would prove, I’d eventually forget and go back for more. This amnesia reminds me of Coleridge’s formulation of an audience’s ‘willing suspension of disbelief’ in theatre. What kept me captive to a toxic performance art was that I simply wasn’t convinced that a person – my own mother – could be so mean. I didn’t believe in her character. My distress at not receiving the emotional support I needed was proof that I had some concept of a benign mother. But she was the only one I’d ever known, so why would I think that anything could ever be different? What was the source of this other idea? Could it be that we all have a physical conception of a mother archetype deep in our bodies, so that we know that aberrant behaviour isn’t right?

As an adult, I learned never, ever to trust Eryl. Occasionally, though, I would forget this golden rule due to exhaustion or being distracted. One day, I admitted that I was feeling low because a commission that had been extremely demanding didn’t feel as though it had paid off. Quick as a whip, Eryl responded:

‘Why were you such a fool as to put so much time and effort into something so uncertain?’

The blow landed with the force of a Triffid’s ten-foot stinger in the heart. ...