1958 – On the morning of your first day at school you inform your teacher how unfair it is that Ursula is not allowed to attend with you. She has been crying, you say, as if no further evidence is necessary to prove the injustice of the situation. At lunchtime you walk the mile and a half home to tell Ursula that it will soon be over, and find her playing happily with your aunt. For a moment you feel betrayed, as if she has lied to you, or forgotten you, or simply replaced you. But then you feel relief that Ursula is going to be all right. You return to the playground and tell your teacher how your sister has stopped crying, and receive a smack with a ruler as punishment for leaving the school grounds. Ursula says she is never going to a school that gives out smacks, and your father insists the teacher did the right thing. Ursula declares that before she is sent to school she is going to run away and marry a king who will let her lock all the teachers in a dungeon and throw the key in the moat. Beneath the dinner table you hold Ursula’s hand to prevent her from growing too angry as it always makes your father angry as well. After dinner you describe the games you played, and the new friends you made. How the smack was not so hard. Certainly not as hard as Father’s. But Ursula insists she will never go to school, and if anyone tries to make her she will call the police and have them taken to jail. You lie down beside her and feel the anger pulsing through her limbs. You try to make her think of something else, tell her stories about your mother. The way she smelled of apricots, or the funny names she called you both. None of it is true. Your mother died when you were too young to remember anything about her. But the stories have become as real as any memories might be. Lying by her side is the only way to get Ursula to sleep when she is upset, and often you wake up next to her in the morning. Your father says it must stop. That soon it will be time for the pair of you to grow up. But until you depart for army training you remain the person Ursula says goodnight to last of all. And for weeks after you ship out she cannot sleep until she has rolled one of your shirts into a ball and placed it on the pillow beside her head.