'Kiss Mama darling. I have to go now. Daddy's waiting.'

Millie stiffens her arms and digs her fingers into the thick fur of the tiger-skin rug. This is her favourite place, the fur warmed by the fire, feels alive and she knows that the creature will protect her. Here is where Mama always comes to kiss her, sweeping in on a wave of perfume and laughter that makes Millie's heart beat faster. Mama catches her up and spins her round and she is strange and beautiful. Millie gets dizzy. She screams for more, kicks her feet and tries to put her arms around Mama's neck. But that makes Mama put her down fast with a strange little cry.

'Oh my dress, my hair. Really Millie, you must be careful. Mind Mama's pearls.'

So Millie sprawls on the rug and watches as Mama talks to Nanny. When Nanny nods and smiles and says how good Millie has been, drunk up all her milk and ever so quiet and sweet today, Mama goes quickly. But when Nanny's face gets stiff and her mouth goes small, she takes ever so long to answer Mama's questions. Then Mama has to take her time and ask lots more things and Nanny takes ages to tell all the bad things that Millie has done. And all this time Millie can watch Mama, the way the light twinkles off her earrings, the soft folds of her dress making shifting shadows, the incredible patterns that lace makes against her shoulders, the firelight playing on her face that is never still and the same for more than a second so that Millie has to watch carefully to keep track of it.

Then Mama crouches over Millie and reaches out to her and Millie is enveloped, caught up in her scent and her voice and her sad, sweet smile.

'Oh my Milliekins, what have you been doing to poor Nanny? Have you been torturing her all day long?'

And Millie will squirm and rub her face against Mama's dress and whisper her version of events fiercely fast and totally incomprehensible until Mama prises her away and frowns while she examines and flicks at her dress.

'Oh Millie be careful.'

And Millie will mumble, 'Sorry' and Mama will beam her bestest smile that makes Millie glow warm and bright in her tummy as the nursery fire.

'There's my good girl,' Mama says. But always, sooner or later, she says...

'Kiss Mama now, I have to go.' And all the fire goes out, like pouring the washing jug of water on it. So Millie lies on the tiger-skin and digs her fingers down through the fur to the skin and makes her arms go stiff and her legs go stiff and her whole body tighten so she can't feel the cold water feeling sloshing inside her. She hides her face in the fur so she can't see Mama go and she can't hear the door snick for the 'NO' in her head.