’Got my tongue pierced this morning’ my eldest says.

SIX-THIRTY pm and the girls are due to arrive home from college.

My daughter phones from the bus. “We’ll be there in five,” she says, “I can’t wait.”

“Neither can I,” I say, “Dad’s leaving now. We’ll have a lovely, relaxing weekend.”

“Funny,” she says, “how that sounds like a warning.”

“No warning,” I say, all airy, “I’ve primped your room up. But your voice sounds strange. Everything all-right?” She hands me over to her sister.

“Can’t wait to see you, mum,” my youngest says.

“Neither can I,” I say, “we’ll have a lovely, relaxing weekend. Bus journey ok?”

“I’ve had better,” she says.

“Why?” I say, so airily my voice lifts an octave.

“Your voice sounds weird,” she says.

“Lovely to see them, yes,” my husband says, picking up his car keys, “but relaxing, no. I mean the girls, they’re so different to the boys.”

“They’re just more... mercurial,” I say.

“Italian genes,” he says.

“So you keep saying,” I say, “but as I keep saying, mum’s Italian and she’s the least mercurial person I know.”

“These things can skip a generation,” he says, with much-misplaced authority.

“You and your jumping genes,” I say, “life is harder on women, and that’s a fact.”

“It’s just... all the feelings,” he says, “they have so many of them. And sometimes, the drama...”

“There is something about the word drama that suggests inauthenticity,” I say, “and there is nothing inauthentic about our feelings.”

“Don’t I know it,” he says, walking towards the car.

“I mean, better out than in.”

“As if any of you had a single repressive gene in your bodies,” he mutters.

My daughters return home with my husband, with faces like fallen rain clouds. My eldest walks wonkily to the sofa and collapses quietly into it.

“Oh my god,” she quivers, “you have no idea of the agony. Seriously, no idea.”

My husband vanishes into the kitchen. “I’ll make tea for Veronica Lake,” he says. “I heard that,” my daughter says, “who’s Veronica Lake?”

“No one,” I say.

“Who?”

“An actress,” I say, “beautiful hair, side-parting like yours, femme fatale. You should be flattered.”

“Oh, so he thinks I’m being dramatic?” she says.

“She’s been like this all the way home,” my youngest says, “really grumpy.”

“Car sick, actually,” she says, “first the coach and then dad’s driving. Just need a minute to lie here and not talk.”

“You want some toast?” my youngest asks her.

“I’m going to get sick,” my eldest says, “why would I want some toast?”

“If I spoke to her like that,” my youngest says to me, “you’d soon have something to say about it.”

“Give me a chance,” I say, then, turning to my eldest, “don’t speak to her like that, she was only trying to help.”

“Toast?” she quavers, “seriously, toast? All I want is to lie here undisturbed until the nausea passes. Can everyone just stop talking? Is that too much to ask? I feel faint.”

It is too much to ask of my youngest; she takes herself off into the sitting room. “I’m catching up on Hollyoaks,” she says, swishing past my husband who is carrying four cups of tea into the conservatory, “none for me thanks,” she says with the most fantastic froideur.

“Quiet in here,” my husband says, “have I missed something?”

“We’re trying not to talk,” I say, “she’s feeling faint.”

“Got my tongue pierced this morning,” my eldest says, “fainted. Haven’t been right since. Dunno know why I did it. €60, and I hate it.”

“That’s why your voice sounds funny,” I say, “let’s have a look.”

“It’s a double piercing,” she says weepily, sticking her tongue out.

Two silver studs wink at me.

“It’s like you have a scary little hippo in your mouth,” I say, “your tongue is the nose and the studs look like its eyes.”

“Oh my god,” she wails, “I’ve got an animal in my mouth. Can you take them out? Dad, you’re good at that sort of thing. Please. I just feel as if I can’t cope with it. I feel...I don’t know how I feel, actually, but I think I’d feel much better with them out. I just sort of feel...oh god, Dad, seriously, can you take them out?”

“Yes,” he says, getting up, “upstairs, Veronica, now.”

“Then maybe, afterwards, we could have a nice relaxing time?” I say, three octaves up.