The gala in the autumn went ahead, because it was contracted and the venue would not refund, and I went.
I wore a dress that shows the leg, because that is what I do.
And my mother came across that ballroom in front of two hundred people and took hold of my wrist and said, with her hostess smile still completely intact:
Not here. These people are donors.
I met Tamsin in the November.
She had not asked to meet me. Her solicitor asked whether she would like to and she said she would think about it, and it took nine days.
I did not bring a cheque. There is money now — properly, through the process, and separately from me — and I am not going to write about it because it is hers.
And the surgical window is gone. A cheque does not buy a year back. Anybody who has ever needed something at a particular time knows that.
We talked for about two hours, mostly about other things. She is funny. She is much funnier than I am.
And at the end, at the door, she asked me one question.
She did not ask for anything. She did not ask why it happened, or what my sister was like, or whether I was sorry, which I had prepared for.
She said: did you know it had your name on it?
And I said: yes.
She thought about that for a moment.
And she said: okay.
Then she said goodbye, and I walked to my car.
I have been asked since, by somebody who cares about me, why I did not explain. The lawyer. The press. The reasons. All of which were good.
And the answer is that she had not asked for my reasons. She had asked a yes or no question, and she was entitled to the yes.
We speak now. Not often. It is careful.
Here is the only thing I have.
Everybody wants this to be about parents who threw a sixteen-year-old out with a bin bag, and about the daughter who ended up owning the better apartment.
That part is true and I would be lying if I said the lift doors were not satisfying.
But a name is not a small thing to lend out, and I lent mine out by saying nothing for seven years.
If somebody is using your name — on a company, a foundation, a mailing list, a review, anything — and you have decided it is not worth the fight because fighting it would drag you back into something you got out of —
