My mother knew nothing about my father, and this ignorance lasted for 27 years. In that time, she learnt how to curl her tongue into a W, unexpectedly earned high marks at school, realised in the middle of a tantalising Maybelline advert that she was bisexual, bought a second-hand Ford Focus, learnt to handle insurance claims after vandals set fire to a car, and discovered how quickly a vision for the future can be extinguished when, during a routine check-up for a urinary tract infection, the gynaecologist found her uterus too small and casually remarked that she would never be able to have biological children.