Family matters

James has a girlfriend! He has been keeping very quiet about this. I only found out because his friend Stanley told his little sister, who told mum, who told me. I decided that this was something I ought to know about, and as I haven't seen James much lately I set an ambush (using a signed photograph of David Tennant for bait) and interrogated him about her.

It turns out that he has been "going steady" with Kate from his science class, for four weeks now. Kate is Cool. Kate has ginger hair and freckles. Kate has three older brothers. Kate has "got" Facebook. Kate's favourite subject is biology. Kate knows six different ways to disable an opponent (seven if the opponent is male). Clearly, James is very taken with Kate.

Kate is, apparently, also very taken with James. As the strangest boy in school James has a certain cult status, and the girls are apparently fighting over him. He takes her out with him on walkies with Dodgson in the grounds of the psychiatric hospital. Kate thinks that James is Cool because he owns the twenty-first century's only dodo. Presumably he has told her about his space-time travel module. I really hope he hasn't told her that he has got OuiJa, and an address book full post-living etherbuddies. I don't want him to frighten her off. It makes such a nice change to see him hanging out people his own age - and living ones at that.

I also asked him how his homework was going. He said he was working on his family tree. I made him show it to me. On a piece of A4 paper he had drawn a diagram showing himself, his little sister and his parents.

"Is that it?" I asked. James shrugged. "What about your grandparents?"

"Okay," he conceded. "I suppose I could add them in too."

"What about your great-grandparents?" I continued. "What about great-aunt Fanny?"

"Great-aunt who?" asked James.

I tried to think of a way to describe my aunt that didn't sound callous or cynical. I didn't manage it.

"Never mind," I answered at last. "You won't remember her, and she's not a direct relative. I should leave her out if I were you. And I don't, I really don't want you OuiJa'ing her. Stick to the Dunwich side of the family. Your father's family are all dotty, but they're rather sweet."

At least the Dunwiches haven't done anything that would look disturbing in a school project, I thought to myself. I want so badly to keep my children's hearts wrapped up warm and snug and kept well away from the cold spot that still lurks inside me. Sometimes family memories are best left unshared.