For the first three months of her moving in, I think Jean went quite easy with me, again knowing what I had been through. However, there was a distinct air of discipline in the house for the first time, and I was told to call her ‘mother’. My new stepmum laid down new rules about bedtimes and curfews, and insisting on me doing homework before any recreational activity.
Unfortunately, I started to rebel badly against this new regime. I think part of me was testing my stepmum’s boundaries. Dad occasionally argued for her to go a bit easier on me, but he was in the first flush of romance and wasn’t about to do anything to endanger his new marriage.
It all came to a head one Friday evening when instead of coming straight home from school, as I was supposed to, I went back to a friend’s house with her to listen to records for a while. When I finally got home, I found my dinner in the oven and my stepmum at around the same temperature.