The fumes were acid and sugary at the same time. The polish seemed to melt under the remover-soaked cotton ball. There were many stages to this ritual. The nail file, that strange shape of hash-cut metal, a surgical instrument, hook at one end, blade at the other. Cuticle-bullying blade. My own cuticles were so sensitive, I flinched as if she were cutting herself. Sometimes she would skip this stage and go straight to the shaping.

Her nails were almond-shaped, rounded at the edges and filed to an almost-point. Like almonds, there were also striations on the surface – vertical grooves, the result of some nutritional deficiency or other, or perhaps just years of polish and remover. Nowadays the girls wear them square.