Excerpt from Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Somehow, I can't help feeling that this dream doesn't augur well for my future. I want a mother who dreams different dreams. Dreams of clouds like ice-cream, rain-bows like sugar-crystal candy, suns like golden chariots being driven across the sky ... still, never mind, it's the beginning of a new era. It's the 3rd of May and later on today the King will perform the opening ceremony for the Festival of Britain and outside the window, a dawn chorus is heralding my own arrival.

This garden bird fanfare is soon joined by the squawking of the Parrot down in the Pet Shop below and then – DRRRRRRR-RRRRIINGG!!! The bedside alarm goes off and Bunty wakes with a little shriek, slapping down the button on the clock. She lies quite still for a minute, listening to the house. The Dome of Discovery will soon be echoing to the exultant cries of joyful English people looking forward to the future but in our home it's silent apart from the occasional chirrup and twitter of birdsong. Even our ghosts are asleep, curled up in the corners and stretched out along the curtain rails.

The silence is broken by George suddenly snorting in his sleep. The snort arouses a primitive part of his brain and he flings out an arm, pinioning Bunty to the bed, and starts exploring whatever bit of flesh he has chanced to land on (a rather uninspiring part of midriff, but one which houses my very own, my personal, Dome of Discovery). Bunty manages to wriggle out from under George's arm – she's already had to endure sex once in the last twelve hours (me!) – more than once in a day would be unnatural. She heads for the bathroom where the harsh overhead light ricochets off the black-and-white tiles and the chrome fittings and hits Bunty's morning skin in the mirror, making ghastly pools and shadows. One minute she looks like a skull, the next like her own mother. She can't make up her mind which is worse.

She cleans her teeth with some vigour to dispatch the taste of George's tobaccofumed moustache and then – in order to keep up appearances (an important concept for Bunty, although she's not exactly sure who it is that she's keeping them up for) – she paints on a shapely ruby-red smile and grins at the mirror, her lips retracted, to check for mis-hit lipstick on her teeth. Her mirrored self grins ghoulishly back, but in Bunty's 35mm daydreams she's transformed into a Vivien Leigh-like figure pirouetting in front of a cheval mirror.

Now she's ready to face her first day as my mother. Downstairs, step by creaking step she goes (in daydreamland a great curving plantation staircase – Bunty, I am discovering, spends a lot of time in the alternative world of her daydreams). She's being very quiet because she doesn't want anyone else to wake up yet – especially Gillian. Gillian's very demanding. She's my sister. She's nearly three years old and she's going to be very surprised when she finds out about me.

Bunty makes herself a cup of tea in the kitchen at the back of the Shop, relishing her few moments of morning solitude. In a minute, she'll take George up a cup of tea in bed – not from altruistic motives but to keep him out of her way that bit longer. My poor mother's very disappointed by marriage, it's failed to change her life in any way, except by making it worse. If I listen in on her airwaves I can hear an endless monologue on the drudgery of domestic life – Why didn't anyone tell me what it would be like? The cooking! The cleaning! The work! I wish she would stop this and start daydreaming again but on and on she goes – And as for babies, well ... the broken nights, the power struggles ... the labour pains! She addresses the front right burner of the cooker directly, her head wobbling from side to side, rather like the Parrot in the Shop beyond. At least that's all over with ... (Surprise!)

The kettle whistles and she pours the boiling water into a little brown teapot and leans idly against the cooker while she waits for it to brew, a small frown puckering her face as she tries to remember why on earth she married George in the first place.

Excerpted from Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Rick Atkinson. Copyright © 2020 by Rick Atkinson. Excerpted by permission of Picador. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.