Here are three other memories I carried unbroken and unquestioned. Every night I would slide down the banister of the tall cold house, curving polished wood beside stone, and when I reached the dark ground floor I’d slide all the way up again. One night I got up as usual, slid and arrived in the silent dark hall, but not as usual nothing happened. I remember waiting, my legs dangling, waiting as I had outside for him, and realising slowly that with him the magic had gone. I remember dismounting, my pyjamas and bare feet, and having to walk the stairs instead, up and up in the pitch-quiet dark of a sleeping house knowing it was over, it would never happen again. Let’s roll back a bit. She who had married that shadow man arrived when I was one; this photograph, the only one with her in it has only her white sandal, we were in the square garden opposite, she was newly arrived. My mother’s socialist heart wouldn’t let a bit of out of your depth in the way of doing good, thousands had fled oppression and my mother had opened her doors. Which is admirable except trauma is not a state to put in charge of your children. She had curly red hair, she wore fuzzy peach jumpers. She was bad before he left but after she was worse. I remember this. Bedtime. Crouching behind my door. Hearing her searching for me. She finds me and pulls me out of hiding. I am in jeans, not ready for bed, she is angry. The window is open. She drags me across the carpet, lifts me up and pushes me out onto the wide sill streaked with London grime. I feel the wind that blows through the branches of the trees in the square garden opposite. She is holding me by the waist. She is screaming that she will drop me. I look down and see the black iron spikes of the railings. Afterwards, perhaps it was days or weeks, I am sitting on the big chest freezer in the basement while my mother, in tights and shirt, is ironing her skirt. She is in a hurry. She is going out. I am banging my feet in Kicker shoes against the white wall. I tell her what happened. She puts down the iron, circles the board and hits me across the face. She tells me I am never to speak of a person like that. She says these poor people have nothing. These potted memories are important for the story they told to my little mind and the one they tell to me now. They’re going to make sense. There will be understanding. But look, wait, do you remember we’re on a flight to Australia? Look out the window. You will see the lights of Sydney. We are coming into land.
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So powerful and visceral.
This is some of the most compelling writing I have ever been ravaged by.