I am twelve years old. My mother is yelling that I ruined the morning porridge its gone sour somehow and she shakes me by the shoulders, demanding I confess, simply because yesterday I said I liked science.
When I turn fourteen, I fall in love with a boy from school. The first flush of feeling, modest posies from the garden, innocent kisses in the rain. Mum screams down the telephone at his parents, telling them not to let me visit, that I am worthless. I weep, my classmate avoids me, and I begin to understand the cruelty that floats through the air.
Adulthood arrives. My mother lays down her demands about where I must study. My wish to go to university is met with a silent reply a slap across the face.
I escape to my grandmothers tiny terraced house. She hands me a few pounds from her little savings, sends me courageously off to university. That very evening, with a modest sum in my pocket and the school papers Id sneakily gathered from home, I vanish from the city.
University life. Calls home are rare and brittle. I learn my grandmother is in hospital. Another call brings a cold ultimatum: either leave university now (in my fourth year) and return home, or never return at all. When I ask about Grandmother’s health, the ultimatum echoes like rain in the hallway.
My future husband drives Grandmother to our wedding. Mother, upon hearing she wasnt invited, fills my phone with curses and insults. Wanting to cut the thread, I say the conversation is recorded on a tape. After a pause, I add that I havent felt any love or warmth for her in many years, and that no kindly feelings remain.
All the while, I walk through these scenes as though in a mist, houses bending and gardens swaying, voices echoing strange shapes, the world shifting on a dreams edge.
