a fence keeps out the curious,

a letterbox lets bits of the world get in,

sometimes there’s a sickly smell of daphne,

the footstep of a husband and the key in the door.

(Oh, the key in the door!)

When I cough, what a tremendous chorus of smokers!

A dead house has such wonderful echoes.

Have you ever known a fridge to hum the tune of an advertising jingle?

The hum of our fridge is the blood of the house.

It is one enormous placenta.

(Is that a word one might use safely?)

I am not sure of words anymore.

They have not got me anywhere.

They don’t love you, for instance, and they can’t look after you.

Quite possibly they can kill you.

The leaves are very still outside and the trees don’t move.

There is a noise of gravel in my ears.

I’m a little scared, Tilde. I’m not sure what I’ve done.

† † †

PART 5 SABOTAGE

1989

Julia says my childhood was all about the adults in it. She chops carrots and shakes her head. ‘All those selfish adults,’ she says. She bangs the knife down and takes a mouthful of wine and a long puff on her cigarette. It is 1989. She is thirty-four and I am twenty-nine. She loves Mother’s poetry, but she is not sure Mother was really cut out to be a mother. She is not sure if Julia is cut out to be a mother either. We have been together for four years. I help her in the business, and I run an imprint of my own: ArtBook. It’s just started up. I’m not sure where it’s going. Do either of us have the requisite business sense for success? Julia looks at me, her eyes narrow. ‘Let’s not have children, Owen.’ I nod, gratified by her decisiveness. ‘Let’s not have children. Because God knows what we would do to them, not even meaning to, just by being selfish.’

But by that logic, should anyone have children?

CINDERELLA

‘I’ll be leaving after the launch,’ Mrs Parish told me quietly.

We were in the kitchen at Park Orchards. She was making a batch of bread for Mr Parish. She had been making loaves of bread every day since she’d got back. They were going in the freezer. ‘I don’t want to leave him wanting,’ she said. ‘His digestion.’

‘You could teach him,’ I said. ‘You could give him the bread recipe.’

‘Oh, he couldn’t bake bread,’ she said.

‘But why not? Papa can cook. He makes all his money out of cooking. If Mr Parish wasn’t sure about how to cook it, Papa could show him.’

She looked at me dubiously.

‘Or Kitten could show him,’ I said.

Mrs Parish kneaded the bread dough and put it near the window with a damp tea-towel on the top. ‘Oh Owen,’ she said.

She stood next to me and I could tell she wanted to stroke my hair or something, but it was too late for that.