With the click of the final switch I was safe. I was a magician whose finger retrieved familiar objects from the dark. The very banality of these trifles proved comforting: the table my mother called occasional with its old lady and her porcelain balloons and the urn all nymphs and criss-cross laurel; the specimen shelf bearing bunnies and a gee-gee and a weeny tea-set, and Cinderella’s slipper, Robin redbreast on his rock and Venetian glass that made a shadow on the wall.

Yet the pretty things couldn’t comfort me for long, because then I saw the door. Usually I didn’t — usually I came in the back way to keep the carpet clean, and now — at night, I saw it — and it frightened me. So big, and twelve glass panels with wrinkles that made it strange and made me (now you’re in the aquarium, silly little girl — and hurry — hurry — quick — down again — for — gulper, wide-mouth, swallower, hatchet — will-get-you) run away.

(The journey to the lavatory is perilous. We approach it cautiously — in pairs: my grandmother and great-aunt, my mother and I.)

My mother lighted our way with matches; marking our path with a sooty trail. She seemed unaware that the shrivelled ends betrayed us, winced as I nudged her; burned her fingers. In the pool of shadow by the shed still charred from the fire, already long ago, I saw my enemy: pigtailed Chinaman — silent one who pounces. Creepy-creepy. I held my breath — tiptoed to confuse; counted the encroaching trees to calm the pigeon in my chest: furry-fingered fig, green-gloved peach, apricot and orange, quince with blotting-paper stars.

We were there.

The lavatory was different in the day-time. In the hide-and-seek summer we cried ‘barleys’ and collapsed on the seat in turn — heart pounding, eyes sparkling — pumping out the pee and shit as fast as we could; longing to be gone — to creep through the soursobs, breathe in the crackling blueness of the sky. Carol told Elvio, the Italian boy, to come in too — there was nothing to see but her skirt. When we were thirsty, and the tap was too far, we pulled the chain and drank from cupped hands. We had books we hid on the cistern shelf.

At night it was cosy inside: the door latched, the Chinaman vanquished, my mother close, spicy smell. There was no light-switch but the dark was friendly. I lifted the wooden lid — one last ritual to go through: listened for the mole; he was there, but he was cunning. Once I felt his moist snout up my bottom; once, through the open door, I saw a bird — an albatross, a snow goose. I made a poem.

At night the lavatory became a confessional booth, an altar to the past. My mother told me about my father. She could not see me as she puffed at the cigarette Nan did not like her to smoke in the house. I began to cry.