Articles Available Online

I had been sent back from the city in disgrace, back to my parents’ house in the country It was a traumatic experience Though not as traumatic as what had preceded it   My parents’ house was a squat, sprawling thing painted light pink Elaborate grounds sank into the landscape around it In the garden, a turquoise pool was sludged with leaves and dirt which my father hoovered every other day I listened to the sound of it from my old room on the top floor, spread-eagled on the bed with the white crochet covers, where I thought about P and wept I had been allowed just one small keepsake, and only that after I had really pushed for it A passport photo of his sallow moon face His brows knitted over his eyes He was still the most beautiful man I had ever seen in my life, six foot five and silent as a column I wondered what would happen to him now And yet I already knew – he had become infatuated with someone else She was his childhood sweetheart, invited over to the house by his mother when he had gone back to visit I had not been allowed to visit with him The other girl’s hands, what had been done to them, looked expensive He had shown me photos of her as if to say: look, give up all your hope Which at least saved me the trouble of rooting around in a debased manner to find the pictures myself He was kind like that   P had been the one to ring my parents too Soon they arrived in their roaring car, big enough to seat six My mother cried, and my father wore sunglasses but I’m sure his eyes were watering too, with the shame I told them once I was sat in the car that I could have taken the train, that I wasn’t a fan of all this fuss either I could have packed up my suitcase and come back quietly  But my mother would not think of it   –   My mother implied that when