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. But one night I didn’t. I waited, 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 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. 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 door. 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 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. We are five floors up. 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 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 which 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 in to land.
“Love is the only wealth that multiplies when given away.”
