Estanza.
       ‘This is the detritus of my life.’ She makes a dismissive gesture to the room. ‘Flotsam after the tide went out.’
       It isn’t my idea of detritus. The furniture, the wallpaper, the carpet, the pictures and the artefacts placed in perfect relationship to one another could be in the Galerie d’Objéts Décoratifs at the Musée Karsten. An exquisite world. Continue reading →

Issenden is a second skin. I spent large chunks of the school holidays here. Free from my parents’ bickering. Fierce anger that billowed into volcanic fury. Away from them with Uncle Diskan. Discovering authors on the crowded shelves. Turning my head to read the titles of books laid horizontally on the tops of others. First editions. Standing democratically with modern volumes. Listening to my uncle playing the piano. Picking out maimed versions of what I could remember when he was elsewhere in the house. ‘You’re improving,’ he said. ‘You should have lessons.’ He took me to Mrs Brone. Continue reading →

‘Come here.’
       Jasrene Bevendex. Tall. Imperious. Determined. And so on and so on. Blah-blah.
       She knows what she wants. She gets her own way.
       Mostly.
       ‘Why will you not do what I ask?’
       Why ask? She knows me well enough – I am a different incarnation of her, a splinter from the bough. I rarely do what I’m told – question the request, the statement, the belief, find the flaws. Do something unexpected. Uncalled for. Or ignore it. I am neither rebellious nor stubborn: I have little faith in the rest of the world. Continue reading →