2

The courage… to get through life without this sense of home, without this refuge, whilst surviving a world which exploits our mothering kindness and assaults us for our femininity, is untold. But many many many women of my acquaintance will know exactly what I mean. I crave this home. Built with somebody who will not […]

26

I went to have my hearing tested. This became necessary because a man had walloped me across the face: a man I loved. Needless to say, no man has ever hit me before and I’m damned if any man will again. Needless to say, I no longer love him. It was my fault as well. […]

2

In an Italian cafe I saw two eight-year-olds locked in a passionate embrace. I had to blink. What on earth? On closer examination he had her locked, her neck was rigid, he had hold of her head in both his hands. Their lips were pressed on each other, hard and still. It was a Holywood […]

12

Last year and the year before that and four years ago too we went down on the train to West Germany, to a tiny village lying under the skirts of the old woods. This is where my sweetheart was born. His father was born in the same house and to me the village, the house, […]

12

Want to know why I dislike Mothers Day? We were in a cafe, crowded against the wall by a spreading table of one family, all hunched over in their chairs: grandfather, husband, brother, wife, and two small blonde girl children. Mother sat between her two children. Their demand on her attention was constant. “Oh, that’s […]