He says we need to remember to remember, but right now I wish I could forget. Bit 3 Me, on a midwinter night, in Christchurch. Twelve years old, naked and deep in the bath as a yellow cloud of piss bleeds out around my white and skinny knees. Downstairs, there are noises, milk bottles chinking, a coal shovel scraping, Pink Floyd and a maunder of women's voices. Back from a conference, they laugh and fret.
Cars arrive, the door bell rings, and someone is met with cajoling welcome.
To me it may as well have been the world. Everyone had gone. My mother, her friends, my sister. Even my gran had managed an afternoon on Sunday. Your mother up on stage.