foster home. Sarah rolled her sleeves back down to her wrists, while our mother ranted and raved: 'Why do you want to hurt yourself in that foul way?'
'It hurts less,' Sarah murmured. ,•
'Less than what?' our mother fumed, more angry than frightened, it seemed. Her eyes, crowded with pain, were dry: they no longer took in anything they couldn't bear to see.
I would have to leave in a matter of days.
'Don't be ridiculous,' my mother said stiffly, after I suggested that I could telephone Hertford College: perhaps they would let me postpone entry for a year, so that I wouldn't be leaving her and Sarah alone. The two of them were always having terrible fights, laying into each other with foul words, yanking and slapping in their rage. I thought about what would happen when I was no longer there to pull them apart and stick them back together. The glue of the family, my mother called me.
'You've got your own life to be getting on with.' Her gaze burrowed to hide in the carpet. 'You have to go.'
She stayed up smoking to get through my last night at home. I woke to find her in the murky living-room, her face floating above the round marble ashtray, a dirty moon, crammed with pale flakes and cigarette stubs. Scattered by her feet was a jumble of photos, some black-and-white, turning tea-coloured at the edges, colour ones hacked here and there where her emotions had sent her to the scissors.
'I didn't want to let you go without a picture to remember us all by.' Her voice shook. 'But I can't find the right one.'
'Oh, Mum.' I tried laughing. 'I'll only be gone for eight weeks.'
I drew back the curtains and banged to open the window, hoping to shift the morbid cloud around her with a blast of fresh air. Sunshine spilled across her face: grooved with nonstop smoking, its lines said everything her lips were too dry to get out.
I held my own face still to hide the guilty thrill that swirled through me as I gazed around the living-room.
It was like looking at someone else's life.
The settee, the telly, the curtains, the stereo with its wonky turntable, the sparse-looking ornament stand, the rubber plant batding on in the corner, the muzzy pink patch on the wall. Leaning against the window sill, as if it were waiting for Dad to stroll back in, was the battered Spanish guitar: three of the strings had snapped, the neck had been broken and was trying to hold up under a sorry-looking splint.
That and the huge marble ashtray brought me back to my mother.
She made me a cup of coffee and I cradled it between my hands, taking loving glugs that made my throat ache because it was so tight with excitement. I murmured silly nothings to take the edge off her silence. Then I kissed her and went upstairs to squash the last things into my suitcase.
'Aren't you going to leave your toothbrush?' Sarah lingered around my case.
I rummaged for the brush and jangled it back into the toothmug to join hers and Mum's. Pulling Sarah close for a hug, I breathed in cigarette smoke and hairspray and lipstick, mingling with that yeasty scent of her skin that still made me think of her as my baby sister. I took care, when my feelings welled, not to squeeze her arms where they were raw under her uniform. She left for school just before a black cab turned up, honking.
'Your carriage awaits you.' My mother attempted a smile. She stood in the doorway, clutching the collar of her housecoat. 'Here, love.' Pressing a five-pound note into my hand, she ignored my attempts to refiise: it would be my first ride in a black cab, and she had her heart set on paying fi)r it. 'Let me,' she said.
The cab rumbled and purred while I hovered at the top of the steps.
'Go on.' She nudged me, trying to sound jolly: 'You don't want to miss that coach!'
My skin felt as hot as my mother's when I pressed my cheek against hers.
'It's not for ever.' My words came out wet.
She clutched my hair and branded my forehead with a vicious, burning kiss.
Then she warbled, finally overtaken by weeping: 'You're my hope.'
I lugged my suitcase down the steps, feeling dizzy, blinking at the glare of the morning sun off the wet road. It had rained during the night, leaving the sky glassy and fiill of reflections. Climbing into the back of the cab, I turned and strained to blow kisses through the rear window as it pulled away fi"om our house.
My mother blurred into the hedges and was gone.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This is a work of non-fiction. Some names have been changed to protect the privacy of those involved.
I would like to thank some special people who have helped me to bring this book into being.
Michelle Kass is a fairy godmother of an agent: she has believed in me fi-om the first line, and has guided me through blank pages and murky places, offering me the courage of her convictions when my own went awry. She knows how to make things happen, and she has both my admiration and my deep gratitude.
The wonderful team at Picador have made publishing feel like serious fim; their enthusiasm has been infectious and is precious to me. Above all, I have enjoyed the generous ministrations of Ursula Doyle, who has helped me to shape this story out of chaos. As well as being a delight to know as a fi-iend, she is that rare thing, a real and marvellous editor. It has been my privilege and saving grace to be able to trust utterly in Ursula's judgement.
To Julia Briggs I would like to express my profound and enduring thanks; she has helped me to save myself, to create myself over and over, and to celebrate that ongoing regeneration.
I will always be gratefiil to Barbara Wallis, who was my superb English Literature teacher at Xaverian College, and through whom I became enchanted with the memorable bits of literature that buoyed me when circumstances were sinking. Before that, at Oakwood High School, it was my great fortune to be taught and
inspired by Jude Cooper: she radiated a crucial sense of possibility and cast a benign, probably life-saving, spell on me.
David Bowker has my enormous, special thanks for sharing his extraordinary wizardry with words. I would also like to let Tishna MoUa know how much I appreciate her great skill and good humour in dealing with the nitty-gritty side of things.
There are others who lie closer to the heart of this book than they might realize. Hayley Boyle was my best friend and a precious beacon while I was growing up. Manuel Puro gave me hope and made me happier than I can say. These days, Gerald Lang is the funniest, most thoughtfril and admirable friend I could wish for.
Finally, I would like to extend loving thanks to my family and to Mick. Brilliant and judicious, Mick Imlah has sustained me and propelled me to the end. I am forever gratefrU to him for his influence on this book and on the person who wrote it. My sisters, Lindsey and Sarah, have comforted me and truly encouraged me by their brave and beautiful ways of living. I thank my mother for her blessing and for the example of her awesome spirit. A last kiss goes to my shiny niece, Hannah - the fiiture.
Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following for permission to reproduce copyright material:
'The Seventh' from Selected Poems by Atila Joszef Reprinted by permission of Carcanet Press Limited.
'Don't Cry For Me Argentina'. Reproduced by kind permission, Evita Music Ltd.
'Another Brick in the Wall Part 11'. Copyright by Roger Waters © 1979 Pink Floyd Music Publishers Limited.
'One Day I'll Fly Away'. Words and music by Joe Sample and Will Jennings. Copyright © 1980 by Four Knights Music and Irving Music, Inc. All rights for Four Knights Music administered by Music Corporation of America, Inc. International Copyright Secured. All Rights Reserved. Reproduced by kind permission, MCS Music Ltd.
'A Litde Peace', (Greedus-Siegel-Meinunger). Reproduced by kind permission of Magic Frog Music.
Nineteen Eighty-Four. Copyright © Mark Hamilton as the literary executor of the estate of the late Sonia Brownwell Orwell. By permission Martin Seeker & Warburg Ltd & A. M. Heath & Co. Ltd.
'Do Not Go Gende Into That Good Night' from The Poems by Dylan Thomas. By permission of J. M. Dent.
'O
ut, Out' from The Poetry of Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem, copyright © 1944 by Robert Frost, copyright © 1916, 1969 by Henry Holt & Co. Inc. Reprinted by permission of Henry Holt & Co. Inc. and Jonathan Cape.
'Everyone Sang' by Siegfried Sassoon. By permission of George Sassoon.
Collected Poems edited by Anthony Thwaite by Philip Larkin. By permission Faber and Faber Ltd.
'The Arrival of the Bee Box' by Sylvia Plath. By permission Faber and Faber Ltd.
Collected Poems ipop-ip62 by T. S. Eliot. By Permission Faber and Faber Ltd.
'The Wild Swans at Coole' from The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats. By permission of A. P. Watt Ltd on behalf of Michael Yeats.
'Nights in White Satin' by Justin Hayward. Copyright © 1967 and 1973 Tyler Music Ltd of Suite 2.07 Plaza, 535 Kings Road, London SWio oSZ. International Copyright Secured. All Rights Reserved. Used by permission.
Andrea Ashworth was born in Manchester in 1969. She is a Junior Research Fellow at Jesus College, Oxford. Once in a House on Fire is her first book.
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Cover photograph by Robert Clifford Author photograph by Marion Ettlinger
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Once in a house on fire Page 29