I          

1987

When Sarah told me Daniel had died, the cuckoo clock opened and out flew sound, a bird, two figures. The voice of the cuckoo echoed, louder than the aeroplanes overhead, and opposite the clock, evening shadows stirred.

II

1947–57

A shadow made me start as my mother’s face loomed towards me where I lay, eight months old, tongue-tied, spastic and flailing on the coarse rug, on the warm lawn, in the summer of 1947 – in an English country garden. My father was playing French cricket with Miranda and John, and I could hear a tennis ball – in his hand, in the air, on the bat. Sometimes I saw the balling arc and even the dancing polka dots on Miranda’s dress as she raced after the ball, or John’s dusty brown sandals and grey socks when the ball rolled on to the rug and he came to retrieve it.

          My mother’s breath was toffee-warm. Her skin smelt of lemon soap, and her thick dark hair of the Sarson’s malt vinegar she rinsed it with to make it shine. She kissed me on the cheek, put a palm to my forehead, then scooped me up. She hugged me tight, but she couldn’t contain my flailing. She cooed and cuddled, I whimpered and writhed. We were both wet with sweat.

          The next day – it could have been yesterday – my tongue was clipped. ‘A lingual frenectomy’ll do the trick,’ they said. Lickety-split. Spilt milk. Not Mother’s, no. The nurses gave it to me, clean and cold, in a chipped enamel mug with a hard blue lip. My loosened tongue lapped feebly, flopping against the smooth inside. The mug upturned.

          When I came home, Miranda tied string around my tongue, my enormous, lolling tongue, with which I was learning fast to bellow, suck and yelp.

          ‘Doctors and nurses,’ she said, clucking like Mother.

          I was in my cot, rolled rigid against the side. A wonky foot had wedged itself between the bars. My face was squashed to the mattress – mouth open, tongue dry and rubbing roughly on the sheet. Stench of starch, and particles of dust tickling my cheek, prickling the inside of my nose.

          ‘I’ll make it better,’ said Miranda, and wrapped the string around my tongue in loops and big wet knots. She worked away without a word, breathing heavily, her own pink tip of a tongue flickering in the corner of her mouth.

          ‘There.’

          The ends of the piece of string were tied in a neat bow. Miranda stood back and surveyed her work, frowning. She must have been just six at the time, frilled eyes level with mine – two pairs of small set jellies.

          ‘I’ll tell you a story,’ she said, backing towards the door. She had one hand on the handle and the other on the door frame. I didn’t want her to go. I wanted to hear the story. I grunted and knocked the front of my head against the bars of the cot. Miranda swung backwards and forwards, holding both sides of the door frame now. At the end of a forward swing, she suddenly stopped, taking all the weight with her arms. Shoulders jutted, elbows locked, tendons strained.

          ‘Once upon a time, there was a girl called Grace—’

          A ski-jumper, a snow-bird in mid-flight.