I was at the tail end of the family. The next brother along was already seven years older than me. I remember growing up by myself, playing games by myself.

There are things that can't be said, because it's hard to have to know them.

Outside the leaves on the trees constricted slightly; they were the deep done green of the beginning of autumn. It was a Sunday in September. There would only be four. The clouds were high and the swallows would be here for another month or so before they left for the south before they returned again next summer.

It's about the connecting force from form to form. It's the toe bone connecting to the shoulder bone. It's the bacterial kick of life force, something growing out of nothing, forming itself out of something else. Form never stops. And form is always environmental.

I don't want a tombstone. You could carve on it 'She never actually wanted a tombstone.'

The head has its confines. The head’s got those all right, and the heart. The heart has its reasons.

A game one of my sisters will play with me in my first year of being alive is called Good Baby, Bad Baby. This consists of being told I am a good baby until I smile and laugh, then being told I am a bad baby until I burst into tears. This training will stand me in good stead all through my life.