On my original birth certificate there is a blank space next to Father. . . . . . .
My mother’s name is listed as Joan Darkwood.
My name is listed as Erica.
On my second birth certificate my father’s name is listed as Richard Parsons
My mother’s as Diedre Parsons
My adopted parents called me Fernanda after an evangelical missionary they favoured at the time.
I called myself Fern.
More than anything I wanted to fly.
But in order to fly, one must first be willing to fall.

This is the story of my journey, following the clues back through the twists and turns that turned me into what I was, searching for the moments of definition: the overheard sentence, the intention in another’s eyes, a boy seducing a girl, a fist, a beating and a mother turning her back. I had to go deep into the underworld and enter the labyrinth, with no guarantee of return, seeking the threads that I could weave into a rope thick enough to haul me back out again.
There are gods in this story and those gifted and cursed with the power of prophecy. There’s a young man haunted by the past and an old man haunted by the future. There is death and corruption and injustice. Sometimes there is love. Occasionally compassion. But more often, as in real life, there is fear.
I am there too. Haunted and hollow. An outline, waiting to be filled in. Poised, trembling before the entrance to the labyrinth. A shadow of the self I should have been. A shadow of who I am now as I sit here looking for a beginning when there isn’t one, when there never is, because life is simply not neat, and one story hardly ever ends before another begins. Instead they span time and space, reaching back into a past that extends beyond our first breath and into a future that extends beyond our last.
So in the absence of a clear beginning I will draw an artificial line through time and begin on that stifling hot afternoon, in the attic room of a run-down terrace in the inner suburbs of Sydney. . .

‘A deeply moving fiction debut in which Dub examines the virtue of truth, the harm of lies, the pain of secrets, the desire for belonging and the difficulty of confronting ones past to ensure the future.’
Weekend Gold Coast Bulletin

‘A gritty sandblown kind of story that once begun gets into your consciousness with compelling insistence. Yes, it’s a page-turner and yes, it’s a thriller-cum-rite-of-passage tale. . . The strength of Dub’s ability to tell a story and hold an audience is clear in this first novel of hopefully many more. It is a book of many pathways to the heart and soul, of not only a country but families who deny the truth of who they are and what they strive to protect. . .’
Sunday Tasmanian

‘Here we have a Tasmanian writer with a first novel that grabs you from the very first page. Well written, it is a compelling story that takes the protagonist on a journey of self discovery. . . We will hear more from Rosie Dub; well done.’
Tasmanian Life

‘. . . a fascinating story of discovery, generations, Romany lore, Australia, and of Storm herself.’
Cairns Post

* * * * *
Adelaide Advertiser

‘An absorbing first novel.’
Women’s Day

I don’t plan before I write, instead I start with an image that haunts me and perhaps a theme or two – then see what happens. I write from start to finish, each day’s work pointing me to where I should go next. As I write a plot evolves and I get glimpses of scenes that might come later. It’s an exciting process, fraught with dangers and punctuated with miracles. As Stephen King says in his book, On Writing – stories ‘pretty much make themselves. The job of a writer is to give them a place to grow.’ Aside from a little tidying up, I don’t edit much along the way either, as so much of the material emerges from the unconscious and I can’t tell what use it will be until I have a complete draft. Then I rewrite, over and over, layering and developing, each time understanding more of what I have written.

For me the idea usually comes in the form of an image. This was the case with Gathering Storm. After spending ten years living in the UK, I had returned to Australia with my British husband, Tim and our two young children. We took the opportunity to spend a year or so travelling around Australia in a campervan and our third child was born during this journey. I never imagined this would become a research trip for Gathering Storm but one day in the middle of the desert I suddenly had an image of an abandoned toddler. The contrasts in the image were extreme, the harsh, unforgiving desert and a fragile, vulnerable child. I wrote a few words in my diary, then wrote NOVEL in capital letters and circled it. Four years later I returned to that idea and a story slowly formed around it.

In retrospect I see that the themes in Gathering Storm relate closely to the issues in my own life when I returned to Australia. The journey our family took around Australia was also my own journey into myself, exploring my relationship to the country in which I’d been born and accepting the growing certainty that like Storm, I too needed to turn around and face the past.

Storm is searching for her roots. What’s more important for a human character: the search itself, or the goal Storm is aiming for?

Many of us wish away the search for the goal, yet the two are so closely related that it is impossible to have one without the other. Without her search, Storm would not have been strong enough to look at the truth she was seeking, which eventually came in the form of a traumatic memory that had been buried in her unconscious self, its tentacles reaching into her conscious life and stopping her from living well.

For Storm the search took the form of a road trip into the desert, an unknown and dangerous place. This journey through the wilderness is symbolic of the mythical journey into the labyrinth, or the underworld, a place in which a monster must be faced. The journey parallels the quest of the hero in ancient mythology. It is a place where inner change happens. A place where fear is faced and old wounds healed.

You’re from Australia. People in Europe read very few Australian books. How would you describe ‘the’ Australian novel? In what ways is it different, in what ways is it the same, compared to a European or an American novel?

It isn’t easy to define ‘the’ Australian Novel. Traditionally ‘white’ Australians have looked to Europe for their cultural and historical roots and to America for their modern culture. Over time though, an Australian literature has developed, and in many ways it is not so different from novels arising from other western cultures.

Australia is a country that is predominantly peopled by migrants. There are a number of contradictions inherent in our relationship to the land. We are at once drawn to, and repelled by the Outback, awed by its beauty and frightened by its dangers. As ‘white’ Australians we carry the guilt of the conqueror, a guilt that often stops us from claiming a connection to the land. We have perceptions of what it is to be Australian, our legendary heroes are the men who carved their way into the landscape, making this arid land work for them. We have mythologised the Outback, yet 96% of us live in urban environments, for the most part clustered around the edges of this continent, turned away from the centre which carries such a mystique. We romanticise the wilderness, but most of us rarely, if ever, experience it. Yet, deep within us there’s a longing for wildness, for wilderness and for the sense of real connection with place. Perhaps it is here in the contradictions that an Australian literature can be identified.

The discomfort I feel about my own relationship to Australia led me to choose a British protagonist for Gathering Storm, as well as two contrasting settings - the mystique of Europe and the glare of Australia. Britain is cold, shrouded in mystery, rooted in history and there are secrets. In contrast Australia is heat, glaring light and the uncovering of secrets. In Australia, Storm experiences a sense of freedom, a liberation from the constraints of Britain, yet also a dizzying sense of danger.

You spent a lot of time writing, starting at a young age. Did this lead to your vision on the power of words (see also next questions)?
My adoptive parents were strict Baptists who created a regimented and sterile environment – without artworks, or music (aside from hymns), or dance (which was banned), or even books. . . I grew up in a house without books. Yet my love of writing arose from reading. As soon as I learned to read I was bewitched by language and by story. So yes, I suppose I did understand the power of words. They showed me how vast the imagination is, they transported me out of my restrictive suburban life and let me be anyone I wished to be. When I read I could inhabit other lives; when I wrote I could create worlds of my own. Yet I was also tentative with words, because even as a small child I discovered that they have both the power to heal and to hurt.

What was your reason to start writing as a kid?

Casting spells with words was the closest thing to magic I could find.

Apart from the technical aspects of writing, what other ‘lessons’ or skills did you learn while writing more and more stories?

Oh, so many things! To trust the process of writing, suspending my conscious self and letting the unconscious take over. To accept my need to write and to give it the priority it deserves. That the most important skill any writer can have is an understanding of human nature. That the outer passage of a story is the costume, while the inner passage is the essence. That each time I write a story I learn something about myself. But most comforting of all is the knowledge that no matter how many technical skills I master, there will always be the mystery behind inspiration.

On your website, you wrote an article in which you stated that words have tremendous power: they can hurt, change, move, please or frighten someone, perhaps even more than physical action. Did you write Gathering storm based on this theme?

I think that words often stay with you and when they are forgotten, the intention behind them still lingers. Flight, the novel I am now working on explores these ideas further, but this theme also appears less centrally in Gathering Storm. Storm is afraid of the consequences of words, afraid of their power and the potential they have to push people away - hence her inability to communicate with her partner, Max, or insist on answers while her Nan was alive. Of course words are often positive gifts to be cherished, but sometimes the opposite is true. As a child and a teenager I was often crushed by words; they forced my silence, made me guilty and afraid and formed an identity I was uncomfortable with. In the writing of Gathering Storm I was confronting my own caution with words and pushing against the safety barriers I had put in place.

Is the power of words perhaps stronger when expressed by close relatives? What does this say about the way Storm was misinformed about her mother for so long, and her reaction?

If we let them, anyone’s words can have power over us: a blessing from a stranger can light up our day; a word of encouragment can give us courage to try something new; the taunts of a bully can turn us into a frightened victim. Yet our parents have a special power over us that is too often misused. Children need unconditional love yet it isn’t always forthcoming. Storm was hurt by a careless remark her Nan made, and then spent her life believing that she was the cause of her mother’s death. When she found out the truth she was hurt again, yet also relieved. A burden of guilt had been lifted, but she was also realising that her history was a series of lie and omissions.That is a central theme in Gathering Storm, the power of lies and the damage they leave in their wake.

You quoted Christopher Vogler saying: ‘Stories have the power to give people metaphors by which they can better understand their lives.’ Apparently a writer can express a valuable lesson nobody else can.
What does this say about the writer?
Is (s)he perhaps more powerful?
Should a writer therefore have certain extraordinary qualities and knowledge?
Does a writer have more responsibilities because of this?

Stories are a natural part of us, deeply embedded in our psyche. Aside from their great entertainment value they help us make sense of the world, providing frameworks that enable us to find meaning in our lives, to create order from chaos, beauty from pain. Through stories we reach out to others and we discover ourselves. We all tell stories. They are everywhere: in books, the cinema, television and the internet; passed around campfires; and swapped over coffee. . . . A writer consciously sets out to create stories but writers are not extraordinary. The stories they write are a gift, to them and to their readers. It is the responsibility of the writer to be true to themselves and to their writing. Otherwise, I believe the only prerequisites for a writer are a love of language, a need to express themselves, self discipline and a fresh way of looking at the world. Everything else is technique and can be learned.

You wrote: ‘No matter how sophisticated our storytelling has become, how many flashes forward and backwards, how many diversions, there is still a basic structure that can be traced right back to humanity’s earliest stories – and by implication to blueprints of our common psychology.’
In what way has storytelling remained the same for such a long time?
Do you think we have the same stories, the same messages, that need to be told over and over again? (If so, is it because we don’t learn, or forget lessons?)
What does this say about human (psychological) nature?

The costumes of stories change all the time, but their fundamental shape stays the same. The oldest stories are the myths of indigenous cultures and it’s in the stories of their heroes that we can see the same structure we have today. It is in the inner passage of the story, the character arc, that we can see the fundamental similarities between stories. As mythologist, Joseph Campbell asserted in his first book, The Hero With a Thousand Faces, the slaying of a dragon is a metaphor for inner change, for facing those things within us that we are most afraid of. The plot then becomes a metaphor for character development. There is a tension there, because whilst the outer journey often follows a linear sense of time by moving into the future, the inner journey is often a movement into the past, discovering fragments that motivate a characters actions and allow the character to eventually heal a wound.

In relation to story, how quickly we learn and evolve as humans is linked closely to our ability to read and to listen deeply, rather than simply skimming the surface of stories for their entertainment value only. There are many other factors, such as our willingness to seek commonalities rather than differences, and our willingness to face our fears. Most of us are afraid of change. But stories remind us that life is cyclic, that change is inevitable. Whether or not we accept it, embedded in story lies the invitation – to adventure, to journey, to evolve as humans – it’s up to us.

The process of writing is both fascinating and mysterious. Perhaps it begins with an idea, an image, or a theme, then like a seed planted deep in the soil, it will grow when the time and conditions are right. More often than not, when I sit down to write, I have no idea what is coming next. As I write, my own memories arise from somewhere deep inside, are given to another character in another time and place, are placed alongside or within entirely fictional scenes, and yet somehow the story stays true to the themes that are woven deeply into my own life. What emerges is a story that is not ‘true’ in the literal sense of the word, and yet it resounds with emotional truth. Campbell once defined myth as ‘A story that is true on the inside but not the outside.
This, I believe, is where truth lies.

An unforgettable journey will unlock a lifetime of lies. . .

English artist Storm Cizekova grew up believing that her mother died when she was born. But then Storm finds a photo of herself in the heart of the Australian desert - and in her mother’s arms.

Haunted by unanswered questions, Storm embarks on a journey of self-discovery that will challenge everything she holds dear: her family history, her art, even her relationship with her partner Max. Who is she really, and where does she belong?

Her search will take her from the snow-covered Malvern Hills in England, to the rich red heart of the Australian outback. Retracing her mother’s footsteps through the stark beauty of the outback landscape, Storm hopes to find the courage to confront some shocking truths from her past and the strength to face her future.

. . . Words have power. They change people. They cause revolutions, both social and personal. They flatter, they please, they move. And they hurt. I have never believed in the old proverb ’sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me.’ Like many others, I learned from experience that like stones, words can be weapons, and they are dangerous. The wrong word can break something inside a person. A stray sentence, overheard by a child, can burrow deep, building layer upon layer of scar tissue around it, changing the course of that child’s life, so that they live every day in reaction to it. As a child I was drawn to words, but I was also afraid of them. Reading helped me to see that like stones, words can be used to create something powerful and beautiful. Much later again, I realised that like a stick used to splint a broken bone, words can also be used to heal.

Writing began as a source of solace in my turbulent young adult years – though looking back now, I see how turgid my creations were. But eventually I began to develop a style, a voice and a small amount of self discipline. I began to understand that writing wasn’t all about inspiration. That becoming a writer was equivalent to agreeing to a lifetime’s apprenticeship. At least 90% of writing is craft based, which involves learning many technical skills – building three dimensional characters, plotting, structuring, exposition, pace, tension, description, dialogue. . .Over time these skills developed. I wrote short stories and travel pieces – some of which were published. I completed a BA in writing and literature and then went on to do an MA in creative writing in Britain. To support myself I began assessing manuscripts for literary agents and publishers in the UK. Then, back in Australia I continued editing, taught creative writing, and eventually went back to my early love - myths and symbols.

Despite many setbacks, I have continued to write, with small successes – publications and grants - luring me on every time I was tempted to give up. Nowhere Man, my first novel, about a homeless man living on the streets of London, was a study of identity and statelessness. It found me agents in the UK and Australia, and was admired and rejected by publishers who believed it was too bleak to sell as a first novel. I wrote another novel, Gathering Storm, less bleak, but still exploring the same themes, this time through family history and genetic inheritance, but also from a broader cultural perspective, in relation to nationhood and citizenship. In seeking the truth about her past, the protagonist, Storm, searches forwards in the form of a journey, backwards into history, to the source of her problems and metaphorically inwards to uncover the wounds which have formed her. As the story unfolds, Storm moves towards an understanding of psychological and physical exile and finally towards resolution of the conflicts within herself. In a way Gathering Storm is a coming-to-self novel. It is a work of fiction but its themes mirror my own.

All my life I have stayed close to storytelling, drawn to it in an irresistible way. Perhaps it was linked in some way to my adoption as a baby, an attempt to articulate a wound that was preverbal. Or my way of not just healing the past, but creating something beautiful from it. I can’t remember the exact moment when I realised that writing can be a healing process. It was a culmination of years of experience as a teacher, editor and writer, which made it clear to me that writing is a cathartic process for many people – a way of expelling or even just looking at the demons that haunt them. The seemingly simple act of framing a story, or understanding the motivation of a single character can challenge the foundations on which a person has lived their life. I became fascinated with the transformative potential of both the process of writing and of story itself. Last year I began a PhD and embarked on another writing journey – this time into non fiction. My thesis, Story: Mapping the Journey to Self, explores the structure of stories and storytelling as metaphors for the inner journeys we make.

What is it that stories give us? What makes them so important in our lives? According to Christopher Vogler in his book, The Writer’s Journey, ’stories have the power to heal, to make the world new again, to give people metaphors by which they can better understand their lives.’

As a child stories provided an escape for me and a window into other ways of living. As an adult they became a mirror in which I could explore myself. Stories are a natural part of us, deeply embedded in our psyche. They impose order on chaos. They enable us to reach out and connect with each other. They provide us with ways of thinking about how to live within our society, helping people to place themselves in relation to the world. And they help us to make life meaningful. Through story we can understand the transitions within our lives, by looking back to see the cause and effects that have led us through time. We can identify those dramatic movements from one stage to another: childhood to adolescence, to adulthood, marriage, the birth of children. . . But we can also look forward and learn to accept through story, the inevitability of the transition into old age and ultimately, death.

On one level stories are pure entertainment. On another level they serve to reinforce the social order and prevailing attitudes. But on a third level, story is subversive, in that its very structure is a map of the process of becoming oneself. As both a reader and a practicing writer I have come to believe that stories are linked to personal evolution, they are metaphoric maps for the developing self. Although stories wear an infinite variety of costumes, there is a fundamental commonality between them. No matter how sophisticated our storytelling has become, how many flashes forward and backwards, how many diversions, there is still a basic structure that can be traced right back to humanity’s earliest stories - and by implication to blueprints of our common psychology. Whatever their genre or medium, many contemporary stories mirror heroic myths, both in their structure and in the elements that make up their plots. Each story involves a character leaving the safety and stasis of their ordinary world and being plunged into a new and dangerous world, one in which they don’t know the rules and where they must undergo a series of adventures. The second stage of the journey involves accepting change – stepping into the abyss with no idea what lies ahead. Like birds we must be willing to fall in order to fly. Risks are taken, and if successful there is a reward of some kind. The final stage involves returning to the ‘ordinary world’, understanding and integrating the reward and using it as is appropriate. A new status quo is reached and the hero has changed in some way.

According to Vogler, ‘The Hero’s Journey and the Writer’s Journey are one and the same. Anyone setting out to write a story soon encounters all the tests, trials, ordeals, joys and rewards of the Hero’s journey. . . Writing is an often perilous journey inward to probe the depths of one’s soul and bring back the Elixir of experience. ‘

The very act of writing is a heroic journey. It changes the writer. It is an act of faith. To write a novel is to descend into the underworld or step into the labyrinth, with only a few clues and no guarantee of a way back out again. To write a novel is to step beyond your limitation, embarking on a journey with no known destination and often no ticket. It’s a dangerous process, exhausting and filled with apprehension, but it’s also a magical journey. Aside from the joys of becoming a mother, I can think of nothing more rewarding.

Hooked onto the metal bedstead is a sign. The words scrawled casually in black felt pen. Evelyn Macleod. If he is to believe these words, then this is his mother. Evelyn, he thinks, sounding the word out in his head. Even her name is strange. He has never called her that. Mum, or mother, probably even mummy, when he was small enough. But he’s big now, very big, and underneath the blanket his mother’s body is almost absent. Just a skeleton, He imagines coming out of that. Her screams as his head forces it’s way into the world. Merciless, the pain unremitting, breaking her apart. It had been like that when Lily arrived and he’d watched his wife become a stranger with the pain he couldn’t share.

And now there is his mother. He is at once fascinated and repelled by what little is left. A thin line of dribble stretches from the corner of her mouth down to her chin. He reaches over and wipes at it with a tissue. She doesn’t seem to notice, she’s focused inwards, eyes shut, concentrating on every breath. Without her teeth, her face is collapsed. No structure. Nothing to grip onto. When he was small people sometimes said they were alike, and once it had seemed to him that they were. There’d been no father to compare himself with and no siblings, only a few old photographs. “Look Mike”, his mother would say. “See that chin, you’re just like your grandfather.” And back then he was happy to be anchored in that way. But at some point he had changed. Suddenly become all arms and legs, dangerously uncoordinated, with a gruff voice and self conscious stoop. It was about then that his mother first accused him of looking like his father. As if it was his fault that his features were arranged one way and not another. “You’re the image of him”, she said, and turned away quickly, trying to hide her repulsion. But something had been breached. After that they were awkward with each other, too polite. Again and again he caught her staring and he didn’t understand the complexity of the things he read on her face. He remembers looking in the mirror, studying his face, searching for what it was she could see. But there was nothing, only pimples and fluff and the hurt in his eyes.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been sat here. Wonders if it’s been hours or days since the telephone woke him from a deep sleep and called him into this strange sterile nothing space they had been allocated. Why here, he thinks, wishing there were somewhere more appropriate to play out the drama of her death. Somewhere more personal. For his benefit or hers, he wonders, not knowing if she is even aware he is here. Perhaps he could creep out and get a cup of coffee, or ring someone, just to touch down, just to hear his wife’s voice, “Mike, is that you? Are you OK.” “No” he would say, “no I’m not. . . I don’t recognise my mother.” But he is held in his place by her struggling breath.

In this strangely surreal space his senses are all on alert. He listens to the distant clutter of hospital noises. Clinking metal and rubber shoes squelching softly against the plastic floor. Lino, he thinks. We had lino. Great big black and white squares he could hop about on. Not like this grey, green, beige, impossible to name nothingness that stretched from his feet out of the door and down the corridor. He sniffs, smells the disinfectant, but underneath is another smell, faint but pervasive. Piss and shit and vomit and rot. Most of all rot. Like the rot that eats away at the insides of his mother. Or the rot that sits under the headlines of the unread newspaper at his feet. Rot everywhere. He can’t bear it. He’s desperate. For air, movement, anything, to break the disgust he feels.

The cramps in his legs force him to stand and stretch. When he does, his chair makes a rude squeak, intruding on the bubble they have created. Her concentration is broken and she starts, losing the rhythm of her breathing. He wonders that something simple like this could so easily kill her and a small part of him feels tempted to extinguish the remnants of life that remain. Get it over, he thinks, but bats this thought away and paces the room, his long legs covering its width in two steps. Back and forth. Back and forth. He wants to run. Remembers the sea eagle he’d seen recently at the wildlife park he’d taken Lily to. A majestic bird. Trapped. Lily was too young to worry. “Bird”, she’d said and pointed. But he’d counted and worried and felt the waste. Two casual flicks of the wing and it reached the limits of its world. While outside, little sparrows hopped around his feet pecking greedily at his leftover lunch, unaware of the immensity of their freedom. He wants to run. Wants to stretch. His limbs feel constricted. Why, he wonders, is his grief so focused in his legs? Why can’t he cry?

She always knew how he was feeling and even now at the edges of death, she reaches out her hand towards him. Her compassion fills him with shame. So she does know I am here, he thinks and reluctantly takes her hand. He is appalled at how claw like it is, but controls himself, pushing away the revulsion. Wrapped loosely around her wrist is a white plastic bracelet. He looks closely and deciphers her name. The writing is neat and round like a child’s, confirming her identity. This and the sign above her head is all that distinguishes his mother from the anonymity of death. He wants to love her. He really does. And he wonders what love is as his grief surges from his legs into his heart.

He is hungry for contact with something. Anything but this, he thinks, looking at her bony fingers still tightly gripping his. When a nurse comes, bringing him coffee and biscuits, his gratitude almost overwhelms him. He unpeels her fingers and gently places her hand on the blanket. The sound of his teeth crunching at a biscuit fills the silence and he thinks that it’s too basic, that he can’t eat biscuits when his mother is dying. So he gives up, leaving them until more nurses arrive to do their check ups and his crunching is camouflaged by chatter. Their cheeriness, he thinks, is inappropriate in the face of death. He watches them fussing around his mother, plumping up her pillows, checking her drips, her temperature, the little machine she’s attached to. Maintenance work, he thinks, turning away red faced when they change something down there. She is limp and loose in their hands, but the grimace on her face must mean she is in pain. He wants to shout at them to be more respectful. This is my mother he wants to say, not some rag doll to toss about. Instead he asks if they can give her something more to help the pain. They shake their heads. More, they say, might kill her. He almost laughs at this. Kill her, he thinks. Kill her! His thoughts are shrill. They settle her back down on her pillows and leave. After their cheerful chatter the silence is heavy and exaggerated, filled only by her breathing which has become louder and even more infrequent, so that between each of her breaths he finds himself holding his own.

When the tension becomes unbearable he reaches for the window and tugs angrily at the venetians. Suddenly the room is bathed in brightness. He shuts his eyes against the light, opens them, then looks back at her and sees that she hasn’t even noticed. She is puffing, her eyes shut, her face red with the effort of drawing breath and he is eight again maybe nine and he is running. The sun is hot, but the air is still wet, fresh from a storm. As he soars over the puddles he sees that they contain the clouds and the sky and he thinks probably space and the thought of their depth and their breadth make him dizzy with delight, not vertigo. Now it would be vertigo he thinks as he remembers swinging with Lily and feeling the rush of air turn his stomach. But it was different then. He is eight, maybe nine, everything is new and his limbs work perfectly so that he runs without effort, almost flies. There are birds. Probably seagulls because behind his speed and the rush of air around him is the regular sound of waves. Their cries punctuate his own flight. The souls of dead sailors, his Nana had told him, and for awhile he had been afraid of them. But not anymore, he isn’t afraid of anything, not even his mum.

He runs on, jumping, leaping, splashing mud, filled with joy. But it’s not a game. His mother is behind him, chasing and angry and filled with the need to punish. He is half afraid, and looks back often. She’s struggling. Her face is red, her breath is coming in painful puffs. He’s faster than her and this shocks him. He keeps running, reveling in his speed, in the ease of movement. She can’t catch him. But when he glances back again he knows that her anger is building into fury. The joy goes from his flight and soon he slows down. Her fury builds. She thinks he’s taunting her now. But he’s not. He’s just undecided, torn between getting it over and holding onto the joy of the chase and the new knowledge of his own power. He climbs the gate into the neighbours yard, leaping easily from the top, across a puddle and onto the fresh damp grass. She follows him, climbing laboriously onto the gate, her breath forced and painful, her face dripping. Then she slips, falling heavily into the puddle and when she stands up again she’s covered with mud and water and sweat and cold hard fury. He sees all this and feels a surge of pity. It’s over now. He must allow her to win. He stops and waits and then stands stoically, arms by his sides, while she pummels at him with her fists. Beating, beating . . .beating. He can feel bruises coming, but on the other side of the pain there is no resentment. There’s something else though, something new, a huge responsibility which makes him heavy.

What had he done? Broken something? Answered back? Perhaps, but it didn’t matter. Even then it didn’t matter. The crime had been lost forever and so had his childhood. He wants to talk to his wife, wants to hear her ask, “Are you OK Mike?” And he would say, “No, I’m not. . . I don’t think I like my mother.” His face is wet with tears. But they are not for her. They are for him, for the boy he was, for the man he is, for all this unfinished business, for his useless love and for the crushing responsibility he feels for her. He is helpless against all these things. Big and useless. A giant simpleton, he thinks. He could reach out and crush her just like that. But he can’t fix her. He can’t draw her back from the brink. He wishes that he could offer up his body again. A gift for her to beat her fists against. Maybe she could pummel out the rotting that is inside her. But he can’t. And she can’t. They are both impotent against this thing that will not be turned back.

He pulls the blind, dimming the room once again and lowers himself back into the small vinyl hospital chair to wait with her. It won’t be long now, he thinks. Won’t be long.

            ‘How’d that be Maddy?’ I ask.

In the rearview mirror I see her smile, but she’s intent on something else and when I turn round she’s playing with the door locks, opening them.

            ‘Shut it’, I shout. Terrified someone will open her door and drag her away from me. That’s what happens here in the endless traffic jams, disaffected people opening doors, smashing windows, bashing drivers, stealing bags. . . maybe even children.

Forty five minutes. . . This is serious. It only takes twenty to walk. These road works have been going for months, and months. Bottle necks, blocked drains, cars everywhere, people stewing inside their little metal boxes. Fingers tapping steering wheels, feet playing with the pedals, changing radio stations, fuming, steam, rage . . .            The locks are still going up and down and I can’t help it anymore. I’m going to scream.            ‘For fucks sake, shut it.’In the silence that comes before her tears I’m already regretting and I’m thinking that being a mother is all about regrets and responsibilities and never being able to forget anything anymore, except yourself. It’s yourself that’s so hard to remember. So I’m regretting and trying to avoid the looks of the people in the car in front who’ve heard me scream and who no doubt wonder about me.

On winter mornings the darkness lingers. I expect my children to wake with the light, later each morning, until the solstice, but that isn’t what happens. Instead they wake early, 6am, 5am, sometimes even 4am, and shuffle around the house in the cold, waiting for the sun, expecting breakfast and stories and warm fires from me. Every winter I make up rules. Tell them they mustn’t wake so early. Tell them it isn’t fair. Tell them I won’t. But I always do.

They try. For minutes at a time they hold back their restless energy and lie in bed, searching their senses for morning clues. They listen for the stillness before dawn, the distant rush of cars, birds stirring, a change in the feel of things. . . They listen until the exquisite pain of anticipation propels them out of bed and into the new day.

This morning though, I am given a reprieve. My son’s breath is steady, his mouth open, sleep has claimed him once again. It’s still dark and will be for hours yet. But I am awake now and restless. I need the toilet. My arm is going numb where his head lies, cutting off my circulation. For a moment I wonder about that, how much heavier we become in sleep. How much there is inside our heads. How much we don’t use. I think about weight too, how there are different kinds of weight. The sort we measure on a scale, and the other sort. The heaviness that some people carry around them – their shadows filled with the past. I’m restless, but I’m putting off the inevitable. Whoever heard of waking a sleeping child? My oldest daughter cries out and I tense, then wait poised, but it’s quiet again. A passing fear.

There is nothing heavy about my children, no shadows weighing them down, and I wish I could always keep it this way. I wish I could ward off the troubles of life, keep them safe and pure. . . but we each have our own journeys to make and I am here only to guide them. Often though, I suspect they are already wiser than me. I tell time by my children, counting the moments I still have. They tell time by embracing life. Days, months, years, slip through my fingers, while they fill each moment with themselves. I reach back into the past, strain forward into the future. They live in the now. The way one should.

I lie awake, feeling the weight of my own shadows, my mind flitting from one thought to the next. I worry about a conversation I had yesterday. Why did I say that? I plan dinner, write a shopping list in my head, think about the bills, relive a conversation with my mother, one I’ve never yet had but probably should, panic about outfits for the school fancy dress ball, nudge my husband until he stops snoring and feel guilty because I’m not up already, using this rare solitary time for something more useful. But what sweet comfort, to be sandwiched gently between my husband and my son on this cold morning, feeling my son’s breath warm upon my cheek. How could I possibly regret anything so precious?

It’s no good though, my arm is hurting and I have to move it. I try to do this gently, hoping I can slip it out from under my son’s head without disturbing him. But he wakes and smiles at me, a face so clear I can see it in the almost dark.

‘Best mum,’ he says.

Then.

‘Mummy, lets talk about mysteries.’

‘Mysteries?’

He’s sitting up, eyes bright, mind spinning with possibilities and I’m amazed at how smooth his transition is between sleeping and waking. I’m slow, dragging myself out of unconsciousness, grasping uselessly at my dreams which slip effortlessly away, tantalisingly out of reach. My brain stays fuddled, but he’s bright. He’s here. Now. And I want him to always be like that.

‘You know. . Infinite space, imaginary numbers. . . What’s underneath a whirlpool?. . . Inside a blackhole?

I think about blackholes. How scary they sound, the way they absorb energy, their appetite insatiable. Humanity is like that, sucking up the earth’s energy. And there are individuals too, those people we call vampires, who deplete others of their life energy, sucking, sucking, trying to fill the empty space inside themselves. The more they suck the hungrier they are, that’s the irony of it. But for every vampire there is someone who radiates positive energy. Someone to whom others gravitate.

‘Mum,’ says my son, nudging me.

‘Most galaxies,’ I tell him, ‘have a supermassive black hole in their centre, a bit like a giant plug hole. Some of them are as big as billions of suns put together.’

His eyes are wide with wonder.

‘Is that as big as infinity?’ he asks.

‘No, infinity is bigger than anything.’

‘Like families,’ he says.

‘Families?’ I ask, puzzled, then wait while he thinks, loving the little furrow on his forehead and the far away look in his eyes.

‘The way they go on forever, both ways. . . grandma and great grandma and us . . and then we’ll have kids. . . and so will they. . .’

Slowly it’s dawning on me, the beautiful thing that my son has achieved. He’s connected space and time with infinity.

‘Yes!’ I say. ‘Yes, that’s exactly it.

Then I clamour about in my memory for more wonders to feed my insatiable son.

‘As the stars and planets get closer to it they speed up, faster and faster, and when they speed up like that, then time speeds up too, until a year is only twenty or thirty days. . . Imagine that, you’d have a birthday every few weeks.’

He laughs out loud at this and then is quiet again. He’s counting, calculating the present potential.

‘And there’s a theory that these supermassive black holes shoot out jets of matter, sometimes millions of light years long. . . ‘

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. Perhaps they throw up the bits they don’t want. Or maybe they recycle all the old negative energy and spit out fresh clean matter. Isn’t that a lovely thought.’

My son is quiet, he’s storing it, a special sweet to savour. I know he wants more, but already I’ve reached the limits of my black hole knowledge and my daughters are waking. The stillness is being taken over by activity: lights flicking on and off, the toilet flushing, someone blowing their nose. It’s time to get up. Reluctantly I leave the warmth of my bed for the shock of a cold toilet seat. Then fumble about in the dark looking for slippers, woolly socks and a jacket. The chores are about to begin: breakfast, packed lunches, teeth, faces, clean undies, shoe laces. . . But first there’s the frosty trip outside for wood, the grass frozen solid, crunching under my feet, as I breathe steamy dragon breaths and ignore my shivering for long enough to stand staring up at the Milky Way, wondering at the universe once again after all these years of forgetting. . .

Another gift from my children.

All day

I hold them close.