the balcony. Those eight words explain our lives since. I’m not saying they justify what I did, not at all. I don’t mean I wanted to throw you over the balcony. I mean I was going to. Really. It is so hard to write this.This is what happened. I flung open my bedroom door – it opened outwards – and slid you clean across the polished wooden landing, over the lip of the stairs and out of sight. I froze, but I couldn’t have stopped your fall, not even if I was superhuman. You didn’t cry as you fell. I heard you. Imagine a sack of books falling downstairs. You sounded like that. I waited for you to start screaming, and waited, and waited. Suddenly time moved three times as fast, to catch up with itself. You were lying at the bottom, with blood squirting out of your ear. I can still see you. (I still do, every time I go down any stairs anywhere.) I was hysterical. The ambulance people had to shout at me to stop me jabbering. Then, when I put down the phone, guess what I saw? You were sitting up, licking the blood on your fingers.The ambulanceman said that children go limp sometimes, like rag dolls. That saved you from major damage. The doctor said you were a lucky boy, but he meant I was a lucky woman. The vodka on my breath pretty much shot down my story about you climbing over the stair guard. Actually, we were all of us lucky. I know I was going to kill you, and could have spent the rest of my life in prison. I can’t believe I’m finally writing this. Three days later I paid the nanny a month’s money and told her I was taking you to see your grandmother. I was mentally unfit to raise you and Anju. The rest, you know.I’m not writing this for your sympathy or forgiveness. This story is beyond all that. But the memories even now keep me awake, and showing you them is the only way I know to ease them. I want to get well. I mean——you can tell from the creases, can’t you, I just scrunched this up and threw it at the bin. I didn’t even bother aiming. And guess what? It fell straight in, didn’t even touch the sides. Who knows? Maybe this is one of those times when superstition pays. I’ll go and slip this under Dr Suzuki’s door, before I change my mind again. If you want to call me, phone the number on the letterhead. Up to you. I wish—
Fujifilm is pushing four o’clock. What is the proper way to react to the news that your mother wanted to kill you? After three years of non-communication. I’m used to my mother being out there, somewhere; but not too near. Things are painless that way. If I move anything, I’m afraid it will all start all over again. The only plan I can think of is Do Nothing. If this is a cop-out then, okay, a rubber-stamped ‘Cop-Out’ is my official response. It is my father’s ‘nowhere’ that I can’t handle, not my mother’s ‘somewhere’. I know what I mean even if I can’t put it into words. Cockroach is still struggling. I want to see it. I crawl over to the fridge – so humid tonight. The motel starts vibrating as I pick it up. Cockroach panics. A part of me wants to free it, a part of me wishes it instant death. I force myself to peer in. Bicycling feelers and furious wings! So revolting I drop the motel – it lands on its roof. Now Cockroach is dying upside down, poor shiny bastard, but I don’t want to touch the motel. I look for something to flip it over. I fish in the bin – gingerly, in case Brother of Cockroach is in there – and find the squashed box Cat’s biscuits came in. On Thursday, after I read the letter, I put it down and did nothing for I don’t know how long. I’m about to re-read it when Cat appears. She jumps on my lap and shows me her shoulder. Clotted blood and soft skin shows where a gobbet of fur has been gouged off. ‘You’ve been fighting?’ I forget about the letter for a moment. I don’t know anything about first aid, especially cat first aid, but I think I should disinfect the wound. Of course,