Nano Day 30+2She shivered, and then she shook her head, her eyes moving unwillingly to the bed.'Not in here, Id,' she said in a low voice.She bent and picked up her sloughed-off clothes, and carried them out of the room, into her own bedroom, and she threw them into a drawer, dirty as they were, and then she sat on her bed with a sudden exhaustion that seemed to occupy her whole body, like an illness.Id sat beside her, close to her, his arm touching her arm and his thigh touching her thigh.'You all right?' he asked.'No,' she said, hoping that one small, quiet word would not be the crack in the dam that would release new torrents of grief.'You
Nano Day 30+15.The funeral, she thought, was supposed to be an ending Anwen sat in the church down by the river, flanked by ranks of people in black, ranks of people that she barely knew, thinking, this is an ending this is an ending a burying, an end to things Id's shoulder jostled her on one side. Her mother was weak against her on the other. There was no high-backed pew filled with mourners before them to protect them from that empty space at the front of the church. It was their knees, draped in black, and an old and worn wooden divider and then nothing between them and God.This is an ending, this should be an endi
Nano Day 30'Well,' he said.He straightened a place mat that had been left on the wooden surface of the table, making it exactly parallel with the edge. He looked down at his hands, then pushed his chair back, and stood up.'Would you like me to stay until the graduation?' he asked, not looking at her. 'Or should I go now?'She faltered, her mouth half open. And then she said, 'I think you should go now. Go up to Durham. You can stay with Mike, can't you?''Yes,' he nodded. 'Yes, I can.'He turned toward the door into the hall, and she said quickly, 'You will let me know your address, won't you? In Canberra?'He hesitated, and then said, 'Of cours
Nano Day 29She turned and looked out to the yard through the window and saw her mother still standing there where she had left her, her eyes on the shippon door. And then she heard a diffident cough in the doorway from the hall, and she turned to see Philip standing there, his hands behind his back with a look of apology on his face.Instantly, uncontrollably, her cheeks fired red, as if her blood was bursting to tell her secret to the one she had betrayed. She smoothed her hands down over her hips, unconsciously trying to neaten the skirt that was already neat enough.'Look,' Philip began in a conciliatory tone, and she smiled instinctively. '
Nano Day 28She sat up, carefully readjusting her bra and pants, looking about for her blouse and the wrap-around skirt she had been wearing that were hanging on the bracken as if it was washday a hundred years ago. She brushed crumbs of soil from her skin with the palms of her hands, and stared at the ground beneath her.'I love him,' she said. 'I do love him.'She looked at Idwal, reacting to his expression of disgust.'You can love more than one person at once,' she said. 'I don't mean that I don't have to choose but I do love him, in a comfortable way ''Oh, yes,' Idwal said. 'Philip's very comfortable. Like a new couch.'Anwen almos
She listens to her musicHer skull is a cavity for notes and wordsspread on the interior as cavemen daubed their homesin dark, misunderstood days,in delicate spindle-brushed timesfragile as mediaeval glass that has been dug from the ground.Her skull is a whispering gallery for slipshod tunesA nave where the gossip is passed around.An arching vault that captures the tremulous voices ofthe aged and the lonely and those close to god and death.Her skull is a dry gourd of curved boneA drum-beat, percussion housefor natives to beat out their messages.A hollow shell, a thrum of life.Her skull is a sounding-house for new ideas.Her eyes see only th