Selima Hill

I am the wife of the man who won first prize. I am not wearing my new shoes which, though smarter, are not as comfortable as these. I must stand well. ‘He’s a very sensitive guy. I’d really like to meet him.’ ‘Yes, he’s obviously been through a lot ...’

Because the paint is spread so thick the paintings look like toast. Shoals of visitors move in and...

She comes into the garden to take the washing in. She raises her arms

to her husband’s shirts like a worshipper, and then she makes a lovely pile of them.

Wings, sails, copes, you are folded and ready to be ironed ...

And now she stands, becalmed, with the cold washing cradled in her arms.

‘Your uncle’s here!’ my mother called, ‘Are you ready?’ The taxi was waiting to take us to our weekly swimming lessons. I drove through Marylebone like a VIP, my immaculate uncle close beside me, smelling of soap and peppermint ... He crouched on the edge of the pool and shouted ‘One, two!One, two!’as I struggled with the water like a kitten. I kept...

I appear like a bird from nowhere. I have a new name. I am as clean as a whistle. I beat the buttermilk in big while bowls until it is smooth. I wash the pearly plates under the tap, and fifty canvas bumpers and fifty socks. They drip in the sun below grey mountains like the moon’s.

Each night I lift the children in their sleep and hold out the china pot for them: ‘Wilt thu pissa,...

1

What a picture! She has tucked her wild-looking chicken under her arm and stares out over what seems to be a mountain pass on a windy day. She is wearing a blue linen dress the colour of summer. She reminds me of Brünnhilde – alone, bronzed, unfamiliar. She doesn’t look like anybody’s mother.

2

She used to love dancing. She went to the Chelsea Ball dressed as a...