Mon 1st August Our mother says infants don’t have language, and this means they don’t have proper memories either, only fragments and broken impressions. But I remember everything. I remember touching his prickly beard when I was a baby, seeking out his lips with my fingertips. As I admired my reflection in the lenses of his glasses, a vast warm mouth would suddenly close over my hand and trap my fingers, making contented munching sounds. His mouth always looked so lonely, tucked away in his beard. **** Wed 3rd August Even though she’s only nine and should be playing proper games with children her own age, my little sister spends most of her time nursing her collection of houseplants. What a ludicrous hobby! Whenever I spy on her through the crack in her bedroom door, I see her crouching on the floor, curly black hair scraped back in a crooked ponytail, taking cuttings, putting seedlings in pots, tending and feeding and watering her specimens, humming made-up tunes to herself. It’s funny to watch her face when she doesn’t know she’s being observed, especially when she’s having a conversation with herself. She looks like a cartoon character: eyebrows up, eyes left, eyebrows down, mouth down, eyes forward, eyebrows up, mouth up. It goes on for ages. Gardening is for OAPs and idiots. I barge into her room while she squats by an untidy row of seed-trays and tell her that I have given her an amusing new nickname. ‘What is it?’ she asks, looking pleased. ‘You’re called Whore from now on,’ I tell her. She protests, whining, saying that she doesn’t want that name. ‘You don’t even know what it means!’ She says it doesn’t sound very nice. After a pause, she asks, ‘what’s it called when someone makes words sound really difficult, like grownup words?’ I search for the right expression. ‘Adulterate.’
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