Nouns Like 'Child' And 'Shadow'

As soon as I could walk I could flee and everyday became an escape from the hissing hatred of my home. Miss’ house became a glowing refuge, a haven of hiding places. Every night she would send me home with a silent look and a smile and every morning I would return. Slipping in without invitation.

I became a half wild creature, creeping about my own house to avoid my parents when they were home and escaping the suffocation of the empty house once they were gone. Somehow school was forgotten, my fourth and fifth birthdays rolled by without any mention of education. It was almost as though my parents forgot that I was a child, and not a shadow. In their eyes I became invisible, missing food and muddy footprints the only sign that I existed at all. They were too wrapped up in their furious relationship to care for their silent offspring.

Despite this neglect I was not stupid. I learnt to speak by listening to their arguments, the radio, the television. I learnt to read with Miss. From crumbling old books with browned pages. She taught me how to copy the letters and write them myself, the order of the alphabet, counting. She was silent but patient. I made each lesson into a game, an adventure in a far off world. With her I was happy.

And when I had to go home I would make up more stories to drown out my fear of their raised voices, bruising hands. I called them ‘parents’ but the word held no affection. Just a noun like ‘dog’ or ‘tree’, a word to distinguish them from others.

It had never yet occurred to me that parents were conventionally seen as an object of love… but then, conventionally, so were children.