Bokelskere.no

And because that's the way life seems to work sometimes, it was while I sat unpicking Mum's secrets with the sister from whom she most wished to keep them, that my dad had his heart attack.

She came back a snob. There, I've said it. She went away one of us and she came back a snob.

I don't know much about siblings, but I'm quite sure no two sisters have ever been less alike. Mum is reserved, Rita is not; Mum favours neat-as-a-pin court shoes, Rita serves breakfast in heels; Mum is a locked vault when it comes to family stories, Rita is the willing font of all knowledge. I know this firsthand.

Her silence was excruciating and I was aware suddenly of the murmur of cafe noise around us, the jarring thwack of the coffee basket being emptied, the grinder whirring, shrill laughter somewhere on the mezzanine. I seemed to be hearing it all at one remove, though, as if Mum and I were quite separate, encased in our own bubble.

I always thought of him as a little like King Lear, playing his daughters off, one against the other. It was the first time I'd ever heard my mother reference a character of fiction, and the effect was to derail my train of thought entirely. I wrote my honours thesis on Shakespeare's tragedies and not once did she give any sign that she was familiar with the plays.

It had been Percy's fault; with those cigarettes and her careless manner of smoking them she was a menace to fine fabrics everywhere.

I saw her then, Juniper Blythe, as she stepped from the chill darkness and slowly crossed the corridor towards me.

Just something my mother told me once, I swallowed meekly, about ancient walls that sing the distant hours.

The smell, now I had no choice but to breathe it, didn't seem so bad and I was able to appreciate the Narnia thrill of a hidden doorway in the back of a cupboard.

Fru Bird smilte da jeg kom bort til henne. «Foreldrene våre, de kan forbause oss, ikke sant? Alt det de fant på før vi ble født.»

«Ja,» sa jeg. «Nesten som om de en gang var virkelige mennesker.»