Read Something I'm Not for Free Online Page B

elasticity; removing all the air bubbles to stop the pot exploding in the kiln, which he did by slamming it down on his table, and which I was allowed to do when I got bigger, cutting it in half with cheese wire to check for further air bubbles, and kneading it like bread.
    Perched on the corner of Dad’s table, or rather on piles of colour supplements, I’d watch him preparing the wheel – wetting the plate, kicking the pedal, getting it to the right speed. Once he was sitting comfortably with his thighs either side, he would slam the clay on to the plate, right in the middle, never missing. Then he’d kick the pedal, cradle the clay, and slop water gently over it, monitoring it closely, keeping his body firm (letting the clay know who’s boss, he called it); and from nowhere a smooth ball would emerge, and then a glistening cone, a stalagmite. And then, using his left hand to keep things steady, he used his right middle finger and thumb to create a well in the clay, pulling it up, slowly, carefully, until he had the shape he wanted.
    I have a couple of those vases still.
    I turn over. Beside me, Matt emits the settled breaths of deep sleep. I feel an ache in my chest. I long to cradle his head, and stroke the short, sandy hairs on his earlobes, or the butterscotch skin of his shoulders – like an object of holy reverence whose halo shines too brightly. I hesitate to reach out. I loved my dad and he is gone.
    Finally, Matt opens his eyes. I like to think his sixth sense knew I was watching. He grins at me, and reaches out to wipe away some tears with a finger. ‘So sad,’ he whispers.
    I sort of nod into the pillow.
    â€˜How long have you been crying?’ he whispers.
    It’s a simple question, with a solid answer. It makes Matt seem very wise, very safe; a sage who has been around for centuries. It’s how I know I can tell Matt anything, and he will not be destroyed, by my guilt, by my pain. I want to speak, but I keep remembering my father’s last chat with me, telling me he’d phone this weekend. I want to punch the headboard. Instead, I can feel more tears leaking out. Matt pulls me to him, and strokes my hair over and over again.
    *
    After Matt’s sister died, Matt’s mother struggled to leave her bedroom. When she did, it was to snap at Phoebe, or to take long baths. And yet to Matt it was as though she had for ever locked away a part of herself in the wardrobe – the part that used to laugh, and smile, and make orange curd, and sunbathe at the pool. Sometimes she got dressed, sometimes she didn’t; she shouted at her husband, and harangued the garden boys: the proteas had leaf blight, the bobotie was too dry, the sun was too hot, too cold.
    At first, Matt was the only one she never shouted at. When he came home in the afternoon from school, she would look into his eyes and ask about his achievements, before rushing off to lie down. Over time, he found it necessary to up his game, to be not just a member of the cricket team but to be its captain, if he was to feel her touch at all; and avoid the lingering fear that he might be dismissed, like his sister.
    Matt was sent to school in England when he was eleven; his paternal grandparents had now emigrated there, and they were paying. By then his mother was taking a variety of pills, which she complained made her mouth dry, or gave her insomnia. Every year, around Harvest Festival, she would announce that she was done with them for good, and make a show of throwing them away. Within two or three days she could be found on her hands and knees, sobbing uncontrollably, and a doctor had to drive twenty kilometres out to the farm to sedate her, and tweak her medication. And Matt would return home for the holidays to find a woman he barely recognised.
    When he was fifteen, Matt won the science prize – a book of Freud’s collected works. In his study, beneath a poster for
Led Zeppelin IV
, he’d lie on