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mother.
    She’s of no value , said the old man, sucking in his breath. Then he lit his cigarette and poked the air with it, pronouncing, Woman, nothing is of value in this world if it does not fight.
    The old woman was not listening. She was slightly deaf anyway and distracted by my mother’s trousers, which were still billowing and bloody in the shallows of the river. She reached after them with a stick.
    While the old woman’s back was turned the old man leant in over my mother to examine her. Her brow was heavy and her jaw was sharp and he did not like the look of her. Her dark hair fanned out in a tangle around her and for all he knew she could be some runaway, some murderer—which, in fact, she was.
    He crouched right over her and blew smoke into her face.
    My mother opened her eyes and saw the old man and she did not know what he was but she knew he was danger. She took a gurgling breath and she coughed up something from the depths of her. And then she spat it dead centre between the old man’s eyes.
    The old man went hurtling back, falling onto his dog, who was whimpering and howling. The old man hooked his arm around the dog’s neck and said, Don’t worry your mongrel head. If she does not die here, I will kill her.

MORNING OF MY birth, the sounds of Fitz were indistinguishable against the rain. He was already scraping his boots against the steps before my mother realised he was there.
    She had grown tired in her waiting, but on hearing him she was suddenly awake, suddenly standing on her chair, all seven months pregnant of her, steadying herself against the wall as Fitz wrestled with the handle of the door.
    He flung the door open. It hit the edge of the chair and she could see him pitching back and forth and then there was no time for hesitating.
    Her anger surged within her and pulsed through the wooden handle of the axe, and as Fitz lurched forward she threw the axe across his back and he was so drunk he fell down immediately. He roared and she leapt down from the chair before he could get up and she swung the axe down again across his back and she did not stop swinging till she was certain that he could not walk or lift himself up from the ground ever again.
    Not every day is a good day to be born and whatever bright stars were concealed by clouds that morning and whatever their angle they did not bode well for me. As my mother took the axe to my father a wave rose inside of her and pushed me up and turned me over till I felt sick and deaf to everything. Till I grew cold. When I could not hear her heartbeat I panicked. I kicked and twisted and dug my heels in where I could and then I felt her drop to her knees and, worse, I felt the wild sea inside of her spill out.
    My birth, though too soon, was not an agony. I put all of my weight onto my head and bore down. My mother moved around me and I was a snake sliding out of old skin. And then I thought I heard bells ringing and I fell into the bells of her hands and that was my birth.
    I opened my eyes and thought, Is this life?
    I saw my poor mother gasp at the sight of me. There was just enough light to make me out and I felt her mouth around my mouth and her breathing into me and then spitting out all of that wild sea I had drunk in. And then she shook me from side to side and covered my mouth with her mouth again. And then she grabbed me by the feet and swung me around and smacked my arse, and I thought, Fuck, Houdini! What life is this?
    Then I heard my mother sobbing. She held me in her arms for a while and then she carried me over to my father’s view. I looked into his dark eyes and I saw them grow wide and then I heard a crack as his head hit the floor.
    I saw my reflection in his eyes. Covered in fur, unlovely, I do believe it was the sight of me that finally killed him.
    My mother tried to feed me milk from her breast but no milk would come. She put hot washers over her chest and then she tried to feed me again. But I could