Read The Storyteller's Daughter for Free Online Page B

Strange Customs from Around the World, The Tale of the Jiggly-Wop. I pull this last one out and study the aged cover, wondering what a work of fiction is doing in there with all my other educational books. This had been my mother’s favourite book when she was a little girl, and I recall her reading it to me when I was about six-years-old. It was my favourite, too, back then, but I could have sworn I had thrown it out along with every other storybook I owned. It was the silliest of fairytales, full of talking animals and other ludicrous products of the imagination that could only serve to pollute my mind and lead me astray. I thought I had dumped it in the bin along with Alice in Wonderland , The Hobbit, and every other piece of nonsense my mother had subjected me to in a bid to rot my common sense, but obviously it managed to escape my mission of destruction. I listened to this story so many times that I can still remember the words.
    â€˜In a land far away, there lived a creature that didn’t know quite what it was… ’
    I run my fingers over the front cover, tracing the outlines of the strange Jiggy-Wop beast: his elephant ears, his feathery cheeks, his flowing mane, his zebra-striped body, his webbed feet… for a moment a smile plays at the edges of my mouth before I pull myself together and chuck the book into the wastepaper bin.
    â€œNo wonder children are so stupid,” I mutter.
    Over a dinner of lasagne with fresh salad straight from the garden my mother witters on about her vegetable patch and Rick Stein and sea bass and turnips, anything to prevent me from questioning her about her illness.
    â€œMother,” I finally interrupt, “how are you feeling?”
    â€œWonderful,” she says cheerfully, quickly standing up and clearing the table.
    â€œReally?”
    â€œOf course.”
    â€œYou’ve lost a bit of weight, haven’t you?” I suggest in what must be the understatement of the year.
    â€œYou know, I do seem to have lost a few pounds,” she says, tugging at the gaping waistband of her long, purple skirt. “I’ve had to tighten the elastic on this a couple of times now.” She bunches the waistband together in her fist, shakes her head and looks genuinely baffled. “I did need to lose a few pounds though,” she says, more cheerfully “too many puds. You know what I’m like.”
    â€œHave you seen Dr Bloomberg lately?”
    â€œYes, just last week,” she says, plonking the dishes in a sink full of lemon-scented suds.
    â€œAnd?”
    â€œAnd what?”
    â€œAnd what did he say?”
    â€œOh, nothing much. You know how he waffles on. Now, I made treacle tart or chocolate mousse for desert. Which would you like?”
    I shake my head slowly, incredulously, but she refuses to look at me. “Whatever,” I mumble.
    The next morning I awake to the smell of sausages and bacon. For one dreamy moment, tucked up under my old pink sheets in the narrow bed with the sinking mattress, I imagine I’m a little girl again in our North London flat. I can feel the warmth of the morning sunshine stealing through the gap in the curtains, and I imagine I am running across Hampstead Heath, my mother holding her arms wide open, ready to catch me.
    But suddenly I feel the hand at my throat, fingers rough and calloused against my soft skin, squeezing, constricting, pressing against my windpipe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe! And someone is shouting at me, words I can’t decipher.
    I sit up with a start, gasping for air, clutching at my throat ready to prise away the hands that are choking me. It’s always the same, this horrible dream. I can’t see anyone. There’s no face, just this voice – deep and angry – and this feeling of suffocation. And the smell. The sweet, stomach-churning smell of raw meat. I almost told Mark about it the other day, such was my desire to share it with