"You have such a blatant stare,' she said, 'but I have watched you as closely as you have watched me. It's what mothers do. We watch our children. We know our gaze is powerful so we pretend not to look.'

She had catalogued over a billion words but she could not find words for how her own wishes for herself had been dispersed in the winds and storms of a world not arranged to her advantage.

My love for my mother is like an axe. It cuts very deep.

Where did I learn to express indignation I did not feel, my voice veering up the scales to land on a note which could be described as accusing? Where did I learn to adopt an attitude that I do not believe in? And what about the word Beloved?

I want to get away from the kinship structures that are supposed to hold me together. To mess up the story I have been told about myself. To hold the story upside down by its tail.

I want to get away from the kinship structures that are supposed to hold me together. To mess up the story I have been told about myself. To hold the story upside down by its tail.

As if she were folding her growing child back into her womb in the way an aeroplane folds its wheels back into its body after take-off.

I want a bigger life.

My laptop has all my life in it and knows more about me than anyone else.

So what I am saying is that if it is broken, so am I.

The door to the concrete terrace on the beach opened of its own accord. A breeze filled the room. A warm desert breeze carrying with it the deep, salt smell of seaweed and hot sand. The waves were crashing on the beach, the table on the terrace had my laptop resting on it. the night stars made in China were open under the real night stars in Spain. All summer, I had been moonwalking in the digital Milky Way. It's calm there. But I am not calm. My mind is like the edge of motorways where foxes eat the owls at night. In the starfields, with their faintly glowing paths running across the screen, I have been making footprints in the dust and glitter of the virtual universe. It never occurred to me that, like the medusa, technology stares back and that its gaze might have petrified me, made me fearful to come down, down to Earth, where all the hard stuff happens, down to the check-out tills and the barcodes and the too many words for profit and the not enough words for pain.

The door to the concrete terrace on the beach opened of its own accord. A breeze filled the room. A warm desert breeze carrying with it the deep, salt smell of seaweed and hot sand. The waves were crashing on the beach, the table on the terrace had my laptop resting on it. the night stars made in China were open under the real night stars in Spain. All summer, I had been moonwalking in the digital Milky Way. It's calm there. But I am not calm. My mind is like the edge of motorways where foxes eat the owls at night. In the starfields, with their faintly glowing paths running across the screen, I have been making footprints in the dust and glitter of the virtual universe. It never occurred to me that, like the medusa, technology stares back and that its gaze might have petrified me, made me fearful to come down, down to Earth, where all the hard stuff happens, down to the check-out tills and the barcodes and the too many words for profit and the not enough words for pain.

By the time I had finally climbed down the mountain path that led to the beach, I had journeyed as far from myself as I have ever been, far, far away from any landmarks I recognized.

I was flesh thirst desire dust blood lips cracking feet blistered knees skinned hips bruised, but I was so happy not to be napping on a sota under a blanket with an older man by my side and a baby on my lap.

By the time I had finally climbed down the mountain path that led to the beach, I had journeyed as far from myself as I have ever been, far, far away from any landmarks I recognized.

I was flesh thirst desire dust blood lips cracking feet blistered knees skinned hips bruised, but I was so happy not to be napping on a sota under a blanket with an older man by my side and a baby on my lap.

Vanquishing Sofia

All is calm. All is quiet. The sun is rising. A black column of smoke is coiling in the sky. There has been an explosion somewhere far away. I set off on a hike in the mountains as Gómez had advised, surrendering to the harsh landscape, discovering its detail, the perfect form of the small succulents growing between rocks, the lustre of their skin, their geometry and fleshiness. A bottle of water was stashed in my rucksack, headphones clamped over my ears as I listened to an opera, Akhnaten, by Philip Glass. I wanted big music like fire to burn away the random terror that was crawling under my skin. Lizards flashed under my trainers as I walked away from the black smoke in the sky and into the arid valley, heading in the direction of what looked like the ruins of an ancient Arabian castle. After about an hour I stopped to rest in their shade and look for a trace of the path that would take me back to the beach.

She was waiting for me in the distance.

Ingrid sat astride the Andalusian in her helmet and boots. High in the dizzying sky an eagle spread its wings and circled the horse. The delirium of the music thundered through my headphones as she gal- loped towards me. Her upper arms were muscled, her long hair braided, she gripped the horse with her thighs and the sea glittered below the mountains.

Vanquishing Sofia

All is calm. All is quiet. The sun is rising. A black column of smoke is coiling in the sky. There has been an explosion somewhere far away. I set off on a hike in the mountains as Gómez had advised, surrendering to the harsh landscape, discovering its detail, the perfect form of the small succulents growing between rocks, the lustre of their skin, their geometry and fleshiness. A bottle of water was stashed in my rucksack, headphones clamped over my ears as I listened to an opera, Akhnaten, by Philip Glass. I wanted big music like fire to burn away the random terror that was crawling under my skin. Lizards flashed under my trainers as I walked away from the black smoke in the sky and into the arid valley, heading in the direction of what looked like the ruins of an ancient Arabian castle. After about an hour I stopped to rest in their shade and look for a trace of the path that would take me back to the beach.

She was waiting for me in the distance.

Ingrid sat astride the Andalusian in her helmet and boots. High in the dizzying sky an eagle spread its wings and circled the horse. The delirium of the music thundered through my headphones as she gal- loped towards me. Her upper arms were muscled, her long hair braided, she gripped the horse with her thighs and the sea glittered below the mountains.

The hot rocks. The transparent sea. The medusas are in abeyance. They have disappeared from the ocean today. Where have they gone? My face is pressed down on the white pebbles. I am naked apart from the glass sliver near my eyebrow. I no longer want to know what anything means.

The heat of the white pebbles warms my belly, the salty sea leaves white streaks on my brown skin. It is paradise, but I am not happy. I am like the dog that used to belong to Pablo. History is the dark magician inside us, tearing at our liver. There is a whole day to kill on the Beach of the Dead.

The hot rocks. The transparent sea. The medusas are in abeyance. They have disappeared from the ocean today. Where have they gone? My face is pressed down on the white pebbles. I am naked apart from the glass sliver near my eyebrow. I no longer want to know what anything means.

The heat of the white pebbles warms my belly, the salty sea leaves white streaks on my brown skin. It is paradise, but I am not happy. I am like the dog that used to belong to Pablo. History is the dark magician inside us, tearing at our liver. There is a whole day to kill on the Beach of the Dead.

Horseplay

The Kiss. We don't talk about it but it's there in the coconut ice cream we are making together. It's there in the space between us as Ingrid scrapes the seeds from a vanilla pod with her penknife. It's lurking in her long eyelids and in the egg yolks and cream and it's written in blue silken thread with the needle that is Ingrid's mind. I don't know what I want from Ingrid or why she enjoys humiliating me or why I put up with it.

It seems that I have consented to being undermined.

This had to be the final journey and I think my mother knew that, too.

We had traveled a long way from home. To be here at last in this curved corridor with its amber veins threading through the walls felt like a pilgrimage of sorts, a last chance.

This was another style of walking, entirely free of pain, of attachment to kin, of compromise.

It was a relief to pass Rose over to someone else.

Yes, we are limping together. I am twenty-five and I am limping with my mother to keep in step with her. My legs are her legs.

I gazed at the deep blue Mediterranean below the mountain and felt at peace.