16 FEBRUARY 1985, Page 25

The House

I remember silences: the silence of the bedroom in which someone had gone mad; the silence of corridors where nobody went or came and nothing was ever said; I remember the silence of the backyard at noonday with the cat curled on a stone; the silence of mezzotints leapt at or lapped by shadow when the evening firelight shone; most of all I remember the silence of secrecy: of not knowing what was wrong.

This silence was my mother, clenched on an ancient sorrow, her harsh threnody unsung.

Tony Connor