I have a snapshot of the two of us: late on a summer afternoon we’re playing in an inflatable wading pool. You can see in our faces that the water has gone cold, the sun too low now. I remember the day: my sister Moira, in the risible frilled bathing-suit of 1959, had deliberately leaned on the side of the pool and let the water out. After she’d done this ten times, I tried to drown her. That night I found my bed had been filled with giant rusting nails.
Between Moira and me there is love and fear and crankiness. And always her stubbornness. Before her stubbornness unfolded, gigantic, we played happily together. She Felix and I Poindexter.
At times I had to protect her.
To read this in full, take out a subscription to Granta. Over forty years of new writing at your fingertips – subscribe now.
Sign in to Granta.com.
