Prologue · c. 1987 · age about 3
The Ham Sandwich
My earliest memory is a ham sandwich. Not a face. Not a birthday. A ham sandwich.
I was sat on the doorstep. It was sunny. My brother and sister were at school.
So the step, the sunshine and the sandwich were all mine. White bread, ham, cut into triangles, because triangles taste better. I was about three, and the path down to the gate was a very long way from where I was sitting.
I made that sandwich last. A bite, then a good long look at everything: the sun, the red door with its snapping letterbox, the milk bottles nobody had brought in yet. A bite, then the crumbs for a sparrow that had clearly done this before.
Then a wander, all the way to the gate. The street looked enormous. It wasn't. I was just small. I didn't go through. I just wanted to know I could.
Back on the step, one bite left. And then the memory whites out into sunlight, the way the good ones do.
