CHAPTER THIRTYLaroche said, out of the blue, that when he was six he saw his stepdad hang his mother over the banisters by her ankles till her teeth rattled, and without thinking Michael said that he once saw his dad hit his mum around the face.
That shut them both up for a bit – the sum total of an afternoon’s conversation.
Looking back, Michael could remember his mother from when he was young – her brisk hands swooping down from on high and wiping his mouth, the wrap of a hot towel around him after bath time, her standing in the kitchen doorway and bursting into tears at the end of a wet afternoon, the birthday cakes she whisked up: the football pitch, the circus, the guitar, the skateboard: elaborate creations that reflected his every passing interest. She made him a star chart for hi
