I win the tiptoe- trialthalon four years running. In through squeaky doors and windows, reading locks and handles like braille, pressing down the half inch of carpet which rubs like amplified sand-paper in the black silence under the thick bathroom door, whilst others threaten to wake. It’s like an awful game. A newer version of a childhood past-time – don’t wake Dad – he’d pretend to sleep and then snap at us when we got too close and we’d run away giggling. It’s the same without the giggling. Now he just stands there, small, old, naked, blinking into the dark. Furious, poisenous, dangerous, like waking a snake. It is so rare that his own exits are so deftly performed. THe most memorable left all the little square panes of glass in the front door cracked like cobwebs – the tarnished letterbox flapping.
