We lived in Sliema at 197 Prince of Wales Road in a two storey apartment reached from a ground floor staircase that curved high and tight upwards. There was a graceful banister that ended in a tight curl at the bottom and it was my ambition to slide down its entire length, but it was forbidden. What if I fell off? What if my little brother copied me? One day, I promised myself, when they are all out except for Tessa, the maid, I would do it. Sometimes I slid one bare leg over the polished wood and felt it glide under its own weight but I daren’t shift my body weight across the centre. I just knew I wouldn’t be able to resist the urge to do it and the marble floor beneath was very hard. Graham had dropped a Dinky toy from upstairs once, not entirely accidentally. It was a breakdown truck and the crane section had bent so he bawled until Daddy straightened it out. Not a mark on the floor though.
This day, I was sliding down the stairs with the top half of my body providing the limiting friction, but my feet on the steps. I had done it several times so I had worked out just how much weight allowed the slight loss of control that made it exciting. A couple of times I had overdone it and spun round, nearly falling backwards down the steps but I had been agile enough to catch the banister with my hands before I went too far. My mother appeared at the top of the stairs.
‘Vivien, I’m going to the shop. Do you want to come?’ she called down to me.
‘Can I stay with Tessa?’ I called back.
I knew that Tessa would be here cleaning all morning, moving from room to room with her bare feet slapping on the stone floors. She had horrified my sister and thrilled me by standing on a huge cockroach on the upstairs landing...