Come see me in the real life, talking about this book.
‘You know that phrase, making memories?’ Lyss asks. ‘Well, if I was going to make a memory. I’d knit it.’From What A Stone Can't Feel
‘It depends on the memory,’ I say. Some memories are still and certain; some are as alive and as impossible to catch in your hands as water.
‘It depends,’ says Jessame, ‘whether you want to remember or forget.’‘I’d draw on a blackboard. The most amazing, vivid, beautiful picture, my whole life in one big swirl,’ says Bonnie. ‘Chalk dust flying everywhere.’Lyss smiles.‘Then I’d rub it all out again,’ Bonnie says. We are all quiet for a minute. She asks, ‘What do you think will happen to them, my memories? I mean, what a waste. Don’t you think? What’s the point of them?’Jessame walks out of the room. Sometimes it gets too much. Sometimes one of us just can’t handle it, but we never break down in front of Bonnie.‘I’d knit it,’ Lyss says again. ‘I’d knit the whole history of human memory. And if I made a mistake. I wouldn’t frog it. I’d just keep knitting. I’d make the knots and holes part of the fabric.’
Jessame comes back, pink around the rims of her eyes. She clinches Bonnie in a fierce hug and says, ‘Memories are old news, babe. Over and done with. Who cares? You can’t hug a memory.’‘You okay?’ Bonnie whispers to Jessame and the question kills me. Jessame holds her and holds her.‘What colour?’ I ask Lyss.‘Black,’ she says, knitting. ‘With silver sparkles. Stretching out forever, like a night sky.’‘I’d wear that,’ I say. ‘I’d totally wear that.’
