The Last Supper (23 page)

Later, back in England, I often think of that place, of Hélène and her mother and the
maison de jeux
. Sometimes, though we have changed many things, our life at home takes on its old appearance of fixity and predetermination. I feel the old turbulence, the disunity with the actual. It is usually then, if I do remember her, that I will remember Hélène. I remember that I am not the victim of perception. I remember her air of combat, her awkwardness, her strange violent eyes. She recognised me, as I did her. Such moments are like paintings: they do not take much account of time. They pass straight through it. They sever its tangled fibres. They pass through the heart of an instant, on their way somewhere else.

Rachel Cusk was born in 1967. She has won the Whitbread First Novel Award and the Somerset Maugham Award, and her novel
Arlington Park
was shortlisted for the 2007 Orange Prize for Fiction. Her non-fiction book
A Life’s Work
was published to huge acclaim in 2001, and her most recent novel,
The Bradshaw Variations
, was published in 2009. In 2003 she was chosen as one of
Granta’s
Best Young Novelists. She lives in Brighton.