The other memory was of drawing something long - a thin tube, a piece of cord - between my finger and thumb. I felt that there were lumps inside the tube. The sensation was faintly nasty. One day when I was at least forty I was lying in bed having another go at my half buried past when I saw in detail the coverlet that had been on my cot when I was a baby. This had ribs of twisted white wool running across it, and around the edge was a lace border with small loops in it that I felt if I pulled the coverlet up to my chin. At the same time that I saw these details, I remembered that in this cot I slept beside my parents' bed. One night I heard my parents whispering. Then my mother called my name tentatively-experimentally. I knew that on no account must I answer. The whispering began again and, after a while, my father gave a long, despairing groan. I was surprised at this because I had expected, not him, but my mother to be hurt. It is a pity that I cannot say that, when I recalled all this, the scales fell from my eyes and the meaning of my life was suddenly clear. I merely experienced a pleasant relief as though I had solved a clue in a long-abandoned crossword puzzle. The only practicle use I ever found for this revelation was that it enabled me to answer with certainty one of the questions that doctors and psychologists always asked me. Did my parents ever make love after I was born? I never know how they imagined I would be able to answer, but I could.