Rachel Cusk: Aftermath: On Marriage and Separation

When she gets home she finds her grandmother’s recipe and she makes a big stollen in the kitchenette of her flat. It takes her all evening and half the night. The little room gets so hot she has to open the windows and let the freezing air in. She takes off her sweater and works in her vest, her arms bare. When it’s cooked and cooled she takes a long sharp knife and she cuts it carefully into two equal pieces, and she wraps each piece in muslin and then in foil and then in bright Christmas paper, and she puts the pieces in two boxes to post in the morning, one to the man and one to the woman.

Certain people made it possible for me to write this book and I would like to thank them. My sister Sarah has been my mainstay and friend: for the past year not just her time but also her gift for happiness and family life have been on semi-permanent loan to my household. Russell Celyn Jones has lived through and been instrumental in the creation of these chapters; to him I owe, among so many other things, the notion of aftermath that is the book’s elemental theme. Hannah Griffiths remained endlessly faithful to the feminist principle of autobiographical writing, even when it hurt. Andrew Wylie and Sarah Chalfant continued to treat me as a writer until eventually I became one again. David Rogers, Meg Jensen and Adam Baron of Kingston University were generous colleagues as well as good friends. My parents have been tirelessly supportive, and at a crucial moment provided me with time to write. And thank you most of all to my fine daughters, Albertine and Jessye, who have endured hard times with such dignity and fortitude. It is impossible to meet them and not feel cheered by their triumph over sadness. I am prouder of them than I can say; I hope one day they will read this and feel, at least, not ashamed.