by Jane Prinsep

Created on: October 09, 2009   Last Updated: October 11, 2009

Tonight I left. And this time it was for good.

It didn't quite work out because I have already returned, "for good" ending up to mean only 45 minutes or so. The impulsively-packed bag is already stuffed away from view like an embarrassing relative. I must try harder next time.

It all started with an innocent comment. But in a home where exhaustion reigns above all things, and hormone-imbalances are next-in-line, an innocent comment may as well be a nail-bomb. Before you could say "What the...", it had turned into an all-out slanging match of accusations, insults, tantrums and carefully-orchestrated hurtful expressions.

To a symphony of expletives, I dramatically left the building, my bag packed. I drove the short distance to the lake; the beautiful expanse of water that has cleansed my soul so many times before...

1.10 am: Shimmering lights reflect in waters that caress the shoreline of Montreux. It is so beautiful, so utterly magical. And yet, there is something about this time of year, when the nights draw in, that wraps me in a cloak of unease.

I remember walking to the park for my after-school sneaky cigarette. Due to my new "cool" habit, our dog had never been so happy and my mum was surprised by my enthusiastic offers to walk him every evening. A smoker herself, she didn't notice the pack of twenty, the lighter stuffed into my pocket or the smell on my breath and clothes when I returned.

I walked slow laps around the park, puffing away, the dog sniffing in the undergrowth, my Walkman blasting into my eardrums. It was my time to reflect on what it meant to be me. I thought I had problems then; the boy at school I liked, the girl at school I didn't and the clothes I had seen that I wanted.

Strangely, I remember one particular walk extremely well. October 12th, I was ambling back down the main road towards the house and I suddenly was overcome with an overwhelming, inexplicable fear. My legs turned to jelly and my breath quickened. The dog, oblivious to my mood, was disgruntled to feel sudden tugs on his lead, in my vain attempts to get him to walk to heel and hurry home. I needed to get inside, quickly. The only coherent thoughts I remember; "What if something happened to me? How would I cope? How would others cope?"

These thoughts bore no foundation, no explanation. Or so it seemed. I didn't know then that exactly one week later, on Wednesday 19 October 1988, my life, our lives, were to change to irrecoverably. Just as I didn't know that, at that very moment,

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