In those days I was groaning under a burden of truth. In my family, as in so many, an active censorship bore on both past and present. There were things you could say in the house, but not out of the house; perhaps there was a third category of things you could say in the garden. It is hard for a child to learn where the boundaries are, and also difficult not to be in the wrong place when adults utter what they regret. Aged eight or so, I seemed to lose my hearing for a year. Anything you said, I asked in a tone of hard incredulity to have repeated: “What?” I must have developed a protective filter, because in time I could hear again. The voice continued to say “What?” but it spoke inside. There were things you knew but must study to unknow, and things that could only be said allegorically. By way of allegory, a child might have a symptom. My brother couldn’t catch his breath. No chance of saying the wrong thing, when you couldn’t even breathe.

Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self-…, loc. 56