since I was little, I always used to crawl into my parents’ bed first thing in the morning, and soak up the family warmth, and if I was having nightmares I’d sleep the whole night with them.
After my parents stopped being a couple, my father sometimes slept in the spare room. I used to get in with him if he was home, because my mother could have me for the rest of the time, and I didn’t want my poor father to feel left out.
One morning when I was cuddled up next to him, kissing him on the cheek, I felt his whole body go rigid, and saw that he’d begun to sweat. I think that I’d been crying about something. He suddenly sighed and said, “Roza, please don’t come into this bed any more. You’re no longer a little girl.”
“But, Papa,” I said, trying to protest, and he stopped me: “Just go back to your room, and don’t argue.”
I felt utterly miserable. At the door I turned to look at him, and my eyes filled with tears, but he’d turned over and was facing the wall.
After that I felt wounded and rejected every time that I saw him, and I sat for hours biting my knuckles and wondering what it was that I’d done wrong. My mind went blank and I couldn’t come up with any answers, but I felt that everything between us had been spoiled.
I poured my heart out to Natasha, and she immediately jumped to the correct conclusion: “Well, you aren’t a little girl any more, and you’re very pretty. Your father may be your father, but he’s still a man. If you put a pretty girl in bed with a man, it’s like putting food in front of a dog. I mean, it’s a temptation.”
“But he’s my father!”
“Yes, but listen. You love him and he loves you, and you’re very pretty, and you’re in the same bed. What do you expect? He had to throw you out, and obviously he couldn’t explain why. If I were you I’d go home and take him a present, and stop getting into bed with him.”
I bought him a calculator. They were a novelty back then, and hadn’t been in the shops at all long. They were still quite expensive. He said, “I’ll always treasure this, even if I never find out how to use it.” In fact his favourite use for it was to prove that he could do the sums quicker by mental arithmetic than I could by pressing the buttons. It became something that we did in order to impress visitors.
He bought me a tape of Françoise Hardy, saying, “I don’t know what kind of rubbish you youngsters are listening to these days, but this might help improve your French.”
I said, “But I’m doing English and Russian,” whereupon he replied, “In that case your French could do with a lot of improving.”
Over the years I got to love that tape, even though I didn’t understand the songs until the Bob Dylan Upstairs talked me through them as we played it one day. Anyway, I liked the sweet sorrowful voice, whether I understood it or not. In the end the tape got chewed up in my cassette player, and I buried its remains in the park because it was too precious to throw away.
When Tasha found the boyfriend, it became difficult for us to spend so much time together. She sent me numerous confidential progress reports, and we spent long hours on the telephone, but I knew that she’d been stolen away, and that her beauty and humour belonged to someone else. The Bob Dylan Upstairs once played me a French song where the singer says that solitude is his most faithful companion, and will be his last, and I recognised the feeling.
I worked hard at my exams, and I went out looking for dogs to throw sticks for, but after Tasha I was very empty in the heart.
THIRTEEN
Poor Daddy
I just didn’t want to be a virgin any more.
W hen I next visited, the door was answered by the Bob Dylan Upstairs, who by now had stopped wearing his black armband, but was still very morose. I’d just heard on my car radio that President Bhutto had been hanged in Pakistan, but I was right to assume that it was something else that was bothering
After my parents stopped being a couple, my father sometimes slept in the spare room. I used to get in with him if he was home, because my mother could have me for the rest of the time, and I didn’t want my poor father to feel left out.
One morning when I was cuddled up next to him, kissing him on the cheek, I felt his whole body go rigid, and saw that he’d begun to sweat. I think that I’d been crying about something. He suddenly sighed and said, “Roza, please don’t come into this bed any more. You’re no longer a little girl.”
“But, Papa,” I said, trying to protest, and he stopped me: “Just go back to your room, and don’t argue.”
I felt utterly miserable. At the door I turned to look at him, and my eyes filled with tears, but he’d turned over and was facing the wall.
After that I felt wounded and rejected every time that I saw him, and I sat for hours biting my knuckles and wondering what it was that I’d done wrong. My mind went blank and I couldn’t come up with any answers, but I felt that everything between us had been spoiled.
I poured my heart out to Natasha, and she immediately jumped to the correct conclusion: “Well, you aren’t a little girl any more, and you’re very pretty. Your father may be your father, but he’s still a man. If you put a pretty girl in bed with a man, it’s like putting food in front of a dog. I mean, it’s a temptation.”
“But he’s my father!”
“Yes, but listen. You love him and he loves you, and you’re very pretty, and you’re in the same bed. What do you expect? He had to throw you out, and obviously he couldn’t explain why. If I were you I’d go home and take him a present, and stop getting into bed with him.”
I bought him a calculator. They were a novelty back then, and hadn’t been in the shops at all long. They were still quite expensive. He said, “I’ll always treasure this, even if I never find out how to use it.” In fact his favourite use for it was to prove that he could do the sums quicker by mental arithmetic than I could by pressing the buttons. It became something that we did in order to impress visitors.
He bought me a tape of Françoise Hardy, saying, “I don’t know what kind of rubbish you youngsters are listening to these days, but this might help improve your French.”
I said, “But I’m doing English and Russian,” whereupon he replied, “In that case your French could do with a lot of improving.”
Over the years I got to love that tape, even though I didn’t understand the songs until the Bob Dylan Upstairs talked me through them as we played it one day. Anyway, I liked the sweet sorrowful voice, whether I understood it or not. In the end the tape got chewed up in my cassette player, and I buried its remains in the park because it was too precious to throw away.
When Tasha found the boyfriend, it became difficult for us to spend so much time together. She sent me numerous confidential progress reports, and we spent long hours on the telephone, but I knew that she’d been stolen away, and that her beauty and humour belonged to someone else. The Bob Dylan Upstairs once played me a French song where the singer says that solitude is his most faithful companion, and will be his last, and I recognised the feeling.
I worked hard at my exams, and I went out looking for dogs to throw sticks for, but after Tasha I was very empty in the heart.
THIRTEEN
Poor Daddy
I just didn’t want to be a virgin any more.
W hen I next visited, the door was answered by the Bob Dylan Upstairs, who by now had stopped wearing his black armband, but was still very morose. I’d just heard on my car radio that President Bhutto had been hanged in Pakistan, but I was right to assume that it was something else that was bothering
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