I said, ‘read me your favourite story.’
‘Really?’
I nodded and so he stretched for the book that lay upon the desk. The cloth binding was a dull orange brown, this edition had no illustrations. Jack asked me if I was comfortable. He supported the book with the hand of the arm that was around my shoulders, my head rested upon his chest so that as well as his heartbeat I could feel the sound vibrations as he spoke. He began to read: ‘Footprints in the snow have been unfailing provokers of sentiment ever since snow was first a white wonder in this drab-coloured world of ours.’
Sometimes, among schoolchildren at that time, you would hear one charging another with an untruth told: ‘You’re a born liar,’ they would accuse.
I suppose that I was a born liar. I did not want to lie, not to Jack. Sometimes, in the times when I was joined to him, I wanted to tell him the truth. Once he paused and asked me, ‘What do you think about, when we’re doing this?… In here… ’ He touched my forehead with his thumb as though there were a smudge there, ‘what are you thinking about, in here, Susie?’
Inside my head I might just have been repeating the diminutives of father over and over again.
‘You,’ I said, ‘just you.’
Because I loved him so much and he told me, often, how happy I made him and how lucky, I never saw that what we did was wrong. But I did know that outsiders would fail to understand. In consequence, I knew that I must absolve him from all possible blame by never telling him the truth. I kept Dad and Daddy dumb, unheard inside me.
How many years ago had it been when Christine Threadgold,thickset and the bully of the junior school, had challenged me at the playground gate. ‘Where’s your dad?’ she demands. Her fringe is ginger and her cardigan salmon pink; already she has the mannerisms of the Battersea mothers, chin up, bottom out.
‘Away at sea,’ I say; so I was a liar even then, ‘he is, he’s away at sea.’ It was an expression I had heard a post office crony of my mother’s use about the husband of some third party whom they disparaged and picked to pieces over the aerograms and parcel labels and the scarlet beaked bottles of Gloy glue.
‘I don’t believe you,’ says Christine and she is echoed by the mothers’ meeting chorus of her supporters. Her own father, small with a Useless Eustace grin and hair soap and water slicked back, is sometimes seen following the Threadgold women through the market stalls of Northcote Road.
‘He is,’ I repeat fervently and look up to the white London sky above the roof lines and chimneys, ‘he really is.’ And tears try to come pushing out with the force of my conviction.
‘My love,’ says Jack when his voice is husky and he takes me into his arms, ‘my love, my own best girl.’
And, born liar that I am, I became most adept at evading any direct questions from him about my home life or family. I had told him that my mother had died in an accident when I was very small. He was gentle and sympathetic, he said, ‘I am so sorry, Susie, it must have been very difficult for you, I’m sure.’ And I, looking beyond his thin kind face, recalled her as she threw the dolls’ cake and told me that he was dead and a useless bastard and let the sketchbook be ruined; I found it hard to conjure any expression of wistfulness. I told Jack that my surname was James, which was Alison’s name. Just as on that first night in the Phene, when I had pictured the Prince of Wales Drive flat for my home, so I pictured Julian’s father for the role of mine. Fleetingly and coincidentally whenever I did so, I gained an understandingof what a good parent Peter was. I said that there was an aunt that stayed sometimes, to look after us. Jack did not ask me very much about them; I guessed that he would have imagined the reaction of my relations to the age difference between us.
When Jack said that I was very bright and should be at university instead of
‘Really?’
I nodded and so he stretched for the book that lay upon the desk. The cloth binding was a dull orange brown, this edition had no illustrations. Jack asked me if I was comfortable. He supported the book with the hand of the arm that was around my shoulders, my head rested upon his chest so that as well as his heartbeat I could feel the sound vibrations as he spoke. He began to read: ‘Footprints in the snow have been unfailing provokers of sentiment ever since snow was first a white wonder in this drab-coloured world of ours.’
Sometimes, among schoolchildren at that time, you would hear one charging another with an untruth told: ‘You’re a born liar,’ they would accuse.
I suppose that I was a born liar. I did not want to lie, not to Jack. Sometimes, in the times when I was joined to him, I wanted to tell him the truth. Once he paused and asked me, ‘What do you think about, when we’re doing this?… In here… ’ He touched my forehead with his thumb as though there were a smudge there, ‘what are you thinking about, in here, Susie?’
Inside my head I might just have been repeating the diminutives of father over and over again.
‘You,’ I said, ‘just you.’
Because I loved him so much and he told me, often, how happy I made him and how lucky, I never saw that what we did was wrong. But I did know that outsiders would fail to understand. In consequence, I knew that I must absolve him from all possible blame by never telling him the truth. I kept Dad and Daddy dumb, unheard inside me.
How many years ago had it been when Christine Threadgold,thickset and the bully of the junior school, had challenged me at the playground gate. ‘Where’s your dad?’ she demands. Her fringe is ginger and her cardigan salmon pink; already she has the mannerisms of the Battersea mothers, chin up, bottom out.
‘Away at sea,’ I say; so I was a liar even then, ‘he is, he’s away at sea.’ It was an expression I had heard a post office crony of my mother’s use about the husband of some third party whom they disparaged and picked to pieces over the aerograms and parcel labels and the scarlet beaked bottles of Gloy glue.
‘I don’t believe you,’ says Christine and she is echoed by the mothers’ meeting chorus of her supporters. Her own father, small with a Useless Eustace grin and hair soap and water slicked back, is sometimes seen following the Threadgold women through the market stalls of Northcote Road.
‘He is,’ I repeat fervently and look up to the white London sky above the roof lines and chimneys, ‘he really is.’ And tears try to come pushing out with the force of my conviction.
‘My love,’ says Jack when his voice is husky and he takes me into his arms, ‘my love, my own best girl.’
And, born liar that I am, I became most adept at evading any direct questions from him about my home life or family. I had told him that my mother had died in an accident when I was very small. He was gentle and sympathetic, he said, ‘I am so sorry, Susie, it must have been very difficult for you, I’m sure.’ And I, looking beyond his thin kind face, recalled her as she threw the dolls’ cake and told me that he was dead and a useless bastard and let the sketchbook be ruined; I found it hard to conjure any expression of wistfulness. I told Jack that my surname was James, which was Alison’s name. Just as on that first night in the Phene, when I had pictured the Prince of Wales Drive flat for my home, so I pictured Julian’s father for the role of mine. Fleetingly and coincidentally whenever I did so, I gained an understandingof what a good parent Peter was. I said that there was an aunt that stayed sometimes, to look after us. Jack did not ask me very much about them; I guessed that he would have imagined the reaction of my relations to the age difference between us.
When Jack said that I was very bright and should be at university instead of
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