‘Sometimes I wish I was someone else.’
Bob, having finally got Edna to talk about herself, hesitated then asked: ‘Do you feel…?’
‘Unwanted?’
They were in a pub in Peckham, both sipping warm beer, the nineteen-fifties three days from ending.
‘The next decade’s going to be better,’ Bob said. ‘Attitudes are going to change.’
Continue readingAlright I’ll tell you the score. My old man said I was a mistake, said marrying my mam was a mistake, said his whole bloody life since he first met her was a goddam major mistake.
My mam, knocked up at nineteen, possessed a good catholic heart and insisted on keeping the baby (moi) whilst her old man metaphorically whipped out his shotgun, demanding that my dad do the right thing.
Despite his pleas for adoption (if abortion was out of the question) dad decided to stick it out. At least until I was six years old, before saying: “Fuck this” and vamoosed. Yeah, picture me still with my baby teeth, being told that dad isn’t coming back. He’s not dead or sick, he just isn’t around anymore.
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