My father would have loved a son. A cricket-loving, rugger-bugger, jut-jawed, man’s boy would have suited him well. They would have camped without benefit of tents, shot at crocodiles, roared at each other with testoronic fury, and ended up getting sozzled together at the club.
Dang me if he didn’t get three skinny red-headed girls instead. By the time I was born, he had given up all hope of an ally in the home.
“Christ, Poppet!” he must have roared at sight of me squalling like a noisy orange in a pink blanket. “Not another goddamn fucking girl.”
My father was never shy about his language, even in front of his delicate daughters. In fact, my older sister grew up believing that Fucking Chokwe Coon was the name of a Zambian tribe, so frequently did he address the office assistant by that elegant appellation.
My father was outnumbered by women, like an old lion teased by silly young jackals. He tolerated it well, but growled every now and then to show who was boss.
It wouldn’t have been so bad if we girls had been able to catch balls, or run, or take an interest in the local birdlife. But oh no, our mother had to make bloody sissies of us all.
“Christ, Poppet! You’ll turn them into bluestockings!” he yelled one Christmas when our presents turned out to be Art History books. Mine was on the Impressionists, and I still remember each beautiful page.
Pictures, like scents and music, can take you right back to your childhood. I just have to look at Monet’s lovely picture of the cathedral at Rouen, and I’m nine years old again, sitting on the lavatory for hours, studying each painting with the attention that only a child can command. My father tried to counter my mother’s genteel tastes by teaching us rude poems. I taught this one, in my turn, to my own children:
| As cold as a frog on an icebound pool, |
| As cold as the tip of an eskimo’s tool, |
| As cold as the fur on a polar bear’s bum, |
| As cold as an iceberg, chilly and glum. |
| As cold as charity, and that’s pretty chilly, |
| But not as cold as our poor Uncle Willy. |
| He’s dead, poor bastard. |
Like poor Uncle Willy, my father is long dead, although I should imagine it’s not cold where he is. He’s probably roaring “Fucking pansy Beelzebub” at some cowering demon.
