is low. Yes, Colonel Nicholsonâs honour is the most dangerous thing, worse than the jungle, or the Japanese who seem mild and humble in comparison. Watching the film makes me angry. Stupid man, with a rod up his back and a bee in his bonnet about a bridge.
Was Daddy an officer? I donât even know that . How can I be so ignorant? Not ignorant. But where was my curiosity all those years?
I eat my way furiously through half a loaf of bread and swallow a couple of glasses of red wine.
Then, a funny thing. It is over-tiredness surely, and drink, and the way I am focusing my mind. My eyes are on the television, the tape isnât good, keeps jumping, fizzy lines passing across the screen, but still I can follow it. The American, Shears, with his bronzed muscular chest, has survived an escape and stumbled into a Burmese village where he is treated like a king, decked in a flowered garland with a red-and-white-checked tablecloth tucked decently round his waist.
It is not cold in the room. Iâm curled up on the futon with Foxyâs thick jumper round me and the fire on. But suddenly I am cold. Goose-pimples rise on my arms and the back of my neck. My scalp crawls. There is someone else in the room. I canât move. How do I know someone is here? I donât know. In the room with me is a presence. I keep my eyes on the screen. I am frozen. Then I see him. I am not looking at him and I donât move my eyes but in the corner of my eye, by the bookcase beside the television, I see him. Not him exactly but a thickening of the air that is him. I force breath into my lungs. I dare not move my eyes or even blink. I donât want to frighten him away but I am frightened. Very, very slowly and slightly I turn my head and for a moment I do see him. Not his body but the essence of him and I smell his pipe smoke and spicy aftershave.
âDaddy,â I whisper.
He is standing by the bookcase, one hand â or where one hand would be â is on the top of some books.
âDaddy,â I say, not a whisper this time. My mind is scrambling. This is my chance to speak to him, to say good-bye. What should I say? What is the most profound thing to say? I love you, it should be. But I cannot quite ⦠âDaddyâ¦â
He is gone. The chill is gone, the sense of a presence, the tenseness in the air, gone. âDad!â I call. But I know that that is it. I will not see him again.
And I said nothing.
I get up and go to where he was standing. I sniff the air but even the smell of him has not lingered. It feels as if life had stopped, was suspended for an instant and has restarted. Everything is ordinary.
The television seems louder. The soldiers are whistling âColonel Bogeyâ. I canât hear that without the rude words coming into my head. Hitler had only got one ball, the other is in the Albert Hall. His mother, the dirty bugger, cut it o â off, when he â e was small . When I used to sing it I didnât know what it meant. Ball? Or who Hitler was even. I thought it was to do with cricket. Elaineâs mother smacked her for singing it.
Daddy has gone. The wave rises and I clutch thin air. A hot tear rolls down my cheek. I havenât started on the crying yet, the crying that surely there must be. I stand where Daddy stood, one hand on top of the books. My tongue catches the tear and draws it into my mouth. Hot salt. It is the only one. My hand is just where I think his hand was, on a book too big to go on the shelf vertically, that lies horizontally on top. And then I understand. His hand was resting on the Atlas where I left the envelope last time I looked at it. I had been looking at the buff and green page that was South-East Asia, a sprawling land-mass surrounded by grey ocean and pale lacy island trails.
The door opens suddenly and I cry out with fright and drop the Atlas. But it is only Foxy. She is tying the belt of her dressing-gown.
âYou all right?â She
Was Daddy an officer? I donât even know that . How can I be so ignorant? Not ignorant. But where was my curiosity all those years?
I eat my way furiously through half a loaf of bread and swallow a couple of glasses of red wine.
Then, a funny thing. It is over-tiredness surely, and drink, and the way I am focusing my mind. My eyes are on the television, the tape isnât good, keeps jumping, fizzy lines passing across the screen, but still I can follow it. The American, Shears, with his bronzed muscular chest, has survived an escape and stumbled into a Burmese village where he is treated like a king, decked in a flowered garland with a red-and-white-checked tablecloth tucked decently round his waist.
It is not cold in the room. Iâm curled up on the futon with Foxyâs thick jumper round me and the fire on. But suddenly I am cold. Goose-pimples rise on my arms and the back of my neck. My scalp crawls. There is someone else in the room. I canât move. How do I know someone is here? I donât know. In the room with me is a presence. I keep my eyes on the screen. I am frozen. Then I see him. I am not looking at him and I donât move my eyes but in the corner of my eye, by the bookcase beside the television, I see him. Not him exactly but a thickening of the air that is him. I force breath into my lungs. I dare not move my eyes or even blink. I donât want to frighten him away but I am frightened. Very, very slowly and slightly I turn my head and for a moment I do see him. Not his body but the essence of him and I smell his pipe smoke and spicy aftershave.
âDaddy,â I whisper.
He is standing by the bookcase, one hand â or where one hand would be â is on the top of some books.
âDaddy,â I say, not a whisper this time. My mind is scrambling. This is my chance to speak to him, to say good-bye. What should I say? What is the most profound thing to say? I love you, it should be. But I cannot quite ⦠âDaddyâ¦â
He is gone. The chill is gone, the sense of a presence, the tenseness in the air, gone. âDad!â I call. But I know that that is it. I will not see him again.
And I said nothing.
I get up and go to where he was standing. I sniff the air but even the smell of him has not lingered. It feels as if life had stopped, was suspended for an instant and has restarted. Everything is ordinary.
The television seems louder. The soldiers are whistling âColonel Bogeyâ. I canât hear that without the rude words coming into my head. Hitler had only got one ball, the other is in the Albert Hall. His mother, the dirty bugger, cut it o â off, when he â e was small . When I used to sing it I didnât know what it meant. Ball? Or who Hitler was even. I thought it was to do with cricket. Elaineâs mother smacked her for singing it.
Daddy has gone. The wave rises and I clutch thin air. A hot tear rolls down my cheek. I havenât started on the crying yet, the crying that surely there must be. I stand where Daddy stood, one hand on top of the books. My tongue catches the tear and draws it into my mouth. Hot salt. It is the only one. My hand is just where I think his hand was, on a book too big to go on the shelf vertically, that lies horizontally on top. And then I understand. His hand was resting on the Atlas where I left the envelope last time I looked at it. I had been looking at the buff and green page that was South-East Asia, a sprawling land-mass surrounded by grey ocean and pale lacy island trails.
The door opens suddenly and I cry out with fright and drop the Atlas. But it is only Foxy. She is tying the belt of her dressing-gown.
âYou all right?â She
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