LITMIR.BIZ

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can’t you be like other men? Surely you don’t need to drink so much all the time. And as for other women, Bill, I won’t tolerate it.’

      Sometimes Dad would call out in his sleep during the night. Later when he’d gone to work Mum explained he was having bad dreams because of his memories of the war. I thought that strange. ‘I never have nightmares about my birth certificate,’ I said.

      Mum smiled. ‘Not those sorts of worries it’s more a style of shell shock.’

      I often awoke to strange creaking noises from the direction of my parents’ bed. Sometimes I heard Mum whisper, ‘Shush, Bill, you’ll wake, John.’

      Dad never spoke back but I could hear him breathing heavily and moving about. He’d open his bedside drawer and then close it again. I lay quietly until it was time to get up for school.

      The argument they’d had about what appeared; as lipstick on his white handkerchief, had never been resolved. Even though Dad swore on his life he’d never played up on Mum, she was not convinced.

      Then one day Dad’s handkerchief had become damp from overuse of him blowing his nose. It found its way in to the same pocket as his Swan Vestas matches for his pipe. Constant rubbing against the box of matches resulted in red dye from the matchbox attaching itself to the handkerchief. Dad showed Mum and she was content to believe the previous occasion may not have been lipstick.

      ‘Who says smoking isn’t injurious to health?’ Dad quipped.

      Mum became upset with talk of another war on the wireless. The name Nasser was mentioned a lot, together with unrest in the Arab world. ‘Oh, Bill.’ Mum broke down in tears. ‘Please tell me you won’t have to go back, not again.

      I couldn’t bear it.’

      Dad consoled Mum. ‘It’ll be all right. I’m sure they’re only sabre rattling but I can’t go back now anyway, Alice. They wouldn’t want me. I’m too old.’

      Mum and Dad cuddled standing up for a long time. After a while they pulled me in with them. We stood like that for what seemed like a long time before I was set with a book to read while they attended to something important for Dad in the bedroom.

      Despite Mum’s concerns Dad continued to visit the US bases. ‘We have to speculate to accumulate,’ he told Mum, ‘diamond solitaire rings are popular with the Yanks. I specialise in big carats for less bucks. You’ll see business is on the up.’

      Dad was proved right.

      He also cut back on his drinking and Mum calmed down. Either he became a Houdini at covering his tracks with other women, or there weren’t any tracks to cover.

      Mum eased up further on Dad when he told her, ‘I worry I’m a target for thieves.

      I’m always carrying diamonds and on the way home US dollars as well, Alice.’

      Mum agreed he should carry his old RAF revolver for protection.

      In my eyes Dad had become John Wayne.

      

      Dad was correct about the sabre rattling routine. After much disturbing talk on the wireless about what would happen to us if there was an atom bomb war it suddenly became old news. I never heard Nasser mentioned again but Mum remained distressed about thoughts of another war.

      After picking at my Brussels sprouts at my grandparents’ meal table one day I complained again about my name. ‘It’s not fair. No-one else is the same as me.’

      Gramps was sympathetic. ‘But in a certain kind of way that makes you special, doesn’t it? In the Bible God changed Peter and Abraham’s names.’

      Gran was thoughtful. ‘It’s also a Jewish belief that to change a person’s name is to change their destiny.’

      ‘That doesn’t help me,’ I wailed.

      Dad pushed back from the table. He puffed deeply on his pipe before he spoke. ‘There’s no need to fuss, Son. It’s simple. As I’ve already told you, I disliked my name so I changed it.’

      Gran frowned. ‘Must have been an intense dislike. You went to considerable trouble to alter it.’

      ‘The change was easy, Mother. Any more questions anyone’s thought of since yesterday?’ Dad asked facetiously.

      I continued cautiously, ‘While Honey isn’t a great name, Hickman doesn’t make me go all warm and fuzzy. Saying it over and over doesn’t mean it sounds any better either.’

      ‘At least Honey’s a short name,’ Gramps said defensively of his own name, ‘unlike Hickman, which was your gran’s maiden name and sounds more like a hiccup.’

      ‘I’ll thank you to leave my name alone. And anyway I don’t like long names.

      And that includes double-barrelled ones that sound more like a fart in the bath. If you felt impelled to change your name, Son, why not select a good one? Something we could all salivate over. After all film stars do it.’

      Dad shook his head and relit his pipe. ‘I felt ownership of the name Hickman.’

      ‘John Wayne had the right idea,’ Gramps interrupted with a smile and a wink at me. ‘He started out as Marion Robert Morrison.’

      ‘He’s done better than me,’ I said.

      Gramps was thoughtful. ‘Times are long gone when a family name reflects a skill or promotes the manner in which someone earns their income. Do you think the man they called Honey kept bees?’

      ‘I’ve had enough of hearing about the name debacle,’ Dad turned to me. ‘Let’s talk about more important things like John’s progress in school.’

      Mum put her hand to her mouth, ‘Oh, goodness, Bill, please don’t. You’ll destroy what little self confidence he has.’

      ‘What self confidence? He’s surely blessed with the attention span of a humming bird, which is why he isn’t doing better at school.’

      ‘Besides his poor eye sight, you mean,’ Mum replied on my behalf. ‘That discovery was made when he had been sitting at the rear of the classroom, and was asked a simple question by his teacher.’

      ‘I know,’ Dad said, ‘you told me. Almost as blind as a bat he’d been unable to read her chalk work on the blackboard. He had no idea of the answer. I get it! In a way she lifted forever his foggy gloom. Doubtless even she thought surely no one can be that fucking stupid?’

      ‘Thankfully in my case she was correct, Dad.’

      ‘No wonder he didn’t know the answers, Bill, he could scarcely see the board let alone distinguish what was written on it.’

      Dad relit his trusty pipe. ‘It’s not good, Alice. Our son is a fuckwit.’

      ‘That’s unfair!’ Mum sounded angry. ‘He only knew diddlysquat because he couldn’t see.’

      Dad quietly puffed his pipe and nodded. ‘Maybe we should get him some private tuition.’

      Mum was supportive. ‘Yes, of course we should. Can’t you see it’s not so much a case of him being a boy with more on his mind than in it, but him simply not knowing what his teacher was pointing at on the board? He couldn’t read the writing, Bill.’

      ‘Then why didn’t he say something?’

      ‘He never spoke up because he’s withdrawn and shy.’

      ‘Thank Christ he’s at last being fitted out with spectacles then, Alice, or he’d have gone through life a complete fucking moron.’

      Silence.

      My new lenses when fitted were encased in heavy pink frames.

      I

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