Dad’s
letter’s here. Special delivery –
address of sender unknown. Don’t want to
open it. It’s right next to me on the
table. It’s been here for the whole
weekend, unopened. What’s the point? What will it say? To Vinny, from Sir Peter Balfour, hello and
goodbye, supper’s in the supermarket – that’s him. Spends most of his time away. Even more so recently. Yet somehow he’s always been a strong
presence in the house. Know what I
mean? Like a shadow in a dark
corner. An echo down a long corridor. Mother?
Died at birth – my birth, not hers, obviously.
From
time to time, of course, I can always watch Dad on television if I really want
to. In some distant part of the world,
his face filling the screen, his dark piercing eyes, beneath the arching black
eyebrows, staring straight over my shoulder.
You can see him on the trail of a near-extinct Amazonian lizard or a fatally
poisonous snake that hangs its hat only in Congo swamps. Arguing on some talk show about the power of
the reptilian brain. You see, although
the scientific world thinks he’s a complete and utter nutbar, an out-of-sanity
experience, and they’re absolutely right, TV love him. They’re mad about his crazy ideas. He’s a joke.
But a rich joke.
You can
imagine producers sitting around, having a chat, saying things like, “Shall we
get that woman who paints herself pink and yellow stripes, has a tattoo that
says This is not the ass I was born with,
and plays Ghost Riders in the Sky on
an accordion made out of bagels? Or shall
we get Sir Peter in again and get him to repeat all that drivel about how we
could all be changing colour, walking up walls, and catching praying mantises
with our tongues from a distance of three metres – if we only tried a bit
harder?” No contest.Check Amazon for a free download. If you are interested in writing a review, leave me a message and I will email you a free copy.
No comments:
Post a Comment