I remember another of my mother’s boyfriends. I don’t remember his real name but we called him Prune. He had a face like one. He also had all these war relics hung up on the walls of his home. German helmets and knives and stuff. When he got drunk he used to march around his living room singing war songs. I’m not even sure what side he was on.
We were sat in their favourite drinking hotel one day, I was about 11. He was telling my mother that I walked pincer toed but that I had nice eyes, like I was some deaf and dumb kid sat at this hotel table eating peanuts, which I hated, and drinking lemonade. I remember this wave of heat passing over me. That realisation that someone is talking about you in a way that is not particularly favourable but you’re too young to be allowed to say anything. I remember looking at his ugly prune lined face and thinking about him marching up and down his living room. That made it worse. If such a man thought this then it was probably true.
I think it was around about this time that I realised without realising that some men will always say and some women will always listen. And I would not be one of them.