Pyg

SHE ALREADY HAS A NAME

W hen I turned eight and my brother turned five, our mother treated us to an extra-special birthday present. In fact, it was the best present we ever got as kids.

Bernard and I were born exactly three years apart on the second of April. Not quite fools, but little bastards — at least according to our grandmother.

Despite being a pretty bright lad for my age, the penny didn’t drop until the school Biology syllabus arrived at reproduction and the human gestation period. The enlightening lesson led me to conclude that there must be some significant annual event resulting in our shared birthday. Desperate to get to the bottom of my existential puzzle, I embarked on a detective trail, following clues until the answer became “bloody obvious.” Or at least that was how I’d pitched it when presenting the evidence back to Bernard with my chalkboard-pointing ruler in hand.