1970 – aged 14 #2
Her dad’s cigarette, smouldering in its little dip on the edge of the chunky glass ashtray, filled the room with its familiar scent, as the sound of Gordon Lightfoot’s song ‘If You Could Read My Mind’ filled the air.
Her dad closed his eyes occasionally and moved his head as if conducting or playing, she wasn’t sure which.
Retrieving his cigarette, he took a long, slow drag, before removing a fleck of tobacco from his bottom lip with his thumb and forefinger.
She watched the end flare red hot and the thin paper snake away, leaving a sausage of ash.
She liked to guess when it might fall, watching it, fascinated.
He lowered the tiny paintbrush that he had only just dipped into the thumb-sized metal paint tin containing a rather lovely shade of yellow and rested it on a chopstick stand he used for the purpose.
About to add details to the fuselage of the Vulcan Bomber Airfix model airplane he had patiently constructed and painted, he paused his efforts.
‘Sorry, Lilly-Bob, I think I must have misheard you.’ He rubbed his forehead.
‘I said, “I’m so boooored.”’
‘Do you know, that’s what I thought you said.
If your gran, my mother, was still alive, she’d whip your hide.
’ He winked, confirming what she knew to be true: that he’d never let anyone whip her hide, or anywhere else for that matter.
‘The reason for my confusion is that you live in the greatest city in the whole wide world. You live in the middle of London – London!’ He laughed, head shaking as if in wonder.
‘This is the city where you can sit by the lake in Kensington Gardens, go boating on the Serpentine in Hyde Park, swim in Hampstead Ponds, take a bus ride and marvel at the finest architecture in the world: Westminster Abbey, St Paul’s, the Royal Mint, the Royal Albert Hall!
Go marvel at the uniforms and headgear on display at Horse Guards Parade, wave to Her Majesty through the gates of Buck House!
Or . . . or . . . take a gander around the British Museum, be dazzled at the V stepping outside, she was more likely to see tower blocks, abandoned docks, rusty ships and dog poo than art!
She didn’t think it prudent to point this out.
‘Do you know how many people right now, all over the world, are looking at the four walls that encase them or their very dull landscape and are dreaming of coming to a city like this? Our city?’
‘I don’t,’ she admitted, running the pad of her thumb over the fraying hem of her shorts.
‘Lots.’ He reached out and ruffled her hair, a habit that irritated her, made her feel like a baby.
‘Lots and lots, and they will be working hard to scrabble together the fare, putting coins in a jar that holds all their dreams and wishes, and you have it all right here on your doorstep. Never take it for granted, Lilly-Bob. Find the joy in it every day. This city is ever-changing. Growing in some places, shrinking in others, but always changing, and what you see today you will never see again, never the exact same! If that’s not a wonder, then I don’t know what is. ’
‘I think I might go and sit out the front and read another book.’ She had Jonathan Livingston Seagull teed up.
‘Good idea! Or you could take one of my old easels and paint what you see? There’s something quite lovely about sitting on the towpath, getting lost in the river, the sounds, the sights . . . Give it some thought.’
‘Thanks, but I think I’ll start my new book.’ Decision made. He was always trying to get her to paint. She didn’t have the heart to tell him that just because he loved it, didn’t mean she did too.
‘Bored!’ He shook his head, made a ‘tsk’ sound and retrieved his thin paintbrush.
It was as she left the room that she caught his expression: one of sheer disappointment or something close to sorrow.
She felt a physical jolt in her gut. It was her very worst thing, the thought of upsetting or displeasing her dad.
She was on his side, fervently on his side.
Her mum had chosen Derek Manners and so Lilly chose him, always.
Sinking back down on to the sofa, she knew she had learned a great lesson.
It wasn’t that she could, if she so wished, visit any number of London landmarks in the pursuit of boats, soldiers, artefacts, apples, coffee, films and paintings, but rather that the next time she was bored, she must not, under any circumstances, mention it to her dad.
With her book in her hands, she looked up through the window at the bright blue sky and felt a wave of emotion and an inexplicable desire to weep at the beauty of it, and at the awful fact that her dad had looked so let down.
The appeal of her book was somewhat diminished.
Keen to make it up to him, her thoughts turned to the river and the idea that maybe she might quite like to paint it, if nothing else to make him smile.
Her dad was, unsurprisingly, where she had left him, nose millimetres from the Vulcan Bomber, his hand steady as he made the tiniest of strokes.
‘Do you know, I think I might have a go at painting the river, Dad. Can you help me set up your easel?’
He looked up at her, his eyes glistening as if to hear these words had moved and delighted him in equal measure. Abandoning his project without hesitation, he almost jumped up from the table.
‘With pleasure, my love, with absolute pleasure!’ He clapped, actually clapped!
And so it began.