Читать книгу Fitting In - Colin Thompson - Страница 42

SIBLINGS

I always assumed that my father had married again, and he had. I also assumed that he and his new wife undoubtedly had children so somewhere in the world I had half-brothers and sisters.

I even dreamt he might turn up one day and say, ‘Hello, I’m your father and these are your brothers and sisters.’ But it never happened.

Or maybe I would meet someone and we’d chat and then discover we were brother and sister. That never happened either. Yet I was convinced into my mid-forties that I had to have siblings. The odds were strongly for it.

I only met my father once. I was nineteen and just married to Sue and thought I should find him. It was quite difficult, but eventually I tracked him down. It was bad for both of us. We were total strangers and felt so awkward with each other that we never met again. By the time I thought of trying again, I had moved hundreds of miles away.

And then one day, I was standing in the kitchen at Denton Fell and my wife Heather said, ‘Oh by the way, your dad’s dead. I forgot to tell you.’ He was sixty-five.

And that was it. Everyone said he never had any more children, but there is still a little part of me that thinks they’re lying to me. It would be so amazing and wonderful.