When Pa Came Home

I was born in my Grandmother's house. In those Duke Ellington Blue Reverie days hospital births were only at a doctor's request, so I was delivered in an upstairs room by the local midwife who no doubt shouted for hot water at the appropriate time just to let the neighbours know what was going on. Pa wasn't there. He was busy on a hospital ship somewhere in the Indian Ocean patching up war-torn bodies.

And so it came to pass that I was brought up in a house that was full of women. My Mother, my Grandmother, my Great Aunt Nellie, who had been widowed during a German bombing raid and my mother's two younger sisters. As far as I can remember, their days were spent knitting jumpers and socks, crocheting table mats and antimacassars or doily things to put ornaments on, sewing and embroidering table cloths, serviettes and pillow cases. I know that I spent hours holding skeins of wool while one of the women wound the wool into huge balls ready for knitting. I don't suppose that I was really aware of men at all until I was three years old.

All this changed when I was told that a man from the war would be coming to the house and that I was to run to the door and say, "Welcome home Daddy."

I stood on the embroidered seat of a dining chair in the front room looking out of the bay window. When the postman came, I lost control of my bladder, ran to the door and greeted him with, "Welcome home Daddy." The same happened when the breadman and the milkman came except that I didn't pee my pants. The excitement had started to wear off and I suppose my bladder was already empty after the the postman episode. I don't recall any of these men reacting strangely to being addressed as Daddy. There had, after all, been a severe shortage of men in the area for the past five or six years. More to the point, I don't remember the exact moment when Pa came home because I'd lost interest and gone off to hide in the back garden.

I do remember that when I finally met the giant stranger who had come from the war with his black hair and glasses, I wanted him to go away again. It was just that I'd got used to all those women.