Memoir Blast — Childhood & Marriage Number Three

 

Memoir Blast — Childhood & Marriage Number Three

Three: Mr V & Lucky

I was about eleven, the age where I’d already been reprimanded from going to Derek’s house because I’d run away once (caught, obviously — that’s another blast). My brothers were there that night, but I refused to go. So I ended up at my auntie and uncle’s house party instead — proper 80's style, everyone in the kitchen, cans of beer, the whole house party as culture thing.   

The whole room was full of barely‑adults themselves — alcohol, children, smoking, dancing — everyone pretending they knew what they were doing.

That’s where I met him.

A kind man in the kitchen.

Tall Paul. Black hair. Huge hands. Ice blue eyes.  (he knew my uncle some how)

I can still see him now — sitting in the window ledge part of the kitchen, flicking his hand through his fringe. Black hair is soft; it never stayed back. It looked like a reflex, nerves or confidence or both.

(He would later become Mr V.)

We talked. He was nice. I remember thinking he’d probably like my mum — and he did. She met him, and that was that. He came home with us that night and never left.

On the Sunday night he discovered the truth:

He thought my mum had one child.

He found out there were four of us.

And we found out he had a girlfriend — lived with her, actually — which meant he couldn’t go home. He chose my mum instead.

I was proud.

I’d found him.

He picked her.

The boys followed.

And he stayed —

a kitchen party conversation that accidentally set the whole trajectory of our family.