I think there’s a picture of this scene in the bible my mum gave me.
It was very nice.
The sky was blue, the boat was picturesque.
Everyone was white, of course, and somehow just doing what they were supposed to.
The scene belonged to the world of compulsory chapel twice a day, colouring in the different countries of the Holy Land for scripture class, saying please and thank you at table.
Doing what you were supposed to do. Being who you were supposed to be.
Which I kind of did, more or less, hating myself for wanting to be and do otherwise.
My dad wanted me to be a business man; my step mum wanted me to be an advertising executive. Or else a diplomat.
I sort of reached a compromise between these implausible expectations and the writer I wanted to be by studying for a PhD.
With every expectation of becoming an academic…
But a time came when in order to become myself I had to step off that path.
I became a bus conductor; and then I became a nurse; and my dad had died by the time I finally understood I had to stop being a man.
That was probably just as well.
I had already caused him enough grief and worry…
Revisiting this scene somehow makes me think of that moment: the time I decided not to be good.
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