How I came to be

There are all sorts of myths surrounding how I came to be. The first one concerns how my parents met. She was sitting on a park bench, wearing a red dress. My father was wearing a red jumper. He strolled over to her, and said ‘Hello, I’m an alcoholic.’ It seems unlikely that this was true, because he was never an alcoholic when I was growing up. In fact, he never drank at all.

According to my mum, she must have been feeling a bit strange that day, because she didn’t get up and leave, or tell him to fuck off, or sidle along to the other end of the bench and put her book up to her face.

What she actually did was say ‘Oh. Nice day, isn’t it?’ She doesn’t really remember the rest of the conversation. Perhaps it was so inconsequential that memory saw no need to record it. Perhaps the realisation that this conversation constituted the embarkation of a long and fruitful relationship overrode the mere details of what was said.

My mum only has her memory to conjure up that day. She no longer has the red dress, bought from the boutique with her first pay packet. My father no longer has the red jumper. And the small park where that scene took place was consumed by the town’s shopping centre. The park bench was not one of those bearing an inscription from one who had always loved that place. If people did love that park, or that bench, it was always in an unsung way, until there was no more park to unsing.

In my own imagined memory that day was bright and the dress and jumper the same bright, orange-tinged red, and the meeting like two jigsaw pieces coming together. But who knows? Maybe one was that shade and the other a dingy shade of brick or maroon. Like I said, these are myths.

Another set of myths concerns the day of my birth itself. First of all, I wasn’t born. Not when I should have been. I was as late as possible. I have a vision of myself, curled up all nice and snug in my mother’s red-clad womb, reluctant to enter the harsh reality of the outside world. I have what I imagine to be a very similar feeling each morning when hitting the snooze button.

When I finally did deign to come out, I decided to do so ‘in the wrong way’. My auntie claims it was ‘sideways’, but I’m not sure how that’s even possible, and I don’t really see myself as being that awkward. I prefer to see the delayed entrance as a way of building some extra anticipation.

During this difficult time, my father was not present. It was the custom of men in those days not to be. If anything, it was viewed with suspicion if they were. However, there are conflicting accounts as to where he actually was. Some say the pub. Some say the shed. My own view is that he may have treated the shed as a makeshift pub, or even vice-versa. But according to legend, he was in a sense very much present, for at the exact time that I finally began to push out, my father was violently sick. A result of the unholy mix of whisky and beer? Or a continuation of my parents’ uncanny knack for co-ordination?

I’m sorry if I’m waffling on a bit and if this all seems a bit self-absorbed. I still haven’t told you the ones about the ante-natal classes. Or the scans. And I should really backtrack to tell you something of the dating that led up to the nitty-gritty; the moment of my conception. Speaking of dating, I haven’t had much luck recently. I think men think I talk about myself too much. So I’m trying a new technique today – I’m sitting on a park bench in my lunch hour. And I’m wearing a red jumper.