He’d brought a Sainsbury’s carrier bag full of gifts. I can’t stress how unusual this was – ‘out of character’ doesn’t begin to cover it
It was 2001 and my second and final stepmother was, I think, still trying to civilise my siblings and me – an unbelievably stupid aim. We ranged in age between 10 and 22 when we met her and were already pretty well baked, even the 10-year-old. We spoke to our dad the way we spoke to him, which was to ask him for money and berate him for historical wrongs. It was just our way of saying hello.
He, in turn, constantly replenished the stock of wrongs, forgetting it was Christmas and falling asleep in taramasalata. Once he walked out of a party with all of my 21st birthday presents because he saw a bag with a bottle of vodka in it and didn’t check whether there was anything else in there. I remember calling him from a phone box, saying: “Did you seriously steal my eye shadow?”
