leisure
MY LOVE LIFE AND OTHER FAILURES
These are recollections of a good friend after our second bottle of Chianti. Names and places have been changed. He was delighted I would be writing about them!
BY ANDREW LICUDI DIPWSET I Disappoint My First Woman…
B
y all accounts I was born on the hottest day that year. It was a leap year. It had started off well enough; a dazzling summer sun surrounded by an intensely blue sky which would have lightened my mother’s mood had it not been for the thunderous clouds on the horizon threatening to extinguish all that was joyful and glorious that morning. When Annie Duncan, village midwife and old maid drove into our gravel driveway, vicious droplets of rain were already battering her shiny, black Austin. My father Ian, who had been waiting nervously under the porch, jumped down opening
the passenger door grabbing the heavy bag of surgical instruments, scrambling after the midwife who had run ahead holding a folded newspaper over her head.
She desperately wanted a girl. That was sixty years ago to the day. My mother never forgave me.
It seems my mother Sarah, after interminable screaming, sweating, grunting, and matter-of-fact instructions from Annie, evicted me from my warm haven like a reluctant tenant from a beloved pied-á-terre. Annie Duncan, holding me up and with a rare smile on her face exclaimed she had never seen a newborn with such large testicles.
A Girl I Never Meet Ends Up Hating Me
Her husband, it seems, rarely washes, smells like their cow and is prone to violent moods.
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“It’s a miracle!” added Annie cackling.
My mother, wide-eyed, started to sob unconsolably refusing to hold me in that first hug of motherly-love.
When Jakub rattles my letterbox this morning, we both know I won’t open the door and ask him in for a cup of tea. He, more than me, would feel awkward and tongue-tied having looked through his pile of letters and padded envelopes looking for a non-existent birthday card. I quickly place my ear against the cold door waiting for Jakub’s footsteps to recede into the distance, only then do I relax bending down to pick the lone manila-envelope on the shabby lino of my tiny hallway. Over numerous cups of PG Tips I have come to know Jakub well. He is a strong, well-built, young man with grey eyes and a friendly GIBRALTAR MAGAZINE MAY 2020
