“I have a friend in school who’s the same,” I said. “She reads science essays for fun.”
It turned out that Sam has read some of Asimov’s science essays, and also owns a book he wrote about the Bible! “It’s a Jewish Atheist book about the Bible, so of course I own it,” he said.
When it got dark, my father bustled up and insisted he’d take us out to eat. We went to a place quite near by, where we ate little pancakes called blinis with smoked salmon and cream cheese, which was absolutely delicious, perhaps the most delicious thing I’ve ever had. Then we had lovely dumplings with cheese and potato in them, which would have been the nicest thing I’d had for months if they hadn’t come after that lovely salty salmon, and then another sort of pancakes with jam inside. Everyone there knew Sam, and kept coming over to say hello and be introduced. It was a bit embarrassing at first, but I soon got used to it because Sam acted as if it was normal. I saw that he lived among these people as if they were family, he lived in community with them.
I like Sam. I was sorry to say goodbye. I wrote down his address and gave him mine in school. I wanted to talk to him about being Jewish and what Sharon had said, and about my thought about being a rice Jew, but I didn’t want to with my father there. He made it awkward. It’s easier with Sam. For one thing, I don’t have to feel grateful to him, and for another, he doesn’t have to feel guilty about me.
We drove to this hotel. It’s not a patch on the one where we used to stay in Pembrokeshire. It’s very anonymous. We’re sharing a room, which I didn’t expect, but as he went down to the bar almost at once, I’ve had the place pretty much to myself. The clocks go back tonight, so an extra hour of sleep!
The Symposium is brill. It’s just like The Last of the Wine, though earlier, of course, when Alkibiades was young. That must have been a great time to be alive.
SUNDAY 28TH OCTOBER 1979
I’m on the train, the big intercity train from London to Cardiff. It goes indiscriminately through countryside and towns, running along its inevitable rail. I sit in the corner of the carriage and nobody takes any notice of me. There’s a cafe car where you can buy awful sandwiches and horrible fizzy drinks or coffee. I bought a Kit Kat, which I am eating very slowly. It’s raining, which makes the countryside look cleaner and the towns dirtier.
It’s also great to be wearing my own clothes. I was yesterday too, but I didn’t notice so much. But sitting here, on my own, looking out of the window, it’s really nice to be wearing jeans and my Tolkien t-shirt instead of that awful uniform.
It’s funny, I write this whole thing mirror, so nobody could read it, but I want to write this next bit double mirror or something, in case, upside-down as well as backwards. The notebook locks. I’m lucky I can write mirror by just using my left hand. With all the practice I get, I’m almost as fast as I am right-handed.
Anyway.
Last night, after I finished writing in here, I read for a bit (World of Ptaavs, Niven) and then put the light out. I fell asleep, but then later he, my father—I really should call him Daniel, it’s his name, and that’s what Sam calls him—Daniel came in, putting the light on and waking me. He was drunk. He was crying. He tried to get into my bed and kiss me, and I had to push him away.
I know I said I was going to be pro-sex, but.
In one way, it’s nice to think that somebody wants me. And touch is nice. Also sex, well, there is no privacy in school, so, but I’d had a chance the night before. (How long does it take? Masturbation is five, ten minutes tops. It never says, in books, how long. Bron and the Spike were at it for hours, but that was exhibition sex.) And I know from Time Enough For Love, which is very explicit on that, that incest isn’t inherently wrong—it’s not as if it really feels as if he’s family. I can’t imagine wanting to with Grampar, ugh! Ugh!!!