But with him, Daniel, it really is just the consanguinity thing, because we’re strangers really. And that just means contraception, which I would want anyway. I’m only fifteen! And it’s illegal, I think, and it wouldn’t be worth going to prison for. But he seemed to want me, and who else is going to want me, broken as I am? I don’t want to be depraved, but I suppose I probably am. Anyway, I said no before I thought about it, because he was drunk and pathetic. I pushed him away, and he went to sleep in the other bed and snored, loudly, and I lay there thinking about Heinlein and that Sturgeon story in Dangerous Visions, “If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let One Marry Your Sister?” Great title.
This morning, he acted as if it had never happened. We were back to not looking at each other, eating floppy bacon and cold fried eggs in the breakfast buffet in the hotel. He gave me the trainfare and another ten pounds for books. Even if I use some of it for food and busfare, I should be able to buy ten books at least. He’s very odd about money, sometimes acting as if he has none and then just handing it out like that. I have to go back to Shrewsbury next Saturday, because I have to be in school next Sunday night. But that is a week, a whole week away. He’s going to meet me in Shrewsbury station. And Auntie Teg is going to meet me in Cardiff station today. I rang her from Paddington. Meanwhile, I am between, between everything, between worlds, eating a Kit Kat and writing in here. I like trains.
MONDAY 29TH OCTOBER 1979
Half term is not the same time here as it is at Arlinghurst, everyone here was off school last week. Typical. So Auntie Teg is teaching, and all my friends are in school. I got here last night, ate one of Auntie Teg’s cheese pies, and fell asleep straight after dinner.
Today I went into Cardiff and bought books. The thing about Lears is that it has American books. Chapter and Verse is very nice, and I always go there too, but they don’t import. Then there are a number of secondhand bookshops. There’s the one in the Castle Arcade, the one on the Hayes, and the one by the casino that has porn in the back. I think I’m the only person who ever buys the books from the front. They always glare at me, as if I wanted to go into their stupid back room and buy their stupid porn. Or maybe they don’t want to sell the normal books from the front because now they’ll have to get more? I got The Best of Galaxy Volume IV for 10p, and it has a Zelazny story in it.
Then in the evening we went up the valley to see Grampar. He’s out of hospital and in a nursing home called Fedw Hir. Everyone else there is a loony, practically. There’s a man who sits going “Blubba, blubba, blubba,” with his lips, and another one who cries out at intervals. It’s the most horrible depressing place I’ve ever seen in my life, all those old men with their jaws sunken and their eyes dull, sitting on their beds in pajamas and looking as if they’re in death’s anteroom. Grampar is one of the best there. He’s paralysed all down one side, but his other side is as strong as ever, and he can talk. His mind is all there, though his skin isn’t the right colour. His hair has always been grey, ever since I can remember, but now it’s white and there’s a patch in it that looks the colour of curdled milk.
He can talk, though he didn’t have much to say. He’s hoping to come home soon, but Auntie Teg doesn’t think so, though she hopes to have him out for the day at Christmas. She wants me to come, and I said I only would if I don’t have to see my mother at all. I don’t know if we can manage that. Grampar was absolutely thrilled to see me, and wanted to know all about me and what I was doing, and that was awkward, of course. He won’t have Daniel’s name mentioned, not at all ever, he hasn’t let anyone mention it since Daniel abandoned my mother. So of course I can’t say anything about him. But I told him about school, leaving out quite how awful it is and how everyone hates me. I told him about my marks and about the library. He wanted to know if my leg was getting better, and I said it was.
It isn’t. But I realise now it’s nothing. All right, it hurts, but I can walk about. I’m mobile. He’s just stuck there, though he gets some physical therapy, Auntie Teg says.
When we were walking out, Auntie Teg, who goes there often, was saying goodnight to some of the other men, who she knows, and who either didn’t respond or responded inappropriately with howling and stammering. I couldn’t help thinking about Sam, who must be around the same age as these men, and his nice warm room and the piles of books and the electric samovar. He was a person, and these men were just refuse, really, the remains of people. “We have got to get Grampar out of there,” I said.
“Yes, but it’s not that easy. He can’t manage on his own. I could come up at weekends, but he’d need a nurse. It’s very expensive. They’re hoping maybe in the spring.”
“I could live with him and help,” I said, and for a moment it hung there like a little star of hope.
“You need to be in school. And anyway, you couldn’t help him walk. He leans all his weight on the person supporting him.”
She’s right. I’d fold up under that, my leg would give way and we’d both be on the floor.
I should write to him. I can do that, nice cheery letters. Auntie Teg can read them out, it’ll give them something to talk about at visiting time. We have got to get him out of there. It’s incredibly grim. And I thought school was bad.