Transit(20)

‘Parents sometimes have a problem with that,’ he said. ‘They have this child that’s a sort of silent witness to their lives, then the child grows up and starts blabbing their secrets all over the place and they don’t like it. I’d say to them: get a dog instead. You had a child but actually what you needed was a dog, something that would love you and obey you but would never say a word, because the thing about a dog,’ he said, ‘is that no matter what you do to it, it will never, ever be able to talk back. I’m getting all heated,’ he added, fanning his face. ‘I’ve actually managed to dry off my own clothes.’

The place where he spent his childhood – just in case anyone here had had the bad manners to turn up without reading his book – was in the north, in a village that didn’t feature on any tourist map nor in the annals of history, though it was probably extensively documented in the files of the local social services department. It was poverty the modern way, everyone living on benefits, obese with boredom and cheap food, and the most important member of the family was the television. Men in that part of the country had a life expectancy of fifty.

‘Though unfortunately,’ he said, ‘my stepfather continues to defy that statistic.’

His mother was given a council house when he was born – ‘one of the many perks,’ he said, ‘of having me in her life’ – and before long was being courted by various men. The house was a desirable corner property, with an extra half a bathroom and a few feet more crappy outside space than its neighbours: the suitors were literally queuing round the block. He didn’t remember the actual arrival of his stepfather, because he was still a baby when it happened; and isn’t that the worst, Julian said, to be hurt by something before you even know what it is. In a sense he was damaged goods before he even became a conscious being. Coming to himself was like opening a Christmas present and finding that what was inside was already broken.

‘Which in our house,’ Julian said, ‘it usually was.’

Before long, his mother and stepfather had two more children of their own, Julian’s half-sisters, and Julian’s status as an outsider, an unwanted burden, was openly admitted as a fact of daily life.

‘It’s funny,’ he said, ‘how when parents do things to their children, it’s as if they think no one can see them. It’s as if the child is an extension of them: when they talk to it, they’re talking to themselves; when they love it, they’re loving themselves; when they hate it, it’s their own self they’re hating. You never know what’s coming next, because whatever it is, it’s coming out of them not you, even if they blame it on you afterwards. Yet you start to think it did come out of you – you can’t help it.’

His stepfather rarely hit him – he’d say that for him: it was his mother who dealt out the beatings. His stepfather’s cruelty was of an altogether more refined variety. He would go to any length to underscore Julian’s inferiority, questioning his entitlement to food and drink, clothing, even to occupying the house itself. You almost had to feel sorry for him, Julian said, counting the chips to make sure I didn’t get too many. And that obsession, that cruelty, was a kind of attention in a way. It inculcated in Julian the belief that he was special, because the fact of his existence was made noticeable in everything that happened. And that fact was becoming increasingly unbearable to his stepfather, who only didn’t hit him, Julian now realised, because he knew that if he started he wouldn’t be able to stop.

At the bottom of the garden there was a shed which nobody used – his stepfather wasn’t exactly the DIY type – and which was basically full of old junk; Julian couldn’t remember exactly when this shed became his permanent home, but it must have been after he’d started school, because he remembers his mother making him promise not to say anything to the teachers. But from a certain point Julian was no longer allowed in the house: a space was cleared out there for a mattress on the floor, his meals were brought out to him, and he was locked inside.

‘A lot of writers like sheds,’ Julian said thoughtfully. ‘They use them to work in – they like the privacy.’ He paused, while a faint ripple of uncertain laughter rose and died away again. ‘A Shed of One’s Own,’ he added. ‘I did consider that as a title.’

He wasn’t going to say much about what he felt in those years – which lasted until he was around eight and was readmitted, he didn’t know how or why, to the routine cruelty of the house – the fear, the physical discomfort, the animal-like contrivances he came up with to survive it: that stuff was all in the book. Writing it had been both a torment and a relief, like pulling a knife out of his own chest: he didn’t want to do it, but he knew that if he left it there the pain would be worse in the long term. He made the decision to show it to his family, to his mother and also to his half-sisters: at first, his mother accused him of making it all up. And part of him almost believed her: the problem with being honest, he said, is that you’re slow to realise that other people can lie. It wasn’t until one of his half-sisters corroborated his story with her own memories that the subject became open. What followed were months of negotiation: it was like the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, but without the assistance of Kofi Annan; there had been some unpleasant scenes. He wasn’t obliged to get his family’s permission but he wanted it anyway, because it wasn’t enough for it to be simply his truth, his point of view. Point of view, he said, is like those couples who cut the sofa in two when they get divorced: there’s no sofa any more, but at least you can call it fair.