Kitabı oku: «Becoming Johnny Vegas», sayfa 2

‘Right, your turn ... shush!’

‘Twist ... shush!’

‘Twist agai—shush!’

‘Twi—shush!’

Watching the BBC Television Centre on telly and thinking it was almost as far away as the Star Wars galaxy, then committing the postcode to memory: ‘W128QT, W128QT, W128QT’

Vowing never again to waste a Saturday morning trying to call Swap Shop.

The look on eagle-eyed Action Man Talking Commander’s face when I brought home my first Star Wars figure –

‘Who’s this?’

‘Just a friend. Nobody special, why?’

‘No reason. I’ll be in my jeep if anybody needs me’

Playing round Alan Hale’s house with his massive collection of Star Wars figures and vehicles –

‘I want your life’

‘What?’

‘I don’t care if you have got Boba Fett, that is not enough troops to bring down an AT-AT!’

My sister Catharine’s fear of moths and the weeks it took gathering twenty dead ones to hide under her duvet –

‘I’m not going back in there, I’m sleeping round Janet’s’

Getting told off by the dentist’s receptionist for ripping a photo of Jimmy Connors from a magazine for my sister to apologise for the moths incident –

‘I just saw you tear it out and put it in your pocket! Magazines cost money, you know. Did you stop to think about the next person who might want to look at Jimmy Connors before an extraction? No, you didn’t, did you? Through there, second door on the right’

Thinking I was drunk after drinking Canada Dry at Father Chris’s ordination party because I’d seen ginger ‘ale’ on the can –

‘The bucket, Dad, in the cupboard, next to the bleach’

‘Michael, bed, now!’

Keeping nicks for Father Turner whilst our Simon helped himself to altar wine –

‘It’s borrowing, and it’s not a real sin ’cos it’s not actually Jesus’s blood yet’

‘Well, give us a bit then’

Martin Hurley getting the holy mother of all rollockings for sticking his tongue out at me with the practice Communion host still stuck to it –

‘This being a rehearsal does not change the fact that by your actions you have pulled a face at God and rejected Jesus Christ Our Lord!’

Losing a chunk of my front tooth when Bryan threw me over his back whilst playing ‘Mad Bryan on the Loose’

Telling Bryan it would be okay after his mam dressed him in short trousers on the first day of junior school

Bryan beating me at maths and spelling in that big test

My mum buying me a comic when I cried my eyes out after losing the egg and spoon race at St Austin’s sports day

Dad making ‘a moral point of order’ at Butlin’s about the amount of rented costumes as opposed to the ingenuity of those put together from items found on site –

‘It has nothing to do with the spirit of fun!’

My mum threatening to call the Queen on me for not wanting to go as Noddy in the fancy dress at the Silver Jubilee street party –

‘Never you mind how I got her number’

‘I told you I wanted to be a Womble’

‘Well, Noddy can pick up litter’

‘It’s not the same!’

‘Well, tough! Your Auntie Marjorie was up half the night sewing secret bells into those shoes ...’

The unmistakable weight and balance of a birthday envelope from Auntie Marjorie containing a classic car, golf trophy, gentleman fly fishing, or grouse shooting with a Labrador-themed card with money sellotaped to the inside of it –

‘Don’t just take the money! Read the card, properly, out loud!’

Uncle Joe’s insistence on filling in every fifth word with ‘doings’ when explaining something technical –

‘So I’ve stripped all the doings right back, cantilevered the cross doing with a strip of two by four doings and carried that through the same all the way along the doings. Do you see?’

My mum rocking and patting me as only she knew how whenever I was ill. There was rhythm to her mothering as beautiful and comforting as any Beatles ballad

My dad giving me a big slug of brandy when I was full of a cold, not knowing Mum had just given me a big dose of adult cough medicine. I fainted just like they do in the movies –

‘He’s going, Lol, he’s going – catch him!’

My dad bringing crisps home from the club and using them to explain the nature of different faiths –

‘So, imagine we’re all stood around this giant, 40-foot bag of crisps. We’re all looking at the same thing, but just from different angles. And people have to be willing to walk around and look at God from other folk’s perspective, rather than stand their ground and dismiss other points of view’

‘Including the Protestants’

‘Aye’

‘Even though they kept their gates’

‘Even though they kept their gates’

My mum bringing back leftover sausage rolls, bits of things on cocktail sticks, and triangular sandwiches, a bit stale around the edge where the bread had been cut. All wrapped in little napkins from a buffet at somebody’s party –

‘What’s this, Mum?’

‘Erm ... pineapple’

‘I don’t like it’

‘Well, leave it on the tissue and I’ll clear it in a bit. Don’t put it in the wicker bin, it’ll smell’

Us moaning because Dad would nab the chicken drumsticks and stick them in his family-sized Stork margarine tub makeshift butty box for work –

‘You have the butties, we’ll have the chicken’

‘When you go to work and I get to go back to school, it’s a deal!’

Getting Dad to sing or recite a poem so we could stay up just that little bit longer, or just hear him talk about his youth, and his family doing singalongs and putting on turns in their Thackery Row parlour. His twinkle when he talked about the nan and granddad we never got to meet. Even Mum getting weary and worrying what the neighbours might think –

‘So I’ll meet ’im later on,

In the place where ’e is gone,

Where it’s always double drill and no canteen;

E’ll be squattin’ on the coals,

Giving drink to poor damned souls,

And I’ll get a swig in Hell from Gunga Din!’

‘Lol, LOL! Get to bed ... you’re drunk’

‘Goodbyeee, goodbyeee,

Save a tear, baby dear,

From your eyeeeee!’

The dream of turning fourteen so I could play on the snooker-tables at St Austin’s Catholic Men’s Society Club

Dad getting slapped when forced to point out to a drunken lady guest that the club’s snooker tables were for men only –

‘You’re more than welcome to partake as a spectator’

‘Sexist pig!’

The mini ploughman’s lunches – two crackers, two onions, one mini slab of Red Leicester – that Jackie Henshall would buy me after his third Saturday afternoon pint before trying to teach me the basics of crown green bowling –

‘Toe’s not broke, just bruised, it’ll be right. Now, next time, yon mon, hold the bowl with two hands, yeah?’

Our Mark’s first Mod jacket, confirming his status as official family rebel. My contemplating cutting fishtails into the back of my kagool.

Hearing Quadrophenia for the first time –

‘You say she’s a virgin, well I’m gonna be the first in!

Her fella’s gonna kill me, wooooooaaaaaaoooh fu—’

‘Michael Pennington, get in here right now and explain to me what you think you just said!’

My mum always being there for us and maintaining a home, sometimes on a pittance, every day that God sent, always managing somehow to fill in the practical gaps that prayers so often seemed to slip through

My dad working every day God sent till Tory policy dictated otherwise, always willing to debate rather than simply dictate, and constantly trying to instill in me the need for patience and tolerance, who loved me even when I went out of my way to be thoroughly detestable –

‘Can I go camping, please?’

‘Nope’

‘Urgh ... I hate you!’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I said I hate yer!’

‘Well, guess what? I love you. I’ve loved you since the moment you were born, and I’ll never stop loving you, and what’s more, you’re stuck with that fact no matter what’

‘So?’

‘So ... hate is a very powerful word, an awful word, and it’s responsible for a lot of the evil and wrongdoing that goes on in this world. And, one day, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not next week, or next month, maybe not for years to come, but one day, you’ll remember saying that to me and it’ll make you so, so sad that you did, and regret’s an awful thing to carry on yer back’

‘I didn’t mean it ... not proper’

‘Then try not saying it unless you do, all right?’

Our Mark trying to mend the inflatable beach-ball I’d won after a school trip to Southport fair with a fork heated over the stove and then trying to get rid of the smell by burning toast and spraying me in Pledge –

‘Why does it have to be me what burnt the toast?’

‘Because you’re little’

‘I said try a plaster first!’

Not that bloke who offered me a drink of real beer if I’d have a wee in front of him –

‘I don’t feel like a wee’

‘You will if ya sups a bit of this?’

‘I’m not supposed have beer’

‘I won’t say nowt’

My mum rushing me home after I started crying because Sharon Carr had kicked me really hard in the shins, and I instinctively knew I couldn’t kick her back, partly because she was a girl, but mainly because she scared me –

‘Are you gonna tell the teachers what she did?’

‘I might have a word with her mam but, trust me Michael, you don’t want it going any further than me, you and the front door’

My fear of fish night when Dad would bring home stinky ‘Finney Haddey’ from the docks, gagging at the sound of him coming through the front door –

‘Why can’t we have a normal chippy night like everyone else?’

‘Action Man wouldn’t ...’

‘Action Man’s gone, Dad. Just answer the question!’

My mum’s baking. Her cherry pies and homemade quiche. Sitting peeling the skins off mushrooms while watching The Waltons with the smell of frying bacon drifting in from the kitchen

SAINTS!! Paying when Dad had the money, or climbing in to see a match when he didn’t. Seeing windows around the town decorated in red and white like a second Christmas whenever they made it to a Challenge Cup final and knowing my town was best at rugby league. And making glass

Setting light to plastic beer-crates to watch the hot gloop spit and drip but having to hide the burn from Mum because she’d go ballistic if she found out we were playing with fire

The Sunday bonfire club and setting light to anything that would burn over Hankey’s Well

Refusing to jump off the roof of St Austin’s Infant School and starting to cry when our Robert tried to motivate me by lying about the police coming –

‘You’ll go to jail and never see me Mam or Dad again’

‘They can come and visit’

‘They’d be too ashamed. Now jump!’

‘I’ll write to them, every day’

‘Suit yourself, ya tart!’

Watching our Mark pour meths on a car and light it then run down the street shouting, ‘Get back! It’s gonna blow!’

Throwing blackberries at car windscreens from the railway wall and hoping some angry bloke would stop the car and give chase

Throwing stuff onto the train tracks on the other side of the railway wall and watching the train demolish it when it left Thatto Heath, despite knowing we’d never be allowed beyond hand’s grasp of our mum’s apron strings again if we were caught playing near there

Climbing down the huge water-meter rule that ran up the side of an empty Hankey’s Well and hating the peer pressure that had prompted me to do so, yet thinking it was like a picture I’d seen of the Colosseum in school once we were down there

A gang of us watching a kid whose name I won’t use for legal reasons wipe his arse on the corner brickwork of our street, then examining the results for worms –

‘Oh my God, that is sick!’

‘What would you know? Girls, eh? Pah!’

‘I think they’ve got a point’

‘Ya girl!’

My dad pulling my pants down and smacking my bum in front of everybody for climbing on the electricity sub-station

Finding a Tom O’Connor cassette over the woods that still worked and listening to it with my dad, both of us laughing even though I wasn’t always sure why –

‘It’s funny ’cos it was true, proper storytelling and with no effing and blinding like most of ’em nowadays!’

Crashing Paul Barnett’s birthday party by pretending to return a bag of sweets our Mark had misplaced at home, just so I could see his Evel Kneivel

Stealing the car from Lee Leyland’s Starsky and Hutch board-game and burying it in our rabbit hutch when guilt got the better of me

Volunteering my pet Blacky when I thought Dad was joking about whose rabbit was going in the pot, until I came home and found him skinned and strung up –

‘I saved you these’

‘What are they?’

‘His ears, tail and feet. They’re meant to bring good luck’

Waiting for Mark to get out of our shared bath so I could pour water on my willy with an empty shampoo bottle because I liked the tingle

Swapping a butty for a sip of the gravy from Chris Ramsdale’s Pot Noodle packed lunch –

‘It must be like this out in space!’

Teaching the whole year how to dance proper to ‘Prince Charming’ by Adam and the Ants –

‘No, it’s right arm up, step, then left arm up and cross, step, right arm down on hip, step, left arm down on hip, step. Sort of swagger when you do it and keep in time or else we’ll all look stupid’

The first time I ever got caned for fighting with Phil Morgan for jumping the queue at break time –

‘And you know why you’re here?’

‘Yes, sir’

‘Yes, sir’

‘And the punishment, as a result?’

‘Yes, sir’

‘Yes, sir’

‘And have you anything to say for yourselves?’

‘No, sir’

‘Yes, sir’

‘What’s that, Pennington?’

‘Did you know that I’m an altar boy, sir?’

‘I do, yes’

‘Okay’

‘Okay. Right, well, altar boys first, then. Hands out, Pennington’

‘Yes, sir’

Thursdays being velvet corduroy trousers day and hating how velvet corduroy felt against my skin, but still feeling guilty when I purposely took the knees out of them

Finding a pound note in the snow and believing my dad when he took it off me and said he was going to take it down to the lost property department at the local police station –

‘But it’s mine if nobody claims it?’

‘Oh, aye’

‘How long does it take before they decide?’

‘About a year, give or take’

‘Will they call as soon as they know?’

‘I should imagine so. Either way, at least you know you did the right thing, eh?’

‘Yeah’

My dad offering me five pence for every book I read and my tear-arsing it down to Thatto Heath library as a result –

‘Noggin the Nog counts as a book!’

‘Don’t try kidding a kidder. There’s too many pictures in that for a lad of your age and intelligence’

‘I can’t wait to get a paper round!’

‘Well, at least you’ll not be short of ow’t to read while you’re doing it’

Believing our Mark when he told me that Beecham’s Clock Tower in St Helens’ town centre was Big Ben

Believing our Mark when he told me that cars drove over the top hump of Runcorn Bridge

Marching through town to protest about a sex shop opening and feeling guilty because it used to be called Pennington’s the Tailor’s –

‘First Benny Hill, now this. What’s the world coming to?’

Busting our stereo by dropping a half-penny down between the cassette buttons and the casing and nearly electrocuting my mum when she needed some time alone with Johnny Mathis

Saying family bidding prayers in front of Archbishop Worlock in the Liverpool Wigwam and thinking –

‘Don’t think it, don’t think it, don’t think it, don’t think it ... but if you shaved the bits of hair off the sides of Derek Worlock and stuck ’em on his face ... he would make a great Ming The Merciless. Sorry, God!’

Gasping on the tarmac while waiting for Pope John Paul to land at Speke Airport with people going mad because some blokes with trolleys were trying to charge 70p for cans of Coke and Fanta –

‘Just one can between us?’

‘No, here, have some of this’

‘It’s warm!’

‘And it’s full of floaters!’

‘Michael ...’

Watching my mum belt our Robert for necking with a random girl whilst Pope John Paul addressed the crowd –

‘You’re a ruddy disgrace. Well, I hope you’re happy with yourself because his blessing did not include you!’

Feeling guilty for folding my one-day, all-zone travel pass and crushing Pope John Paul’s face

The ITV kids’ show Michael Bentine’s Potty Time –

‘Mum, are the patients down the lane potty or mental?’

‘Who?’

‘You know, like that man who shouts bloody bugg—’

‘They’re just not well! Now shush and come get your tea’

Sicking up my mashed carrot and turnip after finding a lumpy bit but having to eat it again because my mum couldn’t tell the difference between vomit and the original –

‘Mum, please, just smell it!’

Trying to imagine being twenty years of age while sitting in the choir at church

Hating the idea of letting go of my belief in Father Christmas, even though deep down I knew I was getting too old for ‘that sort of thing’ –

‘I’ve seen your presents, Mike – they’re in our garage!’

‘La la la la la la la la la la la la la!’

Throwing a strop on Christmas morning because I had to leave my new chalkboard-painting easel and go to church to celebrate the birth of Jesus –

‘Get dressed, now, or this goes straight back to Father Christmas’

‘But why? He doesn’t come to my birthday!’

‘Of course he does, he’s everywhere!’

‘Well, why can’t I play here with him instead?’

‘Because he wants you to go to church, that’s where the party is’

‘Is there cake?’

‘No’

‘Jelly?’

‘No’

‘Then what’s the point when it’s not even a proper party?’

Even the day I nagged Dad relentlessly for an ice cream and he took me outside for a chat –

‘I got laid off today. Do you know what that means?’

‘I think so’

‘Well, then I need you to do me a favour, okay?’

‘Yeah’

‘Take this quid and get yourself something from the van. Only, make it last and don’t ask again for a while’

Stealing all the page threes from the newspapers we collected to raise money for St Austin’s Church, and hiding them in a Kwik Save carrier bag under a brick just behind the garages beside St Matthew’s Church. Not knowing why they made my giblets tingle but convinced that it was naughty, yet not feeling guilty about their god watching me because they still had their railings they’d held back in the war ...

All of these feelings, each and every moment, were (and are) a part of me. All of them, wittily broadened out, would make perfect anecdotes to fill a cheery book of nostalgia ten times over. But they’re paths not travelled by my psycho-Siamesetwin Vegas.

It’s along the abnormal, moody B-roads of my mind where I have to search for the first signs of him. Not an easy task, thanks to his scorched earth policy. Carrie Fisher had her postcards from the edge for evidence; Johnny refused to pay the postage.

It’s a shame, though. I loved my childish existence with all its harmless ups-and-downs, and I didn’t care in the least that nothing at this point in my life felt remarkable. It was innocent and lovely, it was growing up in Hayes Street, Thatto Heath, St Helens. I was eager for a life without incident. I thrived on normality. Or, at least, I thought I did.

PART II

2.
THE WHITE FATHER

I made a decision at the age of ten that I truly believe changed everything, for ever. If you think I’m being dramatic, just ask yourself, did you leave home and loved ones at the age of eleven to go and train to become a priest?

No, thought not.

If you did, or if you experienced something even more detrimental, then I’m sorry for lecturing. I just need to make it clear that this book really begins with the planting of the seed of Johnny Vegas.

I should understand Johnny better than anyone: I created him, for fuck’s sake. Or so I thought. But in fact he was never a character. He was a stockpile of subconscious anger. He was the Midas touch to transform everything that might otherwise have crushed me.

Something had to trigger it. The subconscious is like a shit safari park on a rainy day: you need something big to come along to tempt the beast out and make it play. That’s why my story only really starts at the age of 10 – not at the very beginning, but in 1980.

Everything up to that point was more of a hugely contented false start. But it was from around this time that my feeling of displacement really kicked in – the genesis of what would prove to be an odd lifetime’s out-of-body experience. It sounds daft, I know, but the more I retreated inwards, the stronger the feeling of being alienated from myself would become. And the more at odds I’d feel with life’s expectations of me.

As a kid, I’d always said that I was going to be a priest when I grew up, but in truth I had never given it much serious thought. I reckon it was down to the positive reaction I’d get from people when I told them that I wanted to go into the Church as a career, or that I had ‘a calling’, as most believers referred to it.

I’d always felt a little guilty that God had never actually spoken to me directly and asked me to join his team. (Although I’d later learn that presuming an intimate acquaintance with the big man’s intentions was a necessary tool for keeping control within a seminary.) Still, as I grew older I kept saying it, and I remember enjoying the response it would get. You could hold a room full of grown-ups enthralled with talk of becoming a priest, or even maybe a White Father? No, I’m not sure what a White Father is, either, but I think they’re some sort of missionary – and to the good people of our parish, that ambition seemed even more impressive.

A White Father once came and did a sermon in our church. It was pure fire and brimstone stuff. He ranted from the pulpit about how everyone was in very real danger of going to hell – ‘Everyone!’ If St Austin’s had come equipped with a Tudor priest hole then Canon Tickle (only in unfortunate name, not by nature) would’ve been hurling women and children out of the way to get in it. When this guy got up a head of steam, you’d be forgiven for thinking the Pope himself was capable of shoplifting an oven-ready turkey – ‘That’s why John Paul’s gone to Iceland!’

I mean it. It was the Spinal Tap all the way up to 11, the Enola Gay, the head-popping-out-of-the-boat bit in Jaws, the ‘Let’s get rrrrready to rrrrrumble’, the Godzilla, the Star Wars Death Star, the space shuttle Challenger, the Wall Street Crash, the Hanna Barbera ‘Captain CAAAAAAYAYAYAYAAAAVEMAN!’, the first lesbian kiss on Brookside, the Mount St Helens eruption mother of all kick-ass sermons.

‘Stop right now!’ he screamed at the top of his lungs. ‘What are you actually thinking about right now? WHAT ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT!? And don’t lie ... because HE knows!’

I remember my mum, ashen-faced, telling me afterwards that she was doing her maths on the housekeeping and couldn’t remember whether or not she’d paid the pop man (we used to have it delivered, even after the daft rumour – probably spread by Soda Stream ponces – that staff used to pee in the vats at the Barton’s Pop Christmas party). Fizzy drinks were a luxury never denied us, no matter how tight money got. I think because our pop man wasn’t a faceless corporation, I liked him because he looked like Billy Joel from the Piano Man album cover. I’d imagine him playing a small Bontempi organ in his cab on quiet days and writing songs about all the discontented housewives he delivered dandelion and burdock to.

Anyway, in the middle of Mum balancing her books, this furious force of ecclesiastical nature condemned us all to eternal damnation. Had it been him in Footloose, instead of John Lithgow, he’d have broken Kevin Bacon’s legs with his own ghetto-blaster in the opening credits, before pouring quick-setting cement in his ears.

We were used to our local priest’s ‘softly, softly’ approach. But this White Bull in our chaste little china shop was promising us now’t but the fires of hell. There was no carrot at the end of his schtick. According to him, none of us would ever be good enough for heaven – even his own soul was in constant jeopardy. And yet, rather than scare me, he left a great impression. It was the first time I’d seen someone in a pulpit and thought, ‘If he’s that bothered, then he must be on to something.’

It didn’t just feel like he was going through the motions: ‘Let’s get this over with as quickly as possible so you can make the pub, or get yer roasties on!’ The grown-ups were getting it in the neck just as much as us young offenders. Unilateral guilt! Like a controversial but brilliant stand-up he was both shocking and mesmerising, with 100 per cent conviction in what he said. Imagine Sam Kinison in a white cassock and you’re still not quite there. He wasn’t coaxing the crowd, he was tearing ’em apart with his zealous conviction, forcing them to question the pious comfort zone they’d previously taken for granted.

But still, it wasn’t enough to make me take my own self-proclaimed vocation seriously, even though back then in St Helens religion was a massive part of our lives.

We got stick – sometimes at school, but mainly at our local youth club – for going to church. We were called ‘God squadders’, and the fact that my dad wore a crucifix openly around his neck made for even more grief. We even had to go to BENEDICTION. It wasn’t even a proper mass! I understand it’s about the veneration of the host, the body of Christ, but come on! When you’re young and in the middle of a big game of three pops in ... it felt like Lineker being dragged off the pitch by that turnip at the European Championships when my dad announced it was time to go to Benediction.

Lay-kids understood that Sundays involved some form of commitment as a God-botherer. Even glueys sometimes attended midnight mass – pissed, more probably tripping, but present at least. But nobody – no other kids, not even the majority of parishioners – went to Benediction. It was God’s way of screening for any potential Ned Flanders.

I actually liked us being a church-going family. There was a real sense of community. It had all the ambition of the middle classes, but with a god that didn’t abandon you at the first sign of a fiscal fuck-up. You were encouraged to love thy neighbour, not block their extension because you didn’t want your garden overseen.

There was strength to be drawn from faith, which I witnessed first-hand through my parents. The death of my nan, Mary, had a devastating effect on my mum. It’s an awful thing to see the heart of the family suddenly start to falter as Nan’s had. Mum was always the pragmatist who soldiered on no matter what, but for months afterwards the fight had gone, there was no wind in her sails, and she just appeared to be drifting aimlessly from day to day. Grief, depression, apathy, call it what you will, it’s agonising watching someone you love drowning in sadness but not having the strength of will to come up for air.

Every week, she would sit in church after mass staring into space, or sobbing, head in hands, as we looked on helplessly, ’till Dad ushered us outside. She had things to say to God, to her deceased mum, things she perhaps could not articulate to anybody else. When the fog eventually lifted, Mum would always attribute her emotional survival to her faith. That was what saw her through her darkest hours.

When Dad was made unemployed and every penny coming into the house mattered (although my parents did their best to shield us from this fact), it was his faith that stopped the pride-crushing struggle to make ends meet from getting the better of him. One hot summer’s day, when he’d dragged a huge chunk of scrap metal for what felt like miles on the back of a homemade trolley Uncle Joe had built – taking me along for company despite the fact that all I did was obsess over the ice cream he’d promised me from the profits – I could see the soul-sapping anguish as we got to the scrap-metal yard, only to find it was shut.

It was the point where most folk would be forgiven for quitting, for ranting, cursing and shaking their fist at the sky shouting, ‘Why me, eh, why? What more can I do to do right by those I care for? How much more do you need me to suffer before you’ve proved your point, eh?’ That’s definitely my default setting. But as my dad hung his head in what I thought was surrender, he was actually allowing himself a little prayer time. And when he eventually looked up, I could see his cheery determination was still intact, despite my stupid determination to point out the blatantly obvious.

‘It’s shut, Dad!’

‘I know.’

‘So what are we going to do?’

‘Well, I’m not carting it home, that’s for certain.’

‘So you’re just gonna leave it here?’

‘I am.’

‘But won’t someone else cash it in?’

‘Most likely, but who’s to say their needs won’t be greater than ours, eh?’

‘So, no ice cream?’

‘No, not today, kiddo.’

‘Bit of a wasted trip, then?’

‘Do you see that hill over there?’

And Dad walked me home via a massive detour telling story after story about him, my uncles and my aunties growing up. It turned into one of my fondest memories ever, and we still laugh about it to this day whenever we pass that way in the car. It was Dad’s faith that turned the day around, so why wouldn’t I grow up hoping that I’d inherit that same peace and inner strength?

True, a lot of religion was dogma at that stage, but I presumed faith would come through maturity, like a kind of theological puberty, and that one day the once barren landscape of questions would be full of fluffy answers to all of Life’s great mysteries, trials and tribulations sprouting up all over the place.

Making your first Holy Communion was a really big deal. It was taken for granted that I’d follow my brothers in becoming an altar boy afterwards. Which I did. And there’s no denying there were definite perks to the job.