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It’s exceedingly difficult to have a conversation in my family, the sensitivities are too great and easily to stumble over like trip-wire or mines in a minefield. This was especially so upon visits to see my mum and dad in their wee flat in Enfield. Almost before I’d put down my travel bag my dad would want to converse about some new modern jazz tape or CD he’d bought or the philosophy or Modern Art classes he was attending. My mother would want to talk about almost anything other than these things and a tension would ensue immediately. This could go to almost comic extremes.

“Schopenhauer we were discussing the other day and life as perception.”

God knew what he expected me to say to this, but he expected the same enthusiasm for debate that he had (ever since I’d won a dubious First in History, he came to expect me to know everything about everything and would look deflated and puzzled when I apparently didn’t.)

Meanwhile, my mother would be rushing about in a flurry of anxiety showing me new tea-trays she’d bought, did I want another cushion? how was my journey? and was I ready for tea/soup/flank mutton sandwiches or a quarter gram of heroin to elevate me out of this strange madness.

There was no negotiating through this emotional snooker that I’d been landed with. Go with the one, upset the other, go with the other and, well?

“David doesn’t want to talk about that, Bob. He’s just in the door.”

My da would look astonished, an expression of hurt wonder on his face.

“Only trying to have a talk with the boy, Jean”

And so the mood was set from the off. My father could emanate when he had a mind to and you really didn’t want to be in his presence when he did. Don’t get me wrong, there was no violence or the threat of it, just the ambiance of hurt and displeasure with the turn of events.

His emanations very rarely lasted long, and he would shake himself and begin again, Schopenhauer forgotten for the moment. I felt stymied between them. Who were these people, these parents I loved but couldn’t communicate with? Why were they such poles apart but yet seeming soul mates? And why did this strange dynamic keep occurring? One time when I was visiting with a girlfriend. We had motored up to Ayr from Birkenhead. My mother and father had rented a wee two-room place for us  he had his finger on the ‘Start’ button of his tape machine and played a Weather Report album as soon as we entered the room. No ‘Hiya’ and ‘Good to see you’. We were all evidently to begin the visit by listening to jazz fusion.