No one wants to be a runt, but sometimes being a runt can work out better than not being a runt.
It’s fair to say that I was the runt of the litter. It wasn’t just that I was frail and not quite all there, I also suffered from severe mood swings. Even as a baby. At least, that’s what I’m told – I’d be gleefully happy for brief, sunshine-filled moments, then the merest trifle would send me spiralling into a black hole. Perhaps it was the sherry that did it.
Or it could have been my ultra-competitive ‘alpha male’ brothers, born a year either side of me. They were hungrier, stronger, noisier and cuter than me for a start. It wasn’t a state of affairs I was over the moon about, if you want me to be frank. Mum would confiscate my comfort blanket and strip the crib for my own safety. When I look back, it must have been tough on her having a baby boy on suicide watch at barely 18 months old.
Once I even ate my own shit. The Belgian au pair, Antoinette, was too busy varnishing her nails to notice. I could have grabbed a handful from the potty and smeared it over the kitchen floor, spelling out the words HELP-ME-I-AM-ABOUT-TO-EAT-MY-OWN-SHIT-YOU-DOPEY-BELGIAN-COW, for all the good it would have done. But being a curious toddler, and half-French to boot, the inclination was to stick it in my mouth. I’ve tasted worse. It’s probably on a par with undercooked liver or stewed tripe.
It should have been my first life lesson: if you don’t concentrate and pay attention, you’ll soon find yourself eating shit. But if you don’t concentrate and pay attention, how are you supposed to learn lessons anyway? They say I was a spaced-out kid. I like to call it ‘deep thinking’. It’s hard to tell the two apart sometimes, so let’s just split the difference and call it ‘growing pains’.
The upshot was that as the years rolled by I just got used to the taste. And the funny thing is, almost 40 years later, I still fantasise – from time to time – about Antoinette scooping up my waste with those immaculately manicured fingernails. Of course, she never did, but that’s not the point. Why absorb a boring life lesson when you can dream the light fandango?
