The Life of Lee Read Online Free Page A

someone else entirely. We lived in a state of constant fear about when he would next blow his top.
    Dad’s rages only added to our sense of being outsiders. Because of his insecurities, he would drill us never to ask for anything. Whenever we met someone new, we were taught to say ‘please’, ‘thank you’ and – above all – ‘sorry’. We were never allowed to connect properly with anyone, and that made us feel cut off from the world. That’s why I kept myself to myself as a child, terrified of stepping out of line. I would play the fool, but only to mask my innate shyness. I lived in mortal terror of standing out from the crowd, in case I was doing something wrong. I was a textbook misfit. If there was an instruction booklet on how to be one, I could have written it.
    Dad was never far from snapping. When he was at home in Bristol, he was unable to relax properly. He was always irritable, always fretting about where the next meal was coming from. His mind was constantly plagued by anxiety. He would sit in the chair bouncing his leg up and down, biting his nails, moaning or shouting at the telly. In his presence, you were constantly treading on eggshells.
    Whenever I was out and about with him as a kid, I always felt things could flare up at any moment. His mood fluctuated wildly. Sometimes Wayne and I walked down the street with him having the time of our life. But it would only take one tiny incident for him to explode. Hehad no blue touch paper – he was a spontaneously combusting rocket. He would never just let it lie. He was like a Jack Russell; once his teeth sank into you, they were never going to let go. That was the prevailing storm force in the house when we were kids – and it left us feeling bewildered and bedraggled.

    Dad in the army, stationed in Bristol.
    Dad viewed the world through cynical, angry eyes and had a sardonic way about him that could be hurtful. It was not nice to witness in those days. But, seen from afar, his rages must have seemed quite comical. So people would often be doubled up with laughter at his desperate, self-defeating attempts to gain respect.
    You knew when he was about to blow a fuse because his whole body would change. A spasm of irritation would cross his face and he would stretch his neck forward, pulling his shoulders back. Then he would bunch up his fists so tight that his knuckles would turn white. At the same time, his wild glare was magnified by thick glasses that made his eyes look like rolling hubcaps on a clown’s car. The final tell-tale sign he was about to blow was that he would calmly push his glasses back up his nose with his finger. Then – boom! – ‘Right, that’s it!’
    And he was off.
    Terror would permeate every part of my body at those moments. It wasn’t just Dad’s fury that scared me, but the sounds that always accompanied his eruptions. Hearing Mum desperately screaming his name over and over a few feet away – as if she were the increasingly unhinged corner-man standing behind the ropes at a prize fight – only seemed to inflame his demons even more.
    These outbursts would always come out of nothing.A perfectly innocent remark would set Dad off on an expletive-laden excursion into the land of the red mist. It was as if I had pulled the pin from a hand grenade or flicked an angry switch. Nowadays I would find it really funny, but back then it was pretty scary.
    If we went anywhere by car, for example, there was always the risk of an explosion. Once behind the wheel, in an instant Dad could metamorphose into a raging bull. As we drove along, we would watch him change from a mild-mannered, hilariously funny man into a shrieking maniac. Mum would sit, terrified, in the passenger’s seat next to him, living in fear of the next flare-up.
    I remember on one occasion, some smart-suited commuter driving a flash motor made the terrible mistake of inadvertently cutting Dad up at a roundabout. That was it. Dad was instantaneously livid. His