Jack 'did a Jack' and missed our father's funeral. He had taken his new girl to the Gargoyle Club the night before and had woken with such a monumental hangover that the train had left Paddington before he was out of bed. Explaining this to my mother on the telephone later in the day, he had boasted not only about the hangover but also about the new girl, who was just seventeen and had a marvellous figure - almost like a boy's. The joke was that he had been given twenty-four hours compassionate leave because of the funeral. 'Father would have been amused,' he said.

LRB 16 July 1981 | PDF Download