I couldn't've been much higher than that sideboard. You wouldn't think that in a few years Am/d be looking up at me.
She said they were taken when he was a soldier, in the war. There was the two of them sitting on the camel, laughing, Ray in front, Jack behind. And there was Jack all by himself, with his shirt undone, chest bare, holding a ciggy. But I didn't believe her, because I couldn't see what sitting on a camel, laughing, had to do with being a soldier. He was laughing in the other photo too.
I thought, That aint my dad, that aint my dad, laughing.
I said, 'He doesn't look like a soldier.' She said, 'That's why I like the picture.' She didn't explain.
She said it was in the desert, they were in the desert, like Uncle Lenny was too. It was before I was born.
The bananas in the fruit bowl came from Uncle Lenny's.
You had to be grown-up to be a soldier, that's what they said. It was like all the other things you had to be grown-up for, like you had to be grown-up before you could die. Which was a lie. The two things went together because in order to die you had to be brave, and soldiers were brave.
But I know now you don't have to be brave to be a soldier and you don't have to be a soldier to be brave.
'Amy, can I have that photo? Just for a bit'
'Course you can, Vince. You can keep it!
The sun's in his face and he's staring at you, grinning, still alive, like he knows you don't know who he really is. He's staring at you out of that brass frame like he knows he's in another world, peeping out at your one. He's wearing shorts and his shirt's untucked and unbuttoned and there's a tin helmet, tilted, on his head but it looks like it's something he's wearing for fun, and there's sand all around. He doesn't look like a soldier, he doesn't even look grown up. He looks like a kid on a beach.