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At the time I didn’t understand any of this and simply believed they didn’t like me; however, since then I have begun to sense what it was that made my presence uncongenial. I was unable to dissemble, unable to play a role, and the scholarly earnestness I brought into the house was impossible to keep at arm’s length in the long run, sooner or later even they would have to engage with it, and the resultant disequilibrium, as their banter never demanded anything at all of me, that was what must have made them ring my mother in the end. My presence always made demands on them, either in concrete ways, such as food, for if I went there after school and before football training, I would otherwise have had to last until eight or nine at night without eating,
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