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your finger out, my girl!” if I’m being lazy, for example. Or if I wake up in the night feeling a bit wimpish and scared she’ll whisper, “Don’t you worry, my lovey! You hang on in there. It’ll all come right in the end.” And that makes me feel stronger and gives me some bottle.
    It is strange to reflect that if I had had a dad the same as other people, I might never have gone to live with Gran. I loved my Gran so much! I wish she hadn’t died. I know that everybody has to, sooner or later, but when it happens it is so sad to know that you can never see the person again. Not until you die yourself, and then you will meet in the afterlife and it will be as if no time at all has passed, as if it was just yesterday.
    This at least is what I believe.

7. Reflections

    Your parents got married when they were students,
but you never met your dad.

I ’ve never even met him. My own dad! He and Mum stopped being in love with each other before I was born. I think that is so sad, when people stop being in love with each other. Gran used to say, “I warned them, but they wouldn’t listen.”
    The problem was that they got married when they were too young. That is what Gran used to say. They were students together at drama school and they were only nineteen. But Mum says she doesn’t regret a moment of it. She says that it was wonderful while it lasted. She says that young love is the most passionate and the most romantic kind that there is. I wonder if I shall ever experience it???
    Another thing Mum says, and she always smiles sort of sloppily as she says it, is that “Hari was very good-looking.”
    Hari was my dad. He was Indian. He came from Madras, which I have often looked at on the map.

    Just in case one day I might bump into him in the street and not know who he was, though unfortunately I don’t think this is very likely as he went back home to India and Mum thinks this is where he probably stayed. She says his mum and dad didn’t like it when he came to England to be a drama student. Also they didn’t like it when he married Mum. It wasn’t because they didn’t like English people, just that they would have liked it better if he had married an Indian lady.
    I expect by now he probably has. I think she will be very beautiful and have a red spot in the middle of her forehead and wear a sari and that they will have four children.

    I wish I could have met him just once! How lovely it would be if he woke up one day and said, “I think I will go and visit my daughter in England.” And then he would turn up, all handsome, on the doorstep, and people would wonder, “Who is that gorgeous man?” and will not realise he is my dad!
    Maybe when I am on television they will be able to find him and he will fly over specially to appear on the programme!
    The name Banaras is a particularly special sort of name as it is another way of spelling Benares, which is the Holy City of the Hindus. Mum suggested once that I might like to change my name to something more English so that people wouldn’t call me Bananas all the time. She said, “You could change to Danny’s name, if you wanted.” But Danny’s name is Martin, and Martin is an
ordinary
name.
    I like being called after a holy city! And Mum never changed her name. At least, she did for when she has to sign cheques or anything official. Then she’s Marianne Martin. But when she’s on TV or being interviewed she’s Marianne Jacobs, the same as she always was. So I am going to stay as I am!
    Violet used to have this dog that was a cross between a German sausage and a Yorkshire terrier.
    I am a cross between Indian and English.
    I am also a cross between Hindu and Jewish. My dad was Hindu and my mum is Jewish. I think that is interesting. The Hindu religion is very colourful, it has Lord Krishna and lots of gods with names such as Siva and Vishnu. It also has Diwali, which is the Festival of Lights. You can buy nice cards at Diwali and send them to your Hindu