ATDTDA (13): Dally/Dahlia, 353-357

[Paul Nightingale]

An interesting opening to the new section, ".if she ever found Erlys again":
a common enough construction, of course, but read literally it implies a
finding-of that is repeated, the repetition of an original act. Parted from
her mother, Dally has spent the intervening time speculating about what it
would be like to meet her (again), hence the "now-battered copy of
Dishforth's Illustrated Weekly" (351), which in turn echoes the repetitive
nature of Merle's storytelling, eg: "Wait, wait, go back a little, tell me
how that Zombini bird fits in to this again?" (67)

She relates to the family as "some amiable stranger" (353), which reminds us
that she prefers to think of her half-siblings as step-siblings, a question
of emphasis: she studies Erlys "for signs of similarity", although there has
been no indication that she does as much with the Zombini offspring. And cf.
Merle on 28: ". the spit of her Ma"). Hence it comes as no surprise that she
fantasises about this Erlys being a fake, "long ago . switched for the real
Erlys". And then: "Was she being played for a sucker? Were these people not
related at all ." etc.

For Luca it is a "problem" that the sawn-in-half assistant "always gets
reassembled" (354). The "happy ending" exposes the illusion as an illusion,
goes back to before-the-illusion; for Dally, however, there is no such
"happy ending", no "two complete [Erlyses] walking around, who are identical
in every way" (355).

Towards the end of the section Erlys speaks for the first time: "Dahlia"
(356) a return to the 'original' that opens the way to her "fierce and
long-held whisper". Subsequently, with no "smaller Zombini, any Zombini, to
come in and delay this" (357), she discovers an unexpected original version:
parenting is now sawn in half, a division into biological ("my real father")
and social ("your 'real' father, well that is Merle") fatherhood. As a
child, nagging Merle: "Piece by piece . she got some of the story" (67).