“Beth, Beth, come in quickly before the neighbours see you,” she flusters. “If Mrs Mack at number 22 catches a glimpse, she’ll be straight over with some made-up cookery crisis.”
I flit inside the open door and make a break for the living room. Dad shoots up from his armchair, throwing the paper aside – it doesn’t seem that we’re on the front page today; relegated to an inside spread, I guess.
“Beth!” He lumbers over like an overeager buffalo, crushing me in an awkward embrace until I have to laugh falsely and protest that my ribs are about to crack. He holds me at arms length and scans me from top to toe while Mum wrings her hands in the doorway. “Are you all right, love? Has that man…hurt you?”
“No, really, I’m fine,” I say brightly. “Really. That’s what I wanted you to know. Everything’s fine.”
“Is it true?”
“Some of it,” I say, and mum throws her hands up in the air, lamenting.
“I’d love a cup of tea though,” I entreat. “I’ve been on the train all morning.”
“Yes, yes,” mutters mum, heading to the kitchen. “We need tea.”
*
“So then,” opens mum, pouring the a golden stream of hot liquid from the spout of the teapot, “You said some of it was true. How much of it?”
I take a breath. “I am seeing Professor Sinclair,” I open and there is immediate crashing of crockery.
“AM?” explodes Dad. “As in….present tense? I’ll wring his bloody neck!”
“No, no, please don’t!” I implore. “Dad, I know it looks a bit…fishy…but it’s not. He isn’t the way the papers have made him out to be – there’s much more to him than that. They’ve just picked up on a couple of salacious titbits and…made them look like the whole story.”
“VERY salacious titbits,” Mum points out. “Beth, he’s old enough to be your father and he’s…he’s…well, you know. Not very nice.”
“It’s not true that he sleeps with lots of students,” I tell them. “I’m the first.”
Dad snorts. “So he’s told you.”
“I am! I believe him! And if it hadn’t been for him, I’d have been kicked out of the university by now. He’s helped me so much – academically, financially and…you know…on a personal level.”
“Nothing ever comes for free,” says mum, lips pursed. “I don’t suppose he was doing it out of the goodness of his heart.”
“He was doing it out of love,” I say firmly. “He loves me. And I love him.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” snaps Dad. “You’re a child. You’re infatuated. Flattered that an older man who’s on the telly has taken a shine to you. Wake up, Beth. This is a fantasy.
You’re an ego trip for him and as soon as the novelty wears off, he’ll lose interest.”
Ah, how well I understand this interpretation. It was, after all, my own for quite some time.
“That’s what I thought,” I say quietly. “But I was wrong. He does love me. And I do love him, and not despite of what he is like, but because of it.”
“But he…that video…” says mum brokenly, unable to continue. Dad looks away, repulsed at the mention of this.
“That’s nobody’s business,” I say, discomfited.
“It’s no use, Beth, we can’t accept him. He’s not what we want for you,” says Dad.
“But you want me to be happy, don’t you?”
“That’s why we don’t accept him,” asserts my mother.
“I can’t be happy without him!”
“Oh, less of the Scarlett O’ Bloody Hara, Beth. Of course you can. And that’s an end of it. I don’t want to hear his name mentioned in this house again.”