heterosaurus homophobus
A play is set in a Georgian country house in Wiltshire owned by the Sergeant family, Miranda, Freddie, and their son Theo. Theo is visiting his parents for the weekend to introduce the new love of his life, Brian.
Miranda
“Have you been to the bathroom Freddie?”
“Have you been to the bathroom Freddie?”
Freddie
“What do you mean, have I been to the bathroom? Yes, I’ve been there many times over the years, it’s a necessity Miranda. Granted, it’s a pleasant enough room, but not one I would define as a bucket list destination. Animals, of course, are at liberty to defecate wherever they choose. Unfortunately, we humans are slaves to bourgeois attitudes regarding our bowels, we require indoctrinated privacy and, according to the French, bidets. Defecation has become an evolutionary defect.”
Miranda
“Oh bugger, I’ve run out of flour. You need to keep yourself regular. Men your age have a habit of getting bunged up. Which reminds me, the gutters need a clear out.”
Freddie
“The human digestive system is a complex biological function, Miranda. The process of peristalsis can’t be hurried along by our ridiculous predetermined schedules. How does flour assist with your slightly disturbing scatological fixation du jour?”
Miranda
“We don’t have any, and I don’t have one. Do you mind if we change the subject?”
Freddie
“Archaeologists are still excavating flour from Egyptian tombs, they even found it buried in the pumice at Pompeii. Flour is ubiquitous; it’s part of our staple diet. One doesn’t run out of flour. That’s absurd.”
Miranda
“Everything just happens miraculously on planet Freddie, doesn’t it? Archaeologists deal with the past; my flour shortage is happening in the here and now. I’ll have to go to the village when Theo arrives. Do you need anything?”
Freddie
“Ah, need. Such a happy looking word, don’t you think? The two eez make lovely smiling eyes, yet it is a tiny innocent word that has the capacity to send whole communities and indeed governments into an absolute frenzy of anxiety. Personally, I need the answer to the question: What is for you great art? Is it Artemisia Gentileschi’s superior renderings of the human form, or is it Ad Reinhardt’s matter than matt black canvases? Or, perhaps for you, it is the innocent smile on a child’s face on Christmas morning. You see, the answer needn’t reference painting at all. It’s a conundrum that has baffled wannabe academics for centuries—in particular, me. May I be so bold as to ask why Theo is coming?”
Miranda
“He’s coming to see you. And me. Brian is coming too. Perhaps I could phone him and ask him to collect some flour on his way here. Problem is he’s a man, so he’d almost certainly arrive here with a bunch of chrysanthemums. Men rarely listen to the details.”
Freddie
“Brian is an odd name. Don’t you think? Google to the rescue. Ah, there was an 11th Century Irish king named Brian Boru who thwarted the Viking attempt to capture Ireland. King Brian of Ireland doesn’t quite cut the mustard somehow. There’s Brian May the guitarist, Brian Epstein, the Beatles’ manager, oh and, Professor Brian Cox yet, without his academic preface he too would be rendered somewhat dull. Fame and fortune are fickle mistresses for the Brians of this world. Are Theo and Brian boning each other?”
Miranda
“Sandra at the pub might have some flour to spare. I don’t like to bother her though what with the menopause and her cat having gone AWOL. I’ll give her a call—it’ll save me a trip to the Post Office and an uncomfortable encounter with Maggie. You know, Maggie is impossible, she hasn’t quite grasped the concept of social distancing in her shop. She tried to kiss me the other day. Unbelievable.”
Freddie
“Bumming was hugely popular at my school, now all these boys seem to be under the illusion that they invented buggery. Imagine the challenges you would face making sodomy illegal nowadays. Why would Maggie want to kiss you?”
Miranda
“Oh, you know Freddie, she’s always been excessively friendly, quite excitable too. We’re having pheasant.”
Freddie
“Lesbians often are overly friendly. Their sexual preferences don’t carry the same negative stigma as they do with men, they’ve got nothing to lose really. Take Virginia Woolf for example. Depression, combined with being a devout lesbian, didn’t harm her literary prowess one iota. Except, of course, she did finally commit suicide which seems quite an excessive conclusion when compared with today’s sexually liberal standards. One tiny pheasant shared between four people sounds a little frugal Miranda, or was it genetically modified in some way?”
Miranda
“Brian is a vegetarian.”
Freddie
“Although my father forced me to join him hunting, I was never fond of shooting for pleasure, or any form of justifiable homicide frankly—all those arrogant tossers wandering around in their tweeds, waving shotguns around. If I were a pheasant, I’d gather my troops, creep into the castles of the landed gentry late at night and peck the bastards’ eyes out. Is the flour for King Brian? You can’t just feed the boy flour.”
Miranda
“Spotted dick, it’s Theo’s favourite, they’ll be staying the whole weekend.”
Freddie
“Vegetarianism has never appealed to me, much in the same way that homosexuality didn’t, you see I wouldn’t be entirely satisfied with either. Although somewhat ironically, I do appreciate a big piece of meat, if you comprehend my somewhat abstract analogy. Spotted dick is rather a heinous name for such a scrumptious dessert. Etymology is a minefield of contradictions. Speaking of penises, e.g., Dominic Cummings; are Theo and King Brian permitted to be here all weekend?”
Miranda
“I made Brian a butternut squash and chickpea curry. Yes, I think we are within the rules of Stay Alert or whatever it is we’re supposed to be doing. Crinoline dresses would help keep us two metres apart, perhaps they ought to make them compulsory too, like a sort of nationwide masked ball. You know how the English love dressing up, most British men can’t wait to slip into a pair of fishnet stockings.”
Freddie
“Toad in the hole is another rather sexually ambiguous delicacy, one might even go as far as to say surreal. A nice fat slimy amphibian poking out of a Yorkshire Pudding. Yummy! Stay. Alert. If Doris Bronson had been more vigilant at the beginning of this horror story, we wouldn’t be in this mess. I suppose in all fairness one can’t point a gun at a virus. Based on his Brexit negotiations, he’s clearly not the man for the job. At least that cave troll Trump has been finally evicted from the White House. Are chickpeas exclusively Greek?”
Miranda
“Ah, there’s Theo’s car just pulling into the drive. Now, while I’m outside saying hello, will you please put some trousers on Freddie.”
Freddie
“Be brave, Miranda. Be brave.”
Theo
“Hi, Mum. Got the text BTW. Here’s your flour. How are you?”
Miranda
“Oh, you know, wading through wet cement. Wouldn’t it be easier to just actually say, by the way, rather than spelling out the letters? Freddie has taken to signing off emails with LOL of late. He thinks it means lots of love.”
Theo
“This is Brian—by the way.”
Miranda
“Hello, Brian, nice to meet you at last. Goodness, aren’t you tall?”
Brian
“Nice to meet you too, Mrs Sergeant.”
Miranda
“Please call me Miranda.”
Brian
“Yes, Miranda and you must call me Bri, everyone does.”
Miranda
“Really? How extraordinary.”
Brian’s voice to audience
“We’ve just arrived on the set of the David Lynch gay re-make of Pride and Prejudice, wherein I play the role of Edward Bennet, unconsciously exposed to the superficiality of society and its glamourised expectations; filmed in black and white to add tension. Do you get the picture? Look at this! It’s not a house, it’s a Town Hall, the kind of place where you’d expect to find Princess Anne mucking out the stables. Houses provide a glimpse into the owners’ psyche, the initial peek at the façade of their personality. Theo is currently occupied with the ubiquitous dog, a golden retriever called Gordon. Don’t ask me why.”
Theo
“How’s Dad?”
Miranda
“Oh Lord, where do I begin? He’s wandered into The Mutterings. You know how sometimes he just sits at the kitchen table gawping at his laptop muttering to Google? God help us when he figures out how to use Cortina.”
Theo
“Cortana Mum, Cortina was a 1970s brand of car.”
Brian
“Cortina is also an Italian village, Mrs Sergeant. Miranda, I mean.”
Miranda
“Oh, I see, as if your father wasn’t enough; I’m now surrounded by pedantic lunatics. Is this to be my destiny, Theo, am I to die in cryptic ignorance? Speaking of pedants, whatever you do today do not under any circumstances mention the book, in fact, don’t make any references to literature at all.”
Brian’s voice to audience
“Note the reference, ‘your father’, spoken with the same disparaging emphasis as ‘your fault’, implying that Theo was somehow responsible for creating the monster that is, Frederick Sergeant, a writer, renowned eccentric, and Lord of the Manor, which is code for infuriating old fart. Theo’s words, not mine. I’ve been dreading this encounter for quite some time.”
Brian
“I’ve just had a poem accepted for an anthology Miranda.”
Miranda
“Poetry! Keep a lid on that revelation please, Brian sorry Bri. Must I call him that Theo? My husband is on the verge of violence as it is, poetry may tip him over the edge. Freddie just received his first draft back from his publisher, and they’ve demanded a five-chapter rewrite. Currently, he’s plotting various strategies of revenge including, a Molotov cocktail party, germ warfare or his current favourite, turds in the post. Don’t ask Theo, I’m already an accomplice. Now, let me show you to your rooms.”
Theo
“Mum, we don’t need two rooms, we discussed this on the phone. It’s the twenty-first century for fuck’s sake. Brian and I live together, I’m nearly fucking thirty.”
Miranda
“I know darling, sorry about this, Brian, will you please stop fucking Theo. I don’t mean you fucking Theo Brian, I mean, oh dear, I’m digging a bottomless pit here, forget all that. I just thought with the mood Freddie is in two rooms might spare us any hassle. You can both sleep together he’ll never know. Freddie never ventures to the top floor of the house, he says it’s a waste of energy, and in any case, he claims he’s developed an irrational fear of staircases. Don’t look so bewildered, you know how he is Theo. Bugger. I forgot the towels, do excuse me.”
Miranda walks away.
Brian’s voice to audience
“This is the first time I’ve been here, the sacrificial lamb meeting the parents. I’m being initiated. Two rooms, how very parochial, they may as well have made up a bed for me in the barn. ‘Homosexuals? Not under my roof dear.’ It’s going to be all Liberty prints and lavender; a meticulously coordinated assault of my senses. If Miranda hands me a pair of pyjamas, I will have a seizure.”
Theo
“The last time I crept along the landing in the middle of the night was to screw Marcus Holden, we were sixteen. Mind you, I would have willingly gone to prison for Marcus. My first crush, he was divine. You must understand Brian, my father is an endangered species, he’s a closet homophobe. Not intentionally, it’s a genetic thing.”
Brian
“Oh, right, that’s made me feel a whole lot more relaxed. I won’t wear the Dior for dinner tonight. I thought homophobes had been wiped out decades ago.”
Theo
“No Bri, my father has been scientifically preserved as an example to the rest of the world of just how remorselessly intolerant humanity truly is, fossilised thinking—a rare example of Heterosaurus Homophobus.”
Miranda returns
“Ignore my son Brian, Bri; I’ll never get accustomed to that abbreviation. He’s slowly evolving into the gay version of his Father. Oh dear, that’s quite a horrifying thought. Freddie is not in the least bit homophobic, the main character in his latest novel is a gay man. Granted, he gets brutally murdered in the second paragraph of chapter one, but the rest of the story is devoted to bringing the perpetrator to justice.”
Brian
“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.”
Miranda
“Whatever you do, Bri, never quote Mark Twain to Freddie. My husband has an extremely low bullshit threshold. He may have a stroke or beat you senseless using Theo as his weapon of choice. Now, take a deep breath and let’s face this head-on. Go on, Theo, you go first.”
Theo
“Hi, Dad. Are you looking after yourself?”
Freddie
“At this stage in my life Theo, removing my underwear is a perilous exercise and best achieved comfortably horizontal. I’m very well, thank you. Although I often say that one should always allow plenty of time in the day to feel sorry for oneself. It affords one a superior platform to be irritable. How are you, Theo?”
Theo
“I’m great thanks, this is Brian.”
Brian
“Hello, Mr Sergeant, lovely to meet you.”
Freddie
“King Brian of Boru, it’s an honour to meet you, Sir.”
Brian’s voice to audience
“I’ve been Googled, a cyberspace violation of privacy. Freddie’s happy now, a playground bully who has discovered his victim’s weak spot. You see, I hate my name. I was Ian for a while, I even thought about adding an R to Ian to become Rian, but that’s just rain misspelled, then I ran out of options and settled on Bri. No middle-name either, a fact that made me feel excluded as a child. Brian isn’t the me I want to be, although Harry Styles probably felt the same.”
Brian
“Yes, he’s Brian Bóruma mac Cennétig in old Irish. You can call me Bri Mr Sergeant.”
Freddie
“Brrrrrrrri, is that compulsory? You may call me Serge as in Gainsbourg, a sloppy, and thoroughly irritating boarding school derivative of Sergeant.”
Brian
“Thing is Serge I’m not keen on the name Brian, in my mind it conjures up opticians or chiropodists, not that I have anything against either profession.”
Freddie
“Syllables are quite slippery little turds aren’t they Brrrrrrrri? Forever absconding from the ends of names and words. Only the other night I was watching TV. You know that series during which contestants can put their pet hates into room 101? One of the participants, who was a perfectly normal-looking woman, extremely attractive in fact, had a problem with passive-aggressive behaviour. After describing her bugbear, in graphic detail, she then referred to her chosen subject as, ‘Pass Agg’.
“Now, you see, when I was a smoker Brrrrrrrri, I would have had a hefty crystal ashtray nearby to hurl at the TV screen. However, that night all I had in my armoury was a half-eaten packet of what they call Kettle Chips, which wouldn’t have had quite the same devastating impact. If you don’t mind, I’d like to pose a question for all of you to muse over this evening. What breed of sanity deprived maniac cooks potato chips in a kettle?”
Brian’s voice to audience
“Interesting, he seems to have a comprehensive grasp of passive-aggressive behaviour. It must be rare that one person could so comfortably encapsulate the whole concept seen by many as a handicap. Freddie plays his character well, of course, it’s all fakery. He’s just a little boy who craves attention. Listen, do I hear someone crying wolf?”
Theo
“Excellent Dad. Now you’ve got that off your chest, how are your tomatoes coming along?”
Miranda leaves the room
Freddie
“Do you know that tomatoes or Solanaceae to be precise, are part of the nightshade genus which includes belladonna? The fruit of belladonna as you know is deadly; however, historically, the berries’ juice was used by the Italians to enlarge womens' pupils, thus making them more attractive to men. At least that was the theory.
“Oh wait, the grey mist is lifting. Nurse! Nurse! I remember everything, it’s all coming back to me now, my integrity has been poisoned. You’ve been debriefed, haven’t you Brrrrrrrri? Tomatoes my arse. You’ve been witness tampered by Miranda. That’s why she’s abandoned us in favour of a juicy spotted dick in the kitchen. In the name of King Brian of Boru, I declare this trial a travesty of injustice, dismiss the jury.”
Theo
“Go on then Dad, let’s hear the whole tragic tale. Make yourself comfortable, Brian.”
Freddie
“Five chapters. Five chapters. Do you have any idea how long it takes to write five chapters Brrrrrrrri? One pours one’s heart and soul into a meticulously constructed manuscript, and someone comes along and hijacks it, my magnificent oeuvre has been held to ransom, snatched from me in plain sight I’ve been censored, or more accurately mugged.
“Of course, this vicious assault on my reputation was conducted via email, without so much as a follow-up call, Lord no, phone calls cost money King Brian of Boru. I phoned my publisher immediately after I received his lengthy invasion, ‘It’s a continuity issue’ he said. Continuity Theo is the assassin of any innovative hypothesis. He’s a literary hitman whose sole purpose in life is to distil ingenuity into a mediocre concoction of worthless crap. I’m confident my publisher has made a terrible mistake. At least I’m sure he’ll realise his error when the anonymously donated turds start arriving.
“I swear I can’t remember ever being so delighted as the day I stumbled upon poopsenders.com. What makes this service so remarkable is that you can choose from three types of excrement, cow, elephant, or gorilla in two delightfully Shakespearean measures, a quart or a gallon. There’s a combo package, all three turds in one pack, oh, and they include a card too, ‘YOU’VE BEEN POOPED ON. WANT TO KNOW BY WHOM? The reverse of the card reads, WE’LL NEVER TELL. Absolute genius! Of course, I was sold by the correct usage of the pronoun whom, naturally the ill-informed would have used who instead. Whom gives the whole process a little dignity, don’t you think?”
Brian’s voice to audience
“There we have it friends, dorm room revenge, a turd in the post. Worth the effort? We judge children too harshly. When is the right moment to challenge one’s host? Never in Freddie’s case; also, not worth the effort. I know I was warned by Miranda not to mention poetry, let’s see how it goes. It’s just a little distraction with plenty of rhyme and reason.”
Brian
“I’ve just had one of my poems accepted for an anthology Serge, based on my personal lockdown experiences.”
Freddie
“A lovely word anthology, isn’t it? I regret to say I have thus far failed to educate my brain to traverse the spaghettiesque maze that is poetry. It is I believe a beautiful genre of literature. In my opinion, not that anyone gives a fuck, notably in this instance, my bird-brained publisher. The first chapter of Marcel Proust’s, À la recherche du temps perdu, is the finest symbiotic example of literature and poetry ever written; I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve read it.”
Theo
“I was thinking about giving James Joyce’s Ulysses another try Dad. What do you reckon?”
Freddie
“Ah yes, the infamously unreadable book, the intellectual’s rite of passage. If I, were you, I’d content myself with the synopsis. You cannot imagine the hours, let alone the devastated rainforests and irreparably damaged retinas that have been devoted to justifying that modernist miasma. It is and forever will be impenetrable. The odds of meeting anyone sane enough to discuss its merits are zero, so reading it is futile. Dinner party fodder. ‘Alexander old bean, have you read Ulysses? I read it in one sitting.’ Pretentious pricks. I’m off to find us a bottle of wine. I take it you do at least drink wine Brrrrrrrri?”
Brian
“Yes, thank you, a glass of wine would be great.”
Freddie
“Excellent! Did you know Theo, I’ve recently developed bathmophobia? Most inconvenient in a house with so many floors. If I’m not back by sundown load the shotgun Theo, both barrels.”
Brian, while scrolling on his phone
“Wow, is he always like this?”
Theo
“Yeah, mostly. I’m sorry, as you can imagine there are many taboo subjects in this house.”
Brian’s voice to audience
“Bathmophobia, the fear of staircases. How did we ever find suitable phobias pre-Google? Of course, Freddie wouldn’t have been satisfied with anything quite so prosaic as vertigo, or arachnophobia. As for taboo subjects, Freddie’s list of forbidden topics must be quite impressive; number one, life in general, no need to read the remaining list. Result!
“How did he become so intolerable, and why? It’s about being a writer, being the pugnacious creative, a pastiche of Gertrude Stein looking down her nose at Ernest Hemingway with Theo and Miranda as his willing enablers. Is this the Theo of the future? If so, get me an Uber. Quick!”
Brian
“How does your mother handle it? It must be like a drip of water slowly wearing away a stone. I’d go crazy.”
Theo
“I know, even bonkers old P. G. Wodehouse couldn’t have invented my father. Everyone thinks it must be a blast living in our very own version of Blandings Castle, but the fucked-upness gets to be a bit annoying after a while. He’ll calm down when he’s had a drink. I reckon you’re making him nervous, Bri.”
Brian
“Who me? I doubt it. What kind of people are we, Theo?”
Brian to audience
“I meant to ask what kind of person are you, Theo? But the answer would be way too easy for him to avoid. It’s as if Theo is waiting for permission to be himself, to be emancipated from the claws of patriarchy. ‘I now pronounce you free from inhibition, you may now kiss the arse of liberty’. But would he?”
Theo
“I don’t know. Lucky, I suppose. I don’t believe in fate. Are fate and destiny the same thing? Karma, that’s a better concept. What we do now means it’ll be even better next time around.”
Brian
“You said that while surveying the room.”
Brian’s voice to audience
“All this means a lot to Theo, the proud portraits of twice removed ancestors framed in gilt, or possibly guilt. The sound of tires on gravel, and the image of Gordon with a pheasant hanging out of his mouth. We only recently met on a dating website. Not one of those swipey sex things like Grindr, a proper dating site where they ask questions like, ‘What was the last book you read?’ or ‘Who is your favourite artist?’ Not sure what Theo made of my answers which were, The Ladybird Book of The Hangover and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Too random?”
Theo
“Well, one day we’ll be Lords of the Manor. Watch out. Clarence Threepwood and Lady Constance are back with the vino. Vintage, of course.”
Freddie
“In my opinion, which as you know King Brian, I am often reluctant to freely express. The French have thoroughly redeemed themselves of all historical indiscretions levelled against them, by providing the world with the finest booze on the planet, meticulously created from the humble grape and, for a country which produces more than three hundred cheeses, one wonders how they possibly find the time.”
Theo
“What’s with all this King Brian stuff, Dad?”
Miranda
“Just ignore him darling, he’s been fiddling about on the black net or whatever it’s called. Reminds me of when I made quince jam one year. Every person he met was regaled with the history of the damned quince, and how in recent years it’s fallen foul to the red humped-back quince weevil or some such monster.”
Theo
“You mean Dark Web, mother.”
Miranda
“Well, surely black is dark enough dear.”
Brian
“Excuse me, I need to go to the bathroom, and also make a quick call if you don’t mind.”
Miranda
“Of course, Brian oops, Bri, do you need directions?”
Brian
“No Mrs, sorry, Miranda I mean, I’ll find my way.”
Scene change to the bathroom.
Brian to his reflection in the mirror
“Mirror, mirror, on the wall. Welcome to the greatest fuck-up of them all. I’ve been pasted into another universe where I don’t belong, I’ve been TikToked. I need to find the restore to previous date and time combination. <SHIFT ALT DELETE>, is it?
“Theo’s not the man I thought he was, he inhabits a different world to mine, made evident by The Times folded neatly on the Ottoman with its completed crossword vociferously defining the household’s supposed intellect, all clues decisively answered in black ink, no blunders, or hasty scribbles in the margins. Indelible confidence.
“Languishing next to The Times is a dogeared copy of Country Life, conserved for the article dedicated to Miranda and her prize-winning painting of The Old Mill House, a shockingly amateur rendering of a famous and uniquely beautiful local landmark. A superior accolade regarded as Wiltshire’s equivalent of The Turner Prize.
“What’s parked in the garage, I wonder? A Ferrari so low slung it’s impossible to drive it on these arched and potholed country roads. Freddie’s glossy red trophy of privilege. He parks it in front of the house for the RHS Open Garden Scheme Day when Miranda shows off her brilliant blooms to noisily overenthusiastic amateur horticulturists. There’s the funky Fiat 500 parked in the drive reserved for Miranda to shop and pop ‘til she drops. She takes the roof down in the summer and ties her Hermes scarf in memory of Grace Kelly. The princess Miranda dreamed of being as a child.
“Draped to replicate the proscenium arch of The Royal Opera House, the drawing room’s French windows frame a landscape worthy of Constable’s gaze through which, on Christmas morning, guests are encouraged to walk wearing the wellington boots provided by their hosts. Miranda’s cloakroom is brimming with surprises in all sizes.
“When they return shivering from the cold, they drink mulled wine by the roaring fire marvelling at Miranda’s festive, decorative touches while Freddie entertains them with the plot of his latest fictionalised account of World War II. Only battle-worn veterans read Freddie’s books. Once they are all gone, his publisher will announce a truce, his career, like the war he reveres, will be declared over.
“The lavishly adorned dining room is exclusively reserved for black ties and ballgowns, so tonight we’ll eat in the kitchen to make me feel more like one of the family. Miranda’s expertise on the Aga adds up to the equivalent skill required to operate the Large Hadron Collider. Her delicate fluffy soufflés are the talk of Wiltshire and beyond. Freddie has never cooked a meal for himself. He could, if required, shoot a sparrow off a telephone wire, but he has no truck with kitchen appliances. Womens’ work is after all womens’ work.
“We’ll laugh until midnight then, once the hungry gaping mouths of both dishwashers have been satisfied, we’ll sit by the ornate fireplace where Miranda will tell me stories about Theo’s first steps. His debut quest for freedom. Neither parent will ask us about our relationship, how we met or what the future holds. Miranda will gaze into her pool of chamomile tea and wish things had turned out differently. Before Freddie retires to his bed, he’ll engage in the obligatory backslapping tournament with Theo, and then, Freddie will pat me on the shoulder as if I were his aged Labrador who may not make it to the morning.
“I don’t belong here; they’ll never accept me. The dinner table will be intentionally laid out like a puzzle of acceptance, knives, forks, and glasses—tripwires of class distinction. I was raised in a Hackney council flat, bullied mercilessly for being bright, having no father and presumably no future, I thrived. The best way to deprive an abuser of their pleasure is not to acknowledge the pain.
“I was the first member of my family to go to Uni, now the only member of my family still alive, I’m an exception to the collectives’ expectations, an incongruity, a nonconformist, I’m a journalist, a part-time poet, and a political activist. I single-handedly succeeded against all the odds.
“Victory is mine yet, my lovely, lovely Theo, I am nonetheless cursed with one nagging anxiety… I lack the courage to be Bourgeois.”
“Mirror, mirror, on the wall. Welcome to the greatest fuck-up of them all. I’ve been pasted into another universe where I don’t belong, I’ve been TikToked. I need to find the restore to previous date and time combination. <SHIFT ALT DELETE>, is it?
“Theo’s not the man I thought he was, he inhabits a different world to mine, made evident by The Times folded neatly on the Ottoman with its completed crossword vociferously defining the household’s supposed intellect, all clues decisively answered in black ink, no blunders, or hasty scribbles in the margins. Indelible confidence.
“Languishing next to The Times is a dogeared copy of Country Life, conserved for the article dedicated to Miranda and her prize-winning painting of The Old Mill House, a shockingly amateur rendering of a famous and uniquely beautiful local landmark. A superior accolade regarded as Wiltshire’s equivalent of The Turner Prize.
“What’s parked in the garage, I wonder? A Ferrari so low slung it’s impossible to drive it on these arched and potholed country roads. Freddie’s glossy red trophy of privilege. He parks it in front of the house for the RHS Open Garden Scheme Day when Miranda shows off her brilliant blooms to noisily overenthusiastic amateur horticulturists. There’s the funky Fiat 500 parked in the drive reserved for Miranda to shop and pop ‘til she drops. She takes the roof down in the summer and ties her Hermes scarf in memory of Grace Kelly. The princess Miranda dreamed of being as a child.
“Draped to replicate the proscenium arch of The Royal Opera House, the drawing room’s French windows frame a landscape worthy of Constable’s gaze through which, on Christmas morning, guests are encouraged to walk wearing the wellington boots provided by their hosts. Miranda’s cloakroom is brimming with surprises in all sizes.
“When they return shivering from the cold, they drink mulled wine by the roaring fire marvelling at Miranda’s festive, decorative touches while Freddie entertains them with the plot of his latest fictionalised account of World War II. Only battle-worn veterans read Freddie’s books. Once they are all gone, his publisher will announce a truce, his career, like the war he reveres, will be declared over.
“The lavishly adorned dining room is exclusively reserved for black ties and ballgowns, so tonight we’ll eat in the kitchen to make me feel more like one of the family. Miranda’s expertise on the Aga adds up to the equivalent skill required to operate the Large Hadron Collider. Her delicate fluffy soufflés are the talk of Wiltshire and beyond. Freddie has never cooked a meal for himself. He could, if required, shoot a sparrow off a telephone wire, but he has no truck with kitchen appliances. Womens’ work is after all womens’ work.
“We’ll laugh until midnight then, once the hungry gaping mouths of both dishwashers have been satisfied, we’ll sit by the ornate fireplace where Miranda will tell me stories about Theo’s first steps. His debut quest for freedom. Neither parent will ask us about our relationship, how we met or what the future holds. Miranda will gaze into her pool of chamomile tea and wish things had turned out differently. Before Freddie retires to his bed, he’ll engage in the obligatory backslapping tournament with Theo, and then, Freddie will pat me on the shoulder as if I were his aged Labrador who may not make it to the morning.
“I don’t belong here; they’ll never accept me. The dinner table will be intentionally laid out like a puzzle of acceptance, knives, forks, and glasses—tripwires of class distinction. I was raised in a Hackney council flat, bullied mercilessly for being bright, having no father and presumably no future, I thrived. The best way to deprive an abuser of their pleasure is not to acknowledge the pain.
“I was the first member of my family to go to Uni, now the only member of my family still alive, I’m an exception to the collectives’ expectations, an incongruity, a nonconformist, I’m a journalist, a part-time poet, and a political activist. I single-handedly succeeded against all the odds.
“Victory is mine yet, my lovely, lovely Theo, I am nonetheless cursed with one nagging anxiety… I lack the courage to be Bourgeois.”
Theo’s voice
“Are you alright in there, Brian?”