pinching Stephen’s cheek. ‘Both the teachers and your parents.’ As she sits back down and Stephen goes to take the chair next to his father, a ripple of sadness runs through me. She never thought I was being worked too hard when I was up until one in the morning writing essay after essay, doing more than all my friends, desperately trying to get into one of the world’s most prestigious universities in a country I didn’t know. She didn’t tell me to have a break or suggest I should take Christmas off. No matter what I did, it was never enough. If I so much as watched a single episode of a soap opera or read a magazine, I was made to feel like I was shirking. Little comments would be made at the dinner table, suggesting television ‘was all I cared about these days’ or that she should donate some of my schoolbooks to Goodwill ‘because I hardly ever opened them any more’. I’d sit there with the tears close behind my eyes, trying to ignore her. Some things never change.
‘Stephen needs to work hard,’ James says. ‘He’s aiming for the best. Of course, if he’d gone to Eton like we originally planned, things might be more certain.’
When I married him, I’d been quietly confident we wouldn’t turn into one of those couples who make digs at each other across the dinner table – bring up old disagreements to wound the other. My parents did that throughout my childhood. And now, here’s James, making a little jibe about my problem with Eton. It’s deliberate. And it hurts.
‘Oh, I couldn’t agree more,’ Diane says. ‘There’s a reason it’s world-famous. But it’s amazing what he’s done to pull himself above the rest at that new-fangled place he’s at.’
I almost choke on my food. ‘Westminster is older than Eton, Mom. As if that matters. Especially to you.’
She looks affronted. ‘Of course my grandson’s education matters to me. And I did think the decision was made a little rashly. After all, James does know about these things.’
‘Well, it was all years ago now,’ James says. ‘And nobody doubts Westminster is a great school.’ He gives me one of his warm smiles, probably worried he’s upset me. I automatically send one back his way without thinking. Usually he’s pretty good at presenting a united front when my mother’s here. I just wish he was doing better today.
‘You do realise you’re all talking about me like I’m not here.’ Stephen’s looking sullenly into his food.
James lets out a laugh. ‘I’m sorry, you’re right. You must excuse us. It must be tiresome to have your old folks wittering on about you.’
‘Less of the old!’ I say, trying to sound more cheerful than I feel. James gives me a chuckle in response but Stephen and his grandmother remain stonily silent. I even see Diane raise one of her perfectly plucked eyebrows a little, as if to say, Well, you’re not exactly young. She then turns to talk to Stephen and asks, ‘What are you planning to do with your Christmas holiday?’
He looks disconcerted by the question, as if it’s a trap he might fall into. Taking a fleeting look at his father, he proceeds to give a mumbled list of his homework assignments, social arrangements with his school friends, and how he plans to stay at his boyfriend’s house in the gap between Boxing Day and New Year.
‘How is William?’ James asks. ‘We haven’t seen him for weeks. Busy revising, is he? He’s determined to get into Oxford, Diane. Such a hard worker.’
‘Just like Stephen is,’ I say, coming to his defence before his father’s digs become too blatant.
‘Well, I imagine Stephen’s a dead cert for Oxford, too. First my daughter, then my grandson, both off to the best university in the world. I’m so proud just at the thought of it.’
That niggle in my head is back again. The sense of resentment that only now, decades later, can my mother suggest she is ‘proud’ I got in to Oxford. On the day I found out I’d won a place, she’d acted like it was merely another big task she could tick off her to-do list. Daughter into Oxford: check.
‘I think,’ I say, choosing my words carefully, ‘that Stephen is keen to go to the college that suits his skills the best and offers the course he most likes. He won’t be going anywhere just because Will is.’
My mother looks so horrified it’s almost comical. ‘Julianne, are you telling me you’re actively trying to dissuade the boy from attending the greatest—’
‘Oh, spare me the greatest university in the world talk, Mom. There are plenty of other great universities.’
I can see James moving food around his plate with sharp stabs of his fork. I’ve pissed him off now.
Stephen looks around at us. ‘You’re all doing it again. I’m still here you know.’
Nobody laughs this time. My mom is looking around her as if trying to suss out where in the argument she could fit in. ‘I’m sensing some tension,’ she says eventually.
‘How observant of you,’ I reply, not looking at her.
‘I’m sorry, Diane,’ James says. ‘We can’t be much fun tonight. Julianne is clearly stressed with Christmas and everything …’
‘Am I?’ I say, looking at him. ‘You’ve decided that, have you?’
‘… and Stephen,’ he says, ignoring me. ‘I think he must be getting worried about his mountains of coursework.’
Stephen shakes his head. ‘I’m not that worried.’
‘Then why, may I ask, have you been sitting at this table like a grumpy teenager all evening?’
James is doing his strict-parent voice now. I’ve never understood why Stephen takes it so seriously and rarely answers back when his father gets angry. To me, it sounds like someone in a play, just pretending, speaking the lines they think they should say without being totally sure how they should be saying them. He’s never been the loud, forthright one – that’s partly the reason I fell for him, back when I was just nineteen. He was more the quiet, brooding type, exerting a quiet confidence rather than a forceful one. The more show-offy bursts of emotion he’d left to his friends, Ally and Ernest.
Stephen doesn’t immediately respond to his father, but carries on staring at his food. I’m growing steadily more worried about him. While I’m desperate to talk to James about what I’ve just seen on his computer, I would very much prefer Stephen not to be present and, if possible, minimise his part in the whole thing. The thought of my mother being within hearing distance is mortifying.
‘I’ve … I’ve just got a lot to think about,’ Stephen says, and then carries on eating his food.
Silence resumes for the rest of the meal.
After dinner, my mother is keen to gravitate towards the lounge pretty quickly, and it becomes clear, as she locates the Christmas bumper issue of the Radio Times, that there’s a showing of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel she’s keen to see. She often stays to watch something with us on TV after dinner, but it’s rarely longer than an hour and a full-length feature film is certainly not the norm. ‘It’s rather long,’ I say, looking at the listing in the magazine, noticing that, with commercials, it will run for two and a half hours.
‘Oh, it’s a glorious film,’ James says, settling down in his usual spot on the one-seater. Back when we first bought the house, he and I used to snuggle together on the sofa,
