Unfurl: Chapter 3

Daddy slams his fork down, his face almost purple.

‘Harry Potter has clear undercurrents of Satanism. I don’t care if the Vatican has relaxed its stance over the years. And it’s very dangerous reading material for the minds of young, impressionable children.’

Here’s what I want to say to that particular outburst:

One. You mean in my opinion.

Two. You’re fucking delusional.

Three. Shut the fuck up and stop being so fucking defensive for once. The entire world is not a giant axis of evil employed on a single-minded mission to attack the crumbling walls of the Catholic Church.

Four. In fact, the Church does a pretty good job of ruining its defences all by itself.

Five: Dangerous? Seriously? Or is the Church the only institution allowed to prey upon the impressionable minds of kids? What was the most famous saying of St Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order, again? Oh, yeah. Give me a boy before the age of seven, and I’ll make him a man. If that doesn’t scream creepy brainwashing of kids, I really don’t know what does.

Here’s what I actually say:

Not a word.

Instead, my body does that all-too-familiar thing where it freezes, my food immediately churning in my stomach, my neck burning, and blind panic closing darkly in on my peripheral vision. I sit there and will myself to ride it out all the while desperately racking my brain for the most placatory thing I can say right now to change the subject, improve Daddy’s mood, and restore equilibrium at the dinner table on my parents’ last night before they fly to Italy to embark on their Mediterranean tour.

Because that’s what I do. I fawn.

You’re probably familiar with the three main stress responses: fight, flight and freeze.

There’s a fourth.

Fawn.

And I’m a major fawner.

Apparently, it’s a proven response among people who’ve grown up in a household with an emotionally unstable person in it, particularly an adult. I placate. I smooth over. I bend over backwards to keep the peace, because the cold dread that washes over me when someone loses their rag is as irrational as it is real, whether that person’s my own father or some guy kicking off at the next table in a restaurant.

I say it’s irrational, because my father has never been physically violent.

But that doesn’t stop the cold dread. The desperate itch of the desire to make things right.

Mummy and I glance at each other while Daddy’s huffing at his unfinished sea bass as if it is responsible for the perceived darkness of the world he lives in. She twists her mouth in a way that’s half sympathetic and half you should know better. And I should. Because every interaction with my father is a minefield, and usually I weigh every word. Before it was even out of my mouth, I was mentally retracting my off-hand, well-meant anecdote about my colleague having taken today off to take her kids to Harry Potter World.

I want to say it again. Daddy’s not violent. He’s not even… he doesn’t do this stuff to be a nasty git. What he is is strong-minded, and intellectually superior, and conservative in his religious views to an extent that’s frankly terrifying to me. I say conservative, but extreme may be a more accurate qualifier.

And I should know better.

‘The weather’s looking stunning on the Amalfi Coast,’ Mummy says in the bright, slightly coquettish voice she saves for rescuing us from Daddy’s mood swings. Because if I’m a pro at fawning, this woman is by necessity a master.

I immediately pick up the baton. ‘Oh, how gorgeous. What’s the temperature?’

‘It’s looking like high twenties already.’

‘Heaven,’ I say brightly, as if we’re not both ignoring the elephant in the room. ‘The boat ride to Positano should be idyllic.’

‘Exactly,’ Mummy says. She addresses Daddy directly with a smile. ‘I can’t wait till we’re sitting out on our terrace at Le Sirenuse with a large G&T in hand, Ben.’

And just like that, she pulls Daddy slowly out of his glowering fixation with the weight of the forces of evil approaching from all sides.

It’s exhausting being in our family.

But, sometimes, I think it must be even more exhausting being inside Daddy’s head.

Yes, I’m excusing him. I’m excusing his behaviour because he’s not a bad man, just a fiercely intelligent one who has the courage of his convictions and whose massive brain has, over the years, preoccupied itself more and more with, in my view, the wrong priorities.

And, critically, he’s also a man who’s never been told no. He grew up in a patrician household, he runs a patrician household, and no one’s ever slapped to his forehead the memo that his opinion isn’t fact. That he doesn’t have the right to dictate what other people believe with their own minds. How they shape their own worldview. Despite his staggering intellect, it seems he’s failed to work this out for himself.

All I know is that, when I’m a parent, I will never, ever dress up an opinion as a fact in front of my children. Encouraging them to think for themselves, to treat every perception as something about which they have the right to form their own opinions, will be the greatest gift I’ll ever give them.