Queen's Gambit - Chapter 8 – Last one for now

© Copyright 2025 Maeryn Lamonte

Life settled into a routine after the Glastonbury visit. Lance and I spent a lot of time in each other’s company, which was pretty amazing. His dad still didn’t approve, and Lance still didn’t care which was a definite plus as far as I was concerned. I couldn’t really share with him what the pen had told me about his father, not without the awkward explanation of how I’d come by the knowledge, so that had to wait for some time in the future.

Now that he knew I was unlikely to be reckless with the knowledge, Merlin started teaching me about magic. Admittedly most of it was all the reasons I should avoid using it wherever possible, but it was useful information even so, as it gave me a basis for weighing necessity against cost. Meanwhile Nimue taught me all the things Merlin wouldn’t. I practiced a few very minor workings once I’d figured out what would be the consequences of casting and was gratified to find the overall cost close to my initial assessment.

In my next Latin lesson, Mr Phillips set me some A level questions to answer without telling me. I knew they were a lot harder than anything he’d put in front of me before then, but I also knew exactly how to answer them and, following Excalibur’s advice, I saw no reason to hide what I could do. There followed an uncomfortable interview with him and Mr Cavendish about why I would hide such a prodigious natural ability, which I fobbed off with some excuse about not wanting to show off, especially at a school like Marlborough.

Suitably dressed down, I was put on an advanced programme of study comparable to the sort of thing Peter had me doing with my writing, and I did actually end up working on some of the incomplete manuscripts Mr Phillips’ friend in Glastonbury had been reconstructing. Apparently university level work, and at a level where I was encouraged to discuss my results and justify them.

My Latin improved over and above the skills I'd inherited from Nimue, and oddly it helped me with the magic. Merlin and Nimue both tended to use the Old Tongue for casting their spells. This was the Briton language of their youth, a form of ancient Gaelic, but magic came more as a focussing of will than having any ties to a specific language. Once you got the hang of Latin's complex syntax, it allowed a degree of precision greater than just about any other language going. So much so that there were times I even caught them using elements of it in their own casting.

The pen became invaluable when writing essays in knowledge-based subjects like history or geography, although it did cause me some difficulty in history especially when the account Excalibur gave me contradicted the accepted version in the textbooks. Even when I included justification for my alternative versions and cited sources that supported my – or rather the pen's – version, Mr Lee was not impressed and complained to Mr Cavendish about my tendency to include fiction, as he called it, in my essays.

I dug a few additional books out of the college’s extensive library and showed where my point of view had come from, but my efforts did little to improve my standing with Mr Lee, and in the end Mr Cavendish asked me simply to limit my responses to what was in the IGCSE textbook.

One of the weirder things that happened was when Marie, Abbey, Elaine and I fell into sync with our time of the month, something that had its advantages and disadvantages. The worst was that we all ended up being stroppy cows around the same time every four weeks which was pretty hellish for anyone who knew us. The best was that, since we were all stroppy cows at about the same time, we were more sympathetic with one another and more inclined to give each other a bit of space. Maybe a bit tough on everyone else, but then that was their problem. I mean we had enough to deal with, right?

Sophie kept very much in the background. She was experienced with having clients who were still at school and knew not to bother them during term time. She liked what I’d written about my experiences, especially the idea of having both the real life and fantasy versions running side by side. She agreed with me that it needed to be drawn to a conclusion but told me not to stress about it while I was concentrating on my schoolwork. She loved my take on Merlin and Nimue’s tragic romance especially after I used Excalibur to write out the story from the notes I’d taken at Silbury Hill and had its input on the different events as well. She promised to send me a set of revisions as long as I promised only to work on them in my free time.

She also told me that my publisher had decided to launch Knight in White Satin ahead of the Christmas deadline and wanted to book me for a signing tour during the October half term. I referred them to Mum and Dad, saying I was okay with it, but they had final veto. As it happened, they were agreeable, but only if Mum could accompany me. Dad planned to take a few days off and join us for the latter part of it, so that was organised.

As the end of October approached, I visited a local dress shop and arranged for Mum and me to have some posh frocks made. More important for me as I would be the one in the public eye, but I wanted Mum to have some nice things too. So I sent her some photos to choose from and asked her to come down a few days early so she could have the adjustments made before we hit the road. We also visited a bespoke tailor in town and picked out a super posh suit for Dad. He wasn’t much into looking smart and Mum figured he'd be fine with anything we picked out for him, as long as he never found out how much it was going to cost. We wouldn't be able to sort his fittings until after the book tour when they dropped me back at school, so he wouldn’t look super smart for the book signings, but then it wasn’t intended for that.

The half term disappeared in a rush of travel between hotels and visits to bookshops where I’d sign copies of my first ever book and talk to my growing fan base. I also made short presentations at various literary events, feeling very much out of my depth in the presence of so many respected authors, but they were kind to me and very positive about my first effort, those that had bothered to read it anyway, which was a surprisingly large number of them. My insight into the transgender condition was astonishing, many of them said, which invited me to explain about my life before becoming a girl. The official version, at least, which raised a few eyebrows, but now that it was on public record was less likely to sneak out from under a rock and try and bite me in the gluteus maximus (see the Latin at work there) at some point in the future.

It was a relief to return to Marlborough. Dad protested the whole suit thing, arguing that it had to be way too expensive. I showed him a copy of my bank balance now that the royalties had started coming in and he relented, all be it very reluctantly.

“I’m the dad here,” he grumbled. “I’m supposed to be the one buying special gifts for you.”

“You can if you like,” I said “but what I really want from you is to be my dad, and you do that really well. You do a job that’s important even though you don’t get paid loads for doing it, and that teaches me more about values than if you were to keep buying me presents. I just happen to be lucky enough to be able to write stuff people want to read, so I get paid lots for not doing much...”

“I think you’re belittling your achievements there sweetheart. What you can do with words is so much more impressive than what I do.”

“Agree to differ, or at least to say maybe just about as impressive but in a totally different way.”

“And there you go with your words again. I can’t argue with that. Alright, you win.”

I didn’t want to win, but saying more would only have made him feel worse, so I let it go.

Soon enough they were heading back north, and I was settling into a new term with a less hectic lifestyle than the previous week.

I found time to work through the corrections Sophie wanted and ‘Merlin – A Magical Romance’ made it into the bookshops by Christmas. Merlin had something to say about it, but acknowledged that it was at least a truer account of his life than some of the highly imaginative rubbish that had been written about it.

End of term tests filled most of the last few weeks. I won’t say I aced them, but I did show improvement in most classes – not Mr Lee’s but then what do you expect? Lance, on the other hand, went up at least one grade in all subjects, which meant his dad had no grounds for pulling him out of Marlborough. Amazing what you can achieve with the right motivation.

End of term came. We had a Christmas ball, which gave me an opportunity to try out one of my new dresses. Lance came in a tuxedo which, knowing him, was owned rather than rented, but he did look astonishingly good in it. Dad’s new suit would have given it a run for its money, but not by much.

Then it was the weekend and school was over. Mum and Dad arrived on the Saturday morning and helped me pack up the balance of my things before we loaded up the car and headed into town for Dad’s last fitting and adjustment. It looked like it was going to take longer than just five minutes, so I excused myself and headed further into town, to Mr Hong’s

I’d spent a while in woodwork fashioning a small presentation box. It had taken longer than I’d anticipated, but it had turned out quite well with an inlaid sliding lid. Since it was so small, Mr Lambert had allowed me into his store of special woods, so here it was, a little smaller than the palm of my hand, fashioned from cedar with a little silver birch for the decoration.

Mr Hong’s face lit up at the sight of me. “You see something you like?” he asked.

“Actually,” I bowed respectfully, which caused him to turn serious and come out from behind the counter. “This is Christmas,” I said. “Our tradition to give gifts to special people. You have been very kind to me, Mr Hong, and I wish to offer you a gift to say thank you.” I bowed again and offered the wooden box.

“This for me?” he asked. “Very fine workmanship, very good wood.”

“It’s a box, Mr Hong. Please open it.”

He slid the lid open, and his eyes went almost as wide as his spectacles.

“No, no. This is too much.”

I touched the pendant at my neck. “This also was too much, but you said it is disrespectful to refuse a gift.”

He picked the golden coin from the box and showed it to me. “You know this? What it is?”

“A Roman Aureus.”

“Worth much. Worth very much.”

“And so is your friendship and kindness, Mr Hong. Happy Christmas.” I bowed and turned to leave.

“Wait, wait. I have gift for you also.”

Would this never end?

He returned with a necklace of subtly coloured diamonds and matching dangle earrings. I have to admit, I’d been captivated by it when I’d seen it in the window, but the price tag had been twelve thousand pounds, and I hadn’t seen my first royalties cheque back then.

“Oh no, please.”

“No, no. Is small in comparison.”

Merlin appeared at my elbow.

“Can you please just make him take my gift?”

“I could, but he would never be able to look you in the eyes again “

“What do you mean?”

“That Aureus is quite rare and in far better condition than any other surviving examples of its kind. I’d say it’s worth about three times the value of the necklace, even at Marlborough prices.”

I picked up the necklace and, when he offered, permitted him to put it on me. I did the earrings, then admired myself in the mirror.

“More like a queen every day.”

“Happy Christmas,” Mr Hong said smiling his mouth full of crooked teeth at me. “Happy, Happy Christmas.”

“How did you know he was a coin collector,” Merlin said as we walked back to Dad’s tailor, me grasping a velvet case with twelve thousand pounds worth of diamonds in it.

“Is he? I just thought he was in a good position to appreciate an ancient coin. Is it really worth more than thirty thousand pounds?”

“The coin market can be quite volatile, but I shouldn’t be surprised. I sincerely doubt he’ll sell it though, a prize like that. Do you regret giving it away now you know what it’s worth?”

“No, I don’t think so. It’s in the hands of someone who can truly appreciate it, and a kinder and more deserving person I can’t imagine. I wouldn't have minded a little warning though."

"Now where would the fun have been in that?"

"I just wish I knew what I was going to do with this now.” I held up the case.

“I have a suggestion, if you’re open to my council.”

By early evening we were all done up to the nines, Mum and I sporting very professional updos with makeup to match and heading for Oxford. Mum, in particular, looked spectacular with the diamonds about her neck.

We arrived at the Old Parsonage shortly after seven. That made us unfashionably not late, but it couldn’t be helped. We parked up, then Dad carried our overnight bags to the front entrance.

Where Quentin stood ready to greet everyone. His face turned rigid at sight of us in our finery, which in itself made it worth the several thousand pounds it had cost me to turn us out as well as we looked. Plus, the unexpected bonus of Mum’s jewellery. She’d made some comment about feeling like mutton dressed up as lamb, but she never spoke so much rubbish.

In terms of sheer monetary value, she was probably worth twice as much as any woman there, but where she really shone was in her elegance and poise, which set her so far apart from every other women present as to put her in a different species.

I settled for my usual aquamarines, which Mum had argued against strenuously, saying that I should be wearing the diamonds, but I insisted that we wouldn’t achieve the desired outcome if I outshone my parents.

We made a point between us of ignoring the bilious looks our hosts were directing our way and the looks of outraged jealousy on the faces of every other woman present, and maintained the appearance of people who belonged in a crowd like this. We’d had time enough to practice belonging to the elite on the week long book tour, but the way Mum was rocking it suggested she’d been putting in a little extra time in front of a mirror somewhere, because she quite spectacularly owned the room.

Dad was his usual affable self, which meant he let the snide comments drift by uncontested and spoke in a friendly and disarming manner with anyone who'd respond to his attempts at conversation. The men tended to be more straightforward, being more inclined to befriend someone who appeared to fit within their strata of society, and Dad in his suit certainly fit right in. The women were a little more complex, however, and weren’t so inclined to accept Mum and me sine we hadn’t been invited into their clique. Francesca Girling had been careful to ensure that didn’t happen, so we were stuck somewhat on the outside of impolite society, pretending to be a part of it.

Mum was a master at dealing with such people though. In the same manner she’d used with Lance’s mum at the country club, she succeeded in showing up the ugly side of every woman present without being in the least unpleasant herself. She remained cheerful and immune to their pathetic attempts at insulting us and stood by me as we demonstrated through our actions exactly how well-mannered guests should behave.

Then part way into the evening I picked up on one of the things Lance had warned us to expect. His dad was introducing mine to one well-heeled, well-connected individual after another. Politicians, musical composers, high court judges, poets, company executives, if there was a single person present who was not a member of the pretentious over-privileged elite, they remained clear of what Quentin was doing, possibly because they'd been on the receiving end at some stage. The cracks were beginning to show around the corners of Dad's composure as it became progressively more obvious that, despite appearances, he was the only person present who didn’t fit in. I edged into hearing rang just as Quentin dropped his grenade.

“So, I don't recall you telling what it was that you did,” he said.

Dad looked on the verge of floundering, so I stepped in.

“He ensures all the computer equipment in one of the largest hospitals in Yorkshire keeps working,” I said with a cheerful smile, taking Dad's arm and looking up at him with unabashed love and admiration. “That is to say, without my father’s input, thousands of patient records wouldn't be available to the doctors who need them, their confidentiality – and you must be aware of the number of hospitals in the UK that have been victims of cyber-attacks in recent years – would be at risk, and a lot of high tech, computer operated treatment and scanning machinery just wouldn’t work. It’s a little bit behind the scenes, and my dad does like to play the unsung hero, but he actually does something of significance in our part of the world. Unlike me, I’m afraid. Gwendolyn Llewellyn,” I held my hand out to the poet standing to Mr Girling’s left. “I have a couple of books in the best-seller list at present, but that doesn’t count for much against someone whose daily efforts help keep people alive and safe, wouldn’t you agree?”

The poet – I forget his name, but then I’d like to forget his poetry too – took my hand and bowed over it, stammering.

Our host turned a particularly dangerous shade of purple as I carried the conversation away from the treacherous waters of who does what and into the relatively safe harbour of politics. Given that several of the guests were prominent backbenchers doing their best to become more of the former and lass of the latter, the subject was welcomed and started picking up a healthy head of steam when Quentin interjected.

“Did you know that Gwen here used to be a boy?”

He said it loud enough that every conversation fell silent and every head turned our way. Dad’s face was very suddenly livid, and I had to hang on to his arm to prevent him from acting on what was becoming a very strong impulse.

“Judge Prendergast,” I addressed one of the men I’d heard Lance’s dad introduce to mine. “Sorry to do this during the holidays, but I don’t know much about the law. Does that sound a little like slander to you?”

“It depends on whether our host can uphold his claim,” the judge said, apparently inclined to favour his friend, although not at the expense of his professional standards.

I turned to Quentin Girling and arched an eyebrow. “Well sir? Can you?” My next bit was going to require a fair bit of finesse, assuming he wasn’t going to make things easy for me, and I doubted he was. He was too good a lawyer for that.

He ground his teeth at me and said nothing for a short while, then, “Tell me your name is not Gavin Llewellyn.”

“Alright. My name is not Gavin Llewellyn.” That had been sorted out when Dad’s doctor friend had reordered my affairs, declaring my gender misidentified at birth.

“You’re lying.”

“Actually, she’s not,” Dad said. I was already fishing in my bag for my phone. It took a moment to find the copy of my reissued birth certificate with my current name and correct gender on it. I showed it to the judge who nodded and shrugged. I also showed it to Quentin but didn’t trust him enough to let him take the phone from me.

“So why did your application to the school’s creative writing course name you as Gavin Llewellyn?”

“You mean my application in the school’s confidential records?”

“Answer the question you little pissant.”

I tightened my grip on Dad’s arm as I felt his muscles bulge.

“I don’t believe I have to, sir. I mean you’d be understandably upset if I were to share with your friends here how many times your son has nearly been expelled from Marlborough College, because that’s part of his confidential record and could be embarrassing to you or him if it made it out to the general public how much money you’ve spent keeping him in school.”

I’d warned Lance that things might turn ugly at the party – actually he'd warned me first – and asked him beforehand if he minded me bringing up his past transgressions. He’d still been pissed off enough with his old man that he’d readily agreed. The guests looked over to where Lance was standing with his mother.

“Six,” he said, “and about three hundred thousand pounds, isn’t that about right Dad?”

“That’s the thing about confidential records, Mr Girling, they’re kept confidential for the benefit of the person in question and his or her family, because they may embarrass someone if they get out. That’s why the law frowns upon people paying bribes to look at things that aren’t their business.”

“You little shit. Only someone with a guilty conscience would still try to hide behind regulations.”

“At the time when I came to Marlborough, there was some confusion over my gender. It was resolved when I was given a medical examination after my time visiting the school. The tests that were performed on me not only showed my hormone levels to be typical of a young girl, but that my genes include XX chromosomes, proving that I am and always have been female. This information is a part of my medical record which, incidentally, is also confidential. I'm sharing it freely here in an effort to resolve this matter amicably.”

This is where I needed to choose my words very carefully.

“The thing is, I don’t believe you want to settle this amicably, do you sir? I know that shortly after Lance told you about me that the college trustees received a strongly worded protest from, as it was reported to me off the record, ‘a parent of high standing and a generous donor to the school.’”

“A lot of parents of Marlborough students fit that description. Several of them are here tonight.”

“That’s true, though I have to wonder how many of them are homophobic enough to send in a letter which, I’m told, stated that Marlborough didn’t want students of my sort.”

"You appear to be implying that I am. Besides, a comment of that sort could mean anything.”

“Not quite anything, Mr Girling. At the time you were the only person outside of the faculty who knew anything about me, and at that time, even with unauthorised access to my records, the sum total of that information stated that I came from a middle class background, I was significantly gifted and talented – sorry, those are Mr Cavendish’s words, not ones I would choose – in creative writing, and that there was this question mark over my gender. At the time Mr Cavendish offered me the scholarship, he believed me to be transgendered, and I understand his offer was at least in part an affirmation of the school’s policy of inclusivity.

“I’m not going to press the point, but from my perspective it seems the letter writer’s objection could only be either on the grounds of class – and I believe there are a number of middle and lower class students at Marlborough who's presence hasn't raised any objections, although I suppose there might be some worry that a lowly tramp such as myself might show up the other students – or gender. I don’t know about you, but my money’s on the gender thing.

“Because I don’t believe it’s the first time this sort of thing has happened, is it Mr Girling? There have been five applications to Marlborough in the past three years that have been more successfully blackballed by an anonymous letter to the trustees.”

“The slander accusation works both ways, you know. Go ahead and accuse me of writing those, but be ready to prove it. If you can't do it here, I'll happily ask you to do so in court.”

“I didn’t come here to accuse anyone of anything, sir. I only raised this unpleasantness because it related directly to the accusation you made against me which, incidentally, you haven't withdrawn despite my having shown you proof of it being false.

"I’ve been prepared to overlook what appears to be a series of calculated slights both you and Mrs Girling have made against me family and me...”

"My family and I. I thought you were supposed to be gifted and talented."

I looked at Quentin's poet friend and raised an eyebrow. He coughed in embarrassment but said nothing. We both knew he would have if I'd been in the wrong.

Mr Girling glowered at him. “What appearance of slights?” he snarled at me.

"Why don't we ask your guests?" I asked. "Ladies, when each of you was invited to this gathering for the first time, were you introduced to the rest by your host or hostess?" The shuffling of high heels and lack of eye contact suggested I was on the money. "Since my mother and I were not introduced to you – incidentally, Mr Girling, in case you're wondering, you use the same personal pronoun in a sentence regardless of whether it stands alone or is linked with other people." I turned back to the women. " Since my mother and I were not introduced to you, did that leave you uncertain whether or not we were to be included in your little clique, or was it a direct signal that we should be excluded?" Apart from a few affronted looks at my temerity in challenging them, they made no attempt to respond.

"Gentlemen," I turned to Quentine's guests. "Is it normal for your host to attempt to ridicule one of his guests by showing them up as significantly less important than anyone else present?" Once again, there followed a great deal of interest shown in anything other than the issue I was attempting to raise.

"Those are the apparent slights, Mr Girling. We accepted your invitation to this event in good faith, and we came prepared to fit in as well as we could despite none of us being used to this sort of party. Despite our efforts, it seems that you were actually disappointed that that we didn’t turn up in our rustic homespun, and then when it seemed we were holding our own in your environment, you made this last-ditch attempt to embarrass us further – me in particular. Tell me I'm wrong.”

“What, do you want? An apology?”

“I think that would be in keeping with the spirit of the season, yes.”

“I have no intention of apologising to the likes of you.”

“And by the likes of me I take it you mean a precociously talented young girl who already has two books on the bestseller list.”

“You know exactly what I mean.”

“Do I? Would it have anything to do with that accusation you levelled at me around the time this became truly acrimonious? Incidentally, despite my having refuted your words, I haven't had your retraction."

“No, and you won’t either.”

"You don't leave me a great deal of choice, sir. You obviously won't back down, and you seem to me to be the sort who will just continue to escalate matters until something gives, unless I push back at least as hard."

"What do you think you can do, you snivelling little wretch?"

“Oh, this.” I fished a sheet of paper out of my handbag. “Lance, I'm sorry about this. I'll explain it to you as best I can, when I can. Judge Prendergast, would you look at this sheet of paper. I believe this is a list of case file references.”

“They appear to be, yes. Where did you come by these?”

“Suffice to say legally. Marlborough college has access to court transcripts that have been made available to the public. These are all cases in which Mr Girling was prosecuting, and the defendants were part of the LGBTQ community.”

“What of it?”

“May I request you read through the transcript of Mr Girling’s last cross examination in each case and cross reference it to the defendant's personal information as made available to all parties. I don't have access to that information so I cannot verify it myself, but Mr G does make use of some uncommon turns of phrase, and in each case the defendant changed his or her plea immediately afterwards.

The cases don’t appear to be in any order, but these ones at the top are most likely to show something I imagine will concern you. If you work your way down, I think you’ll find a disturbing pattern.

“Mr and Mrs Girling, I would like to say it’s been a pleasure, but it hasn’t. Mum, Dad, I think we’ve overstayed our welcome. Lance, once again I’m sorry.”

We walked out, pursued by the sound of Quentin calling after his son.

“Are either of us alright to drive?” Dad asked

“It’s alright love,” Mum answered. “Gwen suggested I keep off the booze, which was a real shame, that champagne was bloody lovely.

“Go get our things, I’ll fetch the car. You, young lady, might want to offer your young man something of an explanation.”

I glanced back to see Lance ducking back to the room we’d just come from. I did owe him an explanation, so I waited.

Lance reappeared with a couple of bottles of the champagne Mum had missed out on.

“We can’t,” I said.

“After the way my parents treated you tonight, yes you bloody can. If we go short, tough shit.”

“On behalf of my parents, I thank you.”

“Would you mind telling me what that was about back there?”

“Yeah, sure. I’m sorry to do this to you, Lance, but your family’s got a bit of a shit storm coming. Your dad's been doing something seriously illegal.”

“Yeah? Vague much?”

“You know your dad's a serious homophobe?”

“I got that when he thought I was dating a boy in a skirt. I didn’t know it was him who blackballed those others though.”

“Yeah, I actually don’t have any proof of that either.”

“You seemed pretty sure about it”

"I have a source I trust, but not one I can really talk about.”

“Oh. I suppose okay. What about those case numbers?”

"Same source. Again I trust it, but I can't verify. I don’t know all the details, just that your dad's ‘brilliant’” – finger quotes. Sorry – “cross examinations were nothing of the sort.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll text you the case numbers. The transcripts of the cross examinations are available through the school law library, so you shouldn’t have any more trouble accessing them than I did. They don’t have anything particularly clever in them, no big reveals, no reason so far as I can see why the defendants would change their, but in every case they did just that the very next day.”

“Why?”

“Great question. Sensitive and personal information has been redacted from files, so all I’ve got to go on is supposition, but have a look at the transcripts and ask yourself if there’s something hinky about your dad’s choice of words.”

“Hinky. That’s a technical legal term is it?

“You know it is.”

“What do you think he’s been doing?”

“I think he's been slipping sensitive information into his cross examinations so that it appears in the transcripts. I can't prove anything, but I'm hoping it will be clear enough for the judge to see when he reviews all the information. It's got to be bad enough to scare the defendants into giving up. I have some ideas, but I'd rather not say for sure, If it’s what I think, there's a good chance your dad may lose his license.”

“Shit!”

“Yeah. I’m really sorry. If it’s any consolation, it will probably mean a bunch of extremely vulnerable people will have their convictions either overturned or at the very least retried. Hopefully fairly this time.”

“If that happens, I may not be coming back to Marlborough. Fancy school fees will be among the first of the cutbacks, especially if it has the bonus of keeping me away from you.”

“Not if I can help it.”

“You’re not suggesting paying my fees again, are you? Cos...”

“Have I shown you my bank balance recently?” I showed him my phone.

“Fu... la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la. Will you marry me?”

“Please don’t joke about something like that, especially when it comes to money. For now, just know I can afford it and I won’t even miss it, so yes, the school is about to receive a series of anonymous donations which will only be forthcoming if you complete your schooling at Marlborough. Your parents will be hard pressed to turn it down, especially if I make it seem like it's one of your dad's friends doing it as a show of solidarity. Actually, do the upper classes do solidarity?”

“What? Why wouldn't they?”

“History. Solidarity was a Polish anti-communist trade union from fifty odd years ago. It doesn’t sound like anything your dad and his cronies would want to associate with.

“Anyway,” Dad had reappeared in the lobby, “I should go and you should spend a few more hours with your parents before your lives implode. I’d wish you a Merry Christmas but seems a little unlikely at this point.”

“Yeah, well if you're going, I’d best give you your Christmas present now.” He handed me a wrapped box, size and shape indicating a jewellery shop. “I didn’t touch the money in the account for this. Mr Markham needed help around the grounds and let me do it for what he usually gives the local kids.”

“Lance!”

“I didn’t skip class or anything. Mr Lyons let me off a few practices so I could do the work. He reckoned it would be a pretty good workout for me anyway. Go on, open it.”

I did. The necklace was so fine as to be almost invisible and the pendant, in white gold with ruby eyes, was of a dragon scarily similar to Kilgharrah.

“It’s gorgeous.”

“You like it?”

Male egos. I barely remembered what having one was like. Maybe I never had one.

“It’s my new favourite thing,” I said, meaning it. “Yours is... well, it’s in the bike shed at school. I figured it was the safest place for it over the holidays, and it gets to keep Pegasus company until we get back. I did take a picture though.”

Dad handed me a different small box. Inside was a key and a photo of the bike.

“Is that a custom paint job? What does it say?”

“Chrysaor. Pegasus’ brother. Son of Poseidon and Medusa. Look, you can see the snake head here.”

“You are such a geek.”

“Isn't the word you're looking for Greek? And no I’m not. If you don’t like it, I’ll take it back to the shop and get them to sandblast it.”

“Don’t you dare. It’s perfect.”

Things were about to get mushy. Dad noticed.

“I’ll be in the car with your mum,” he said. “Try to keep it under half an hour. We’ve a long journey home.”

Have I mentioned how good a kisser Lance is? We were done in five minutes though. Well, okay, ten, but it was a fantastic ten minutes.

Mum and Dad knew when to keep quiet. They left me to my thoughts and feelings. Mainly the latter, which was mainly the warm fuzzy Lance had left me with.

Christmas was unusually normal. Just the three of us, moderate sized tree and a few sensibly priced presents. We’re not great on turkey, so splurged on what we do like, which is nice piece of roast sirloin. Aberdeen Angus for preference. The Scots really knows how to make cows that taste good.

I fired off regular texts to Lance, who responded when he could. We managed a few quiet words on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, but Christmas in his household was not the close and cuddlesome affair I was enjoying.

“Next year you’re spending Christmas with us, if you can bear to slum it with us working folks.”

“Done, and you can’t back out of it now. I’m hassling the ‘rents to take me back early this year. They’re teacher training for the first few days, but we’re allowed to move in early if we turn up the weekend before. Any chance you can come do the same?”

“I’ll talk to Mum and Dad. They don’t see much of me these days, so I hate to take any time away from them. Maybe I can persuade them to come down for a few days.”

“That would be good. I can’t tell you how much I miss you.”

After that we sweet nothinged until Lance's rampaging father became increasingly loud in the background. I’d been checking the news feeds for any story of scandal in the courts. The angry voice from the other end suggested there might be something to find now.

With Lance gone to face whatever doom awaited him, I put my phone to its secondary use and hunted the interweb for signs of the story.

It didn’t take long.

‘Oxford Barrister Loses Law Licence Over LGBTQ Scandal.’

Reporters do like their alliteration. Shame it couldn’t have been solicitor to go with the scandal, but barristers are the ones who argue cases in court.

The story told how Quentin Girling had hinted in his cross examinations at information relating to the identities and locations of the defendants’ friends and relatives. Once it was in the transcript, it would be in the public record and available to trans and homophobic hate groups. The defendants had been left with little choice but to give up.

The patterns were subtle. If only one or two cases had shown them, they could have been ignored as coincidence, and even with a couple of dozen spread out over several years, they remained well camouflaged. It was only when all the cases were brought together that the conspiracy became evident.

He’d argued against it at first, vehemently and convincingly, but as the evidence mounted, as comparisons were made with other cases that did not involve members of the rainbow world where there was nothing to correlate, it was only then that he surrendered to the inevitable and gave a passionate if somewhat extreme right wing rant about decent society’s responsibility to stand against the erosion of family standards.

He was summarily disbarred. After all, the modern legal profession had been responsible for enacting into law the decriminalisation of homosexuality, laws preventing discrimination against LGBTQ individuals, equality laws relating to LGBTQ, etc, etc.

This was all what Excalibur had revealed to me, the extent of Quentin’s homophobic and trans phobic feelings, quite possibly fuelled by his parents saddling him with such a name. For goodness sake, even his wife’s name was more masculine. It had shown me the extent to which he had been prepared to circumvent the law in order to advance his own prejudicial agenda.

It had felt unfair to ambush Lance with his father’s misconduct, especially given the extent of the consequences now that it had been brought into the light, but there had been no way of telling him ahead of time without having some awkward conversations about where the knowledge had come from.

‘My pen is actually the a reincarnation of Excalibur and it’s able to speak the truth about anyone or anything I ask it. I reclaimed it from beneath Glastonbury Tor where Arthur’s remains lie between the forelegs of the sleeping dragon Kilgharrah. The way beneath the hill was shown to me by Nimue’s spirit who placed the sword there after Bedeviere returned it to her. Yes Nimue’s remains rest under Silbury Hill in the same way that Merlin’s are under Marlborough mound. The mounds are all ancient resting places of Britain’s dragons. They can’t die, so they were cast into slumber and buried, then the magic of dragons was used to preserve the spirits of significant people such as Merlin and Nimue and, who knows, maybe even Arthur himself...’

You can see how that wouldn’t be the easiest pitch to sell without supporting evidence. Now that I’d done the impossible and pointed the authorities in the direction of evidence I had no access to and even those who knew what they were doing had been unable to find, I was in a stronger position to be able to explain it using impossible ideas.

It was still going to be an interesting conversation.

My phone made a noise. Text from Lance. ‘Help!’

I wrote back, ‘Can you talk?’

‘Sure.’

I dialled his number. It barely rang once.

“Dad gave me an ultimatum,” he said. “My way or the highway sort of thing.”

Shit. “Do what’s best for you, love.”

“I am; I’m packing. I need somewhere to stay.”

“We have a spare room. I doubt it’s as posh as you’re used to.”

“Better than spending the night in a ditch. You sure your parents won’t mind?”

“If the alternative is you spending the night in a ditch, they’ll insist. Do you need me to sort out your train ticket?”

“No, I’m on it, only...”

“Only what?”

“Most of them are two changes. I wouldn’t get to you till ten or eleven.”

“Try Doncaster, Sheffield or Leeds. It’s a bit of a drive, but we could pick you up.”

“Doncaster looks best. I could be there by just after eight.”

“Great. That’s about an hour from here...”

“That’s too far.”

“No. We’ll grab a bite in Doncaster then bring you back here. Let us know when you’re on the train to Doncaster and when you expect to get here.”

“You sure this is alright?”

“Positive. Travel safe. Call if you need to talk.”

I headed downstairs and explained the situation to Mum and Dad who immediately kicked into action. Dad went to top his car up, Mum adjusted her cooking to make sure we had enough for one extra hungry teenager – more or less back to the way things had been six months ago since I no longer qualified – and I set about tidying the spare room and making up the bed.

Lance called through shortly after six to say he was on the train to Doncaster and expecting to arrive around quarter past eight.

“Are you sure this is alright?” he asked, “’cos I can get a taxi.”

“Don’t be prat. Dad’s already topped up the car. We’ll be there waiting for you when you arrive.”

“I don’t want to be any trouble.”

“Too late. Now shut up and let us look after you. Do you want to talk about your Dad?”

“I think I’d rather shut up.”

“Yeah, okay. Look, I know this is my fault.”

“Yeah? How are you responsible for my dad breaking the law before you even met him?”

“No, I mean this would never have been a problem if I hadn’t...”

“Don’t go there. Dad put a lot of innocent people in jail. Thanks to you most of them are out again. If I thought my dad was right and you were wrong, I wouldn’t be coming to you now.”

“I hate that I’m coming between you.”

“I don’t. If not for you I’d be well on my way to being just like him. You can’t begin to understand how much that makes me shudder now.”

“Well, you’re as not like him as it’s possible to be.”

“Hey, I thought you were supposed to be good at English.”

“Not so much when I’m crying.”

“Hey, why are you crying?”

“Because... Shit, I don’t know. Because I love you, I suppose.”

“You suppose? I left my ancestral home for you and you suppose!”

“I want to say it to your face. I hate that you’re miles away and on your own.”

“I’m not on my own. There’s a drunk guy a couple of seats down and some arsehole who thinks the only way to use a mobile phone is to shout into it.”

“Should I be jealous?”

“Well, maybe now that Jenna Ortega just walked into my compartment.”

“Would you like me to dress up like Wednesday Addams for you?”

“Actually, I’d prefer you as Enid Sinclair. That mess of colours in the hair is kind of hot.”

“I’ll have to see what I can do. Tell Jenna hi from me.”

“You know she’s not really here, don’t you?”

“Awe, and you had me going for a minute there.”

“I love you, you know.”

“It helps that you tell me from time to time. I love you too. No suppose.”

“Thanks. I needed that.”

“Get here and I’ll give you something else you need.”

“Now there’s a promise I intend to hold you to, except I don’t want to upset your parents.”

“You won’t, because I don’t intend to give you anything they’re likely to object to.”

I finished tidying the room. It looked neat enough, but it was missing something. I found some temporary hair colour and combed in a few pink and blue highlights, then took a selfie and printed it out. It folded down to fit into a spare picture frame and finished off Lance’s room perfectly.

Mum was in the kitchen, putting a second lasagne dish into the oven.

“What did you do to your hair?” she asked.

“Nothing that won’t wash out tomorrow. Kind of a thing for Lance.”

“It looks cute.”

Mum-speak for I don’t really like it. I mean, it’s more in the way she says it than in what she says.

“It’s okay Mum, It’ll be gone by tomorrow. If you really don’t like it, I can wash it out now.”

“No, really, it’s okay.”

I gave her a kiss on the cheek and ran upstairs.

Five minutes under the shower and forty five under the hairdryer, plus a change of clothing because why not. I mean I wanted to look good for Lance.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Mum said.

“I know, but you’re glad I did., right?”

“Well... yes, alright. Thank you. For listening to my... whatever.

“Anyway, you and your dad don’t need to leave for another thirty minutes, so we can eat now, then you can take the other lasagne for Lance. If we put it in the thermal bag it should still be reasonably hot when...”

“Can I have mine with Lance? I mean I’m not really hungry...”

“You’re never really hungry. It bothers me.”

“You’d rather I turned into a blimp?”

“I’d rather you didn’t go the other way.”

“Mum, healthy weight for someone my age and height is between fifty and sixty-five kilos. I’m fifty-two.”

Mum gave Dad an exasperated look and he promptly didn’t help.

“What’s that in real money, sweetheart? Mum and I are old enough that we don’t do metric.”

“Eight to ten stone and I’m eight stone two. Inside the range.”

“Only just,” Mum protested.

“Inside is inside. I’m not skinny; I’m... happy with myself. Don’t push it. If I drop below seven and a half stone, then you have permission to get stroppy with me.

“Mum, I intend to eat, I just... Didn’t you say once it was rude to make someone eat alone? You and Dad can eat. I just want to have mine with Lance.”

“And I think she wins again, sweetie.”

“You’re not helping, Derrick.”

“By which you mean I’m not agreeing with you, and I that wasn’t part of our contract.”

“It is if you want any of my lasagne.”

“Which will mean you get to eat alone, Mum, and I’ll just have to share my lasagne with Dad, so I won’t be eating anywhere near as much.”

“See what I mean?” Dad really wasn’t helping.

“I hate it when you use logic,” Mum grumbled and served up a couple of plates for her and Dad.

I spent the time hunting for more news about Lance’s dad. There were a few more sites carrying the story, but none of them had anything else to say.

I waited for them to finish then took the second lasagne from where it had been warming in the oven and transferred it to our thermal bag.

I should say at this point that Mum does cook other things than lasagne, just that it’s a favourite of everyone’s, so it tends to come up quite a lot.

“So,” Dad kicked off the conversation as soon as we were off the driveway, “tell me what’s going on with your boyfriend.”

“There’s not that much to tell,” I answered a little lamely.

“Says my word Smith daughter who’s written two bestsellers in the last six months. I think you can do better than that.”

“Where do you want me to start?”

“Try the beginning. I mean, I have a few ideas, I think, but we’ve a longish car journey ahead of us.”

“Promise not to drive us off the road?”

He snorted at me then just sat there waiting for me to start.

“Okay, so you know how you reacted when I first told you about Lance.”

“Mhm?” He was definitely working on keeping his cool.

“Kind of mild compared to Mr G when he heard that his son’s new girlfriend wasn’t actually a girl.

“He’s been doing his best since then to split us up, starting off with working on Lance.”

“What do you mean?”

“He spent the last few weeks of the summer holidays clearing out the garage and the attic and other stuff like that.

“Then he tried to blackball my admittance to Marlborough with the trustees.”

“He what!?”

“Drive, Dad, or I’m going to shut up.”

“Okay, sorry.”

“I mean it. He did worse, so if you can’t handle it...”

“I’ll handle it.”

Yeah right. Gritted teeth say otherwise.

“Spoiler alert, nothing that he tried worked, and I came out on top in the end.”

“Yes, about that...”

“We’ll get there. Long drive, remember?

“Apparently he’s done it with a few other students who were openly gay or something, but Mr Cavendish had his reasons for wanting me, so he overruled him.

“I went to meet Lance when he arrived back at school and his dad was just so rude. I mean, he was probably still smarting from the one-upping Mum gave Mrs G when we met them a week or so earlier.”

“Your mum told me about that. I wish I’d been a fly on the wall.”

“Yeah, well his next effort was to persuade most of my teachers to give me such a workload in my first week that I’d give up and run home in tears.”

“You didn’t tell us about that.”

“No, because Peter – Ambrose, you remember? – figured out what was going on and told Mr C...”

“Mr C?”

“Mr Cavendish. Keep up Dad. Yeah, and he called all the teachers in and tore them a new one.

“I don’t know that he did anything else. I mean he had to be careful with the school because Mr C kind of barred him from coming in unsupervised for a while, but I had a feeling about that Christmas invitation of his. Mum did too, but it would have been rude not to go. All I could do was make sure we didn’t go unprepared.”

“Is that what the suit was about? And those new dresses for your mum?”

“Can’t I buy nice things for the special people in my life? Alright, yes it was. I didn’t want you to be humiliated.”

“It would have been pretty rough going. I mean... well yeah. Remind me to listen to you in future, okay. You handled yourself so well in there, I can’t imagine being more proud.

“I still don’t get what that whole thing at the end was though. I know you’ve asked us not to pry about it, but I can’t help thinking it’s part of this.”

“That would be because it is, Dad.” How to explain this. “I mean, you don’t go into the enemy’s camp without some plan for dealing with the inevitable ambush, do you?

“I gave him every option to apologise and back down, but I couldn’t let him get away with his shit.”

“You don’t have to swear, love. I can understand your wanting to, but it doesn’t do anything for you.”

“Sorry Dad. So, he’s the sort of person who only understands strength. He likes to bully people, and if we’d just walked out, we’d have maybe escaped with our dignity, but he wouldn’t have stopped being... as unpleasant.”

Dad smiled. “So what was that thing with the piece of paper?”

“I did some research on him, Dad. He’s had a number of trials in the past few years where he’s been going after people like me, and suddenly they change their pleas to guilty without any warning or reason.

“The transcripts for those cases are in the public domain and Marlborough has a pretty decent law section in the library. I kind of read through his cross examination just before the change of plea and there was something slightly off with the way he spoke; words that didn’t quite fit.

“I figured he might be trying to get a message across that only the guy in the dock would understand, so I dug a bit deeper, made a few phone calls, upset some people unnecessarily...”

“What do you mean?”

“Mr Girling has been slipping hints about where the defendant’s family and loved ones were staying into his cross examinations. The court transcripts for these kinds of trials are in the public domain, not that anyone would usually want to look them up, but if some right wing hate group knew to look and what to look for, they’d be able to go looking for them.”

“That’s heinous.”

“Yeah, and illegal and unethical. So my parting shot was to hand evidence of Mr G’s wrongdoing over to his judge friend.

“It came on the news a short while ago, about the time Lance sent up his distress call, that Mr G’s been disbarred. I think he reacted rather badly, and I may have put Lance in the position of having to choose between me and his arsehole dad. Sorry, language.”

“You figured this out all on your own?”

“I may have had a little help.”

“From whom?”

“I’m not involving anyone else, Dad. Not even with you.”

“Fair enough. Would it be someone with strong feelings about homophobes and...”

“Please Dad, stop fishing.”

“Alright. What is it Lance needs from us?”

“Somewhere to stay, probably until we’re back at school.”

“What if his parents come after him? I mean he is a minor and his dad’s a lawyer.”

“Was a lawyer.”

“He still knows the law, which is more than I do.”

“Can we get some advice?”

“Any other time of the year I think we could, but between Christmas and New Year?”

“Domestic crises happen any time of the year. There has to be some sort of social services we can talk to.”

“I’ll see what I can find out tomorrow.”

“Thanks Dad.”

“So, Latin eh? Where did that come from?”

I smiled. “I don’t know. It’s complicated but logical. It just sort of clicked.”

Crisis averted and no need to mention dragons or magic swords or anything.

We made it to Doncaster with ten minutes to spare. Dad dropped me off at the main entrance and drove around in a wide circle while I texted Lance to let him know we we’d arrived. His train arrived on time, or only a couple of minutes late, which was a minor miracle in itself.

He came through the ticket barrier with a sports bag over his shoulder and not a lot else.

“Travelling light?” I asked, as much to draw his attention to me as anything, then we gave the next two minutes over to saying hi properly.

“We’d better go find Dad. He’s probably on his fourth orbit by now.”

Fifth as it happens, but he was cool about it, and about me climbing in the back with Lance. I mean we had dinner – I mean tea – to share didn’t we? He left us to it other than insisting Lance should call his mother to let her know where he was and that he was okay.

She didn’t seem that bothered if the Lance’s side of the conversation was anything to go by, but like Dad says, we do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do. Not for the praise we might get.

Lance managed to get sauce down his front, which gave me an opportunity to tut at him, especially when it turned out he hadn’t brought a spare sweatshirt. I couldn’t really take the high ground though. When I’d been a guy, I’d ended most meals wearing some of it down my front, and I hadn’t exactly been that well equipped the first time I’d gone to Marlborough.

With the meal over, I rearranged my seatbelt enough to snuggle into Lance’s side. He didn’t object and, judging by his lack of reaction, neither did Dad. I settled against his chest and let the strong, steady beat of his heart ease me into a doze.

It did mean I left Lance at my dad’s mercy, and he spent the return trip giving him the fourth degree – or is it the second degree? Whichever one would be less severe than the third degree anyway. I mean my dad’s always been a bit of a softy.

I woke to the sensation of our car pulling up into our driveway and sat up to the realisation that I had drooled significantly in my sleep.

“So that’s not at all embarrassing,” I chastised myself.

“It’s all good,” Lance said, suppressing a smile. “I think the enzymes in your saliva have started breaking down the tomato stains I put there earlier.”

Except saliva breaks down carbohydrates and there aren’t any in tomato. Hey! Where did that come from? I’m rubbish at science.

Mum wasn’t so easy going. She insisted that Lance take his sweatshirt off at once so she could attack it with some Vanish before putting it in the wash.

Which meant Lance had to somewhat sheepishly admit to not having brought anything else with him.

I had a rummage through my wardrobe. All my Gavin things had long since gone to the charity shop – not that they would have fit him anyway – but I did have a couple of massively oversized sweatshirts, you know for that ‘off the shoulder, accidentally on purpose showing a bit of bra strap’ look. One was white with a bunch of flowers on it and the other had a picture of Snoopy and Woodstock with some nauseatingly cute caption underneath. I gave him the choice and he went for Snoopy.

It still only just fit him.

I showed him the bathroom and his room where he went straight to the picture.

“When did you take this?” he asked.

“Earlier today, before we came to fetch you.”

“You should have kept the colour.”

“I thought about it but decided to wash it instead.”

“It did smell good in the car. I had to keep my legs crossed the whole time.”

“What do you... Oh God!” I blushed furiously. Mine had never done anything like that to me, but there had been enough lads at school who’d suffered attacks of swollen trousers. It did the weirdest thing to me to think I’d actually been the cause of one. “Good night Lance. Breakfast will be whenever you wake up, but it’d be good if you could make it sometime in the morning.

“No problem.” He carefully pulled off the sweatshirt. “Can I hang onto this?”

“Sure. I mean I’m not sure it does much for your manly image, but at least until Mum washes yours and/or we get you something more.”

“No, it’s not that. It’s just that it smells of you.”

That kind of melted bits of me. I pulled him to the doorway – he was just in reach – and kissed him.

“Gwen, remember what we said,” Mum’s voice from downstairs. Honestly, she must have some seriously cutting edge parental radar.

“Public spaces only, I know. Door’s open and I’m not in his room.”

Lance got an extra kiss for that, but he was fading around the edges, so I left him to get some sleep.

He was up and about by nine the next morning, which was a couple of hours after the rest of us, but I suppose we didn’t have quite the day he had.

Mum called in a favour with a friend who ran the local charity shop. They’d been planning to stay closed between Christmas and New Year, but after Mum explained Lance’s predicament, she snuck us in the back and let us have a quiet browse through the stock, including stuff that hadn’t gone on display yet. We pretty much tripled the size of Lance’s wardrobe plus I found a pair of jeans that looked fantastic on me.

I paid Mum’s friend twice what came up on the cash register and told her the extra was a thank you which she could count as a donation if she really wanted to.

Lance and I spent the following days wandering the neighbourhood. I showed him my old stamping ground – playgrounds I’d played in, the school I’d attended before Marlborough, the parks where I’d gone for solitary walks thinking up ideas for my stories. We encountered a few of the local Neanderthals who gave me a few odd looks. I mean it was cold enough to put me in jeans and a baggy jacket, so I looked more like my old self than usual, so maybe they sort of recognised me. Fortunately Lance intimidated them into keeping their distance so they were only vaguely annoying.

New Year’s Eve came and there was the option of a fancy dress ball at the town hall. I got ‘do we have to?’ vibes from Lance so asked if it would be okay if we had a quiet night in.

Mum and Dad already had their costumes and tickets – Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers with Mum looking fantastic under a wig of coppery curls – and they didn’t really want to miss it.

“We’ll be on best behaviour, Mum, Dad,” I said.

“Yeah,” Lance said, “you can trust us.”

I tried to stop him, but it slipped out too fast. All I could do was roll my eyes as Dad gave us his mini lecture fourteen B.

“You know, I’ve always felt that people who tell me to trust them, or that I can trust them are trying too hard.”

Lance didn’t miss a beat. “Then maybe I can try that again. We will be good.”

“There,” Dad said to Mum, “Now that I believe.” Then as he guided her towards the door, “Besides, if they were going to get up to no good, they’re bound to have found somewhere to do it at that fancy school of theirs.”

I threw a cushion at him, but the door was already nearly closed.

“Your mum and dad are amazing,” Lance said leading me to the sofa. “Mine would never trust me like that.”

“Dad says we judge others like we judge ourselves. He and Mum were pretty trustworthy when they were kids, or so they led me to believe, so it’s easier for them to be trusting. Besides, you’ve impressed them these past few days.”

“Only them?”

“You have no need to impress me. I’m already smitten. Do you want a hot chocolate?”

“Later maybe. There’s something else I want a taste of right now.”

So we sat and kissed, and we kissed and sat. And... What? You thought he wanted to taste what?! Hell no! Get your mind out the gutter. This is a family show.

Anyway, kissing works for a while, then it’s not enough, except we’d given our word, so I went to make us some drinks and Lance did some advanced remote control operation in search of a decent film, and we settled down to watch something romantic and soppy.

“I didn’t think this was your sort of thing,” I said as I rejoined him with two steaming mugs to find the opening scene of Ten Things I Hate About You cued and ready.

“I don’t mind it. What I like is what it does to you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’ll see. You okay with this?”

“Yeah, if you are. Love me a bit of Heath Ledger.”

So we watched it, and as the plot developed and I fell deeper and deeper into it, I snuggled closer to Lance and made little noises into his chest. He was probably grinning through most of it but I’ve no proof as he kept his face buried in my hair.

“See what I mean?” he asked as the closing credits scrolled up the screen and I found myself almost all the way in his lap.

“It’s such a great story though, and so well done, don’t you think?”

“Yeah. What should we do now? I mean it’s half an hour till midnight.”

“I don’t know. I suppose we could switch to BBC or something. They usually have fillers – news and stuff – until the fireworks.”

“You don’t mind this, do you? I mean did you want to go to that fancy dress thing?”

“Not really. Costumes would have been a bit last minute and therefore naff, plus I didn’t think it would be much fun for you. Crowd of people you didn’t know and not much to be happy about.”

“I’m not bothered about me...”

“No, but I am. I wanted you to be where you would feel most at ease, and I wanted to be with you, so no I didn’t want to go to the ball. Here with you is just perfect.

“Do you want another hot chocolate?”

“No thanks, I’m good.”

“What is it?”

“Just that I usually join Mum and Dad in a glass of claret around now.”

“I could ask Dad.”

“No, it’s ok... Oh... my... God!”

“What? What is it?” I stepped over so I could see the TV. It showed Lance’s dad shaking hands with... “Is that...?”

“You’re kidding right? Everyone knows who that odious little turd is. But what the hell is Dad doing shaking hands with him?”

“Well you know that thing on the controller marked volume?”

“Shit, yeah.”

“...Quentin Girling, a respected Oxford barrister with an impressive number of convictions to his name, has today announced his intention to step down from practicing law in order to run for parliament. Perhaps most surprising is his intention to run under the banner of Reform UK. Michael, what do you make of that?”

Lance muted the TV and sat rather heavily on the sofa.

I went to the drinks cabinet. No claret, but... I poured out a couple of small measures and handed one to Lance.

“What?”

“Under the circumstances, I don’t think Dad’ll mind. Not claret I’m afraid, but Dad does like his port.”

He took a sip. “Bit sweet,” he said.

“Yeah. One small one is usually enough.”

We sat in silence for a while, trying to take it in, but silence don’t last; a girl’s gotta talk.

“Talk about nailing your colours to the mast,” I said.

“Yeah. You can’t be openly right wing as a practicing barrister – seen as prejudicial. Dad would rant about it sometimes. Now I guess he’s free to tell the world just how much of an arsehole he really is.”

“How will it affect your mum?”

“Hard to say. She shares Dad’s beliefs. Won’t be seen by any doctor who isn’t clearly white; believes all people of a darker skin colour should be restricted to menial work because, and I cannot stress that these are her words and not mine, they’re good at that sort of thing.

“The flip side is there aren’t many right wingers in our neck of the woods, so Mum’s had to kerb her tendency towards racism in order to fit in. She gets her own back in other ways, or at least she did until she met your mum. With Dad coming out of the closet, she may struggle to find a circle of friends who’ll stand by her.

“It was always Dad’s plan to go into politics at some stage, except he wanted a bit more in the bank and a much better reputation. He’ll figure out someway to keep earning the money in, but the reputation...”

“Yeah, still one man’s meat, eh?”

“What?”

“Old saying. One man’s meat is another man’s poison. Everyone knows how he feels about people like me, so there isn’t much hope of convincing his former friends that he doesn’t, so...”

“Go big or go home.”

“That’s a sporting saying, isn’t it?" I knew it was, but Lance needed distracting

“Doesn’t make it rubbish.”

“No. You gotta get it right sometimes.”

He smiled his crooked smile. He was coming out the other side.

Then my phone rang. I put it on speaker.

“Hi Dad. How’s the party?”

“Pretty good. We won second prize for the fancy dress.”

“Only second?”

“Too many young people. Not enough who remember Fred and Ginger. We lost to a Homer and Marge Simpson. Mind you, Marge’s hair was impressive, and they used a lot of yellow body paint. Worthy winners.”

That’s my dad.

“Anyway, with the witching hour almost upon us, your mum and I wanted to wish you both a brilliant new year. This one’s been eventful enough, but we can’t wait to see what you’ll make of next year.

“Oh, and if you feel like toasting the New Year properly, we’re okay with you having a glass of sherry or port.”

“Sorry Dad, we beat you to it. Lance had a bit of a shock a few minutes back.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, his Dad shaking hands with that Farrage bloke. He’s running for parliament under Reform UK.”

Dad let out a low whistle. “Under those circumstances, if he feels the need for anything stronger...”

“Thanks Dad, but I think we’re good. Looks like we’re about to go into the countdown.”

Didn’t really need saying as the crowd around Mum and Dad started counting backwards. We let them and raised our glasses when they reached the end.

“Happy New Year you two,” Mum and Dad shouted down the phone together. “Don’t wait up.”

We sent them our wishes in return then hung up. The fireworks was its usual overwhelming extravagance. We lost interest after a minute and had a go at creating our own.

Ours lasted longer and took us to the limit of our self control.

“Washing up,” I said. One of only a few phrases guaranteed to dampen the ardour. It worked. We finished off our small libations, then washed those glasses out by hand. The mugs were given a rinse and added to the dishwasher, which was full enough to set about its business.

“We have to do something,” Lance said.

“No, it’s all automatic. Everything will be clean in the morning.”

“About my dad, dummy.”

“I know. Just trying to lighten the mood. I know what you mean though, and I’ve been thinking. You know that club fair we had back in September? How often does Marlborough run them?”

“Three times a year. Next one’s in January. We tend to get foreign students joining from different parts of the world every term.”

“Bet your dad loves that.”

“Don’t get me started. Tell me what you have in mind.”

The January term started the Monday after New Year’s day, give or take an inset day, so we didn’t have long for planning. We had Lance’s situation to work out, so had spoken to the college and arranged to go down on the Friday, which really bit into our planning time.

Lance was a much better artist than me so I left him working on that side of it all while I tackled the words. No, tackle’s the wrong word. Too confrontational. Coaxed the words from my mind. By the time we were ready to go back, we had a bunch of very attractive and professional looking paperwork ready to print.

One of the nice things about posh schools with lots of money, Marlborough had lots of nice toys, including equipment for printing glossy trifold brochures as well as fabric and badge printing.

It also had about a thousand students and a policy where new clubs were concerned. Typically, no more than ten percent of the school population showed any interest with, I f you were lucky, as many as one in four going so far as to join, so we were permitted a hundred trifold brochures and twenty five each of the badges and tee shirts.

Digital technology meant it would take only ten minutes to run off an additional fifty brochures and, if our members were genuinely interested in what we had a I offer, they’d be prepared to wait the couple of days necessary to schedule a tee shirt run that would be able to cater for everyone’s size preferences too.

Everything came out pre folded and packed, so when the fair kicked off on arrivals day, all I needed was a little muscle to lug everything around. I no longer had anything worth talking about in that department myself, but between all the hangers on in the Friday debating group, I had enough muscle available..

At least that was the case after Lance had done his bit for Darwinian evolution and fought off all the pretenders to his crown. They’d all sensed blood in the water following his father’s change of status, but he was the rugby team captain for a reason and didn’t actually have to break too many heads to dissuade any potential challengers.

That’s euphemistic you understand. No actual blood was spilt in the making of this motion picture, blah-de-blah etcetera.

We set up at the empty table, banner overhead, brochures stacked and ready to hand out and badges and tee shirts for anyone who joined. We ran out of the latter within ten minutes and the former within half an hour. We were the first new society at the school in several decades and that drew a lot of interest. The tee shirt issue we took care of by making a list and taking orders. The brochures, we had to send off for emergency print runs three times with fully a quarter of the student body wanting to know more.

By the end of the day we had eighty-seven signed up. We almost certainly wouldn’t see that many actually turn up for our first meeting, but if even half made it, we were going to need a bigger boat – sorry, venue. Blasted movie references.

We called ourselves New Albion with the catch phrase, ‘Let’s try something new... again.’ The logo was a top down image of the round table with multiple swords placed point inwards. Both for authenticity and simplicity of design, the swords were spatha, the topmost one marked with ‘Suscipe me’ in angular Roman letters.

As for what I’d written. I started off with that Winston Churchill’s quote about democracy:

‘No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.’

But what were those other forms of government? I explored all the different types we’d mentioned in our early discussion groups, from autocratic systems like hereditary monarchies and dictatorships where a single ruler would eventually make decisions to benefit himself rather his people, to socialism and communism at the opposite end of the spectrum, which failed because all individuals voting for their own interests would act against one another, effectively paralysing the process, and making hard but necessary decisions would be all but impossible because too many people would vote against it and in their own best interests.

The nearest thing to anything that worked was a representative democracy where all people had a say in who would lead and the group of leaders so elected would give the country its direction. But how to keep those representatives from acting selfishly? We’d seen that happen within our lifetime, when a party won an election by a wide margin or the other major party fell into decline leaving now opposition, and the victors took that as permission to do whatever they wanted.

The only system that history spoke of as having worked was King Arthur’s round table, where all knights were treated as equals, but had to show themselves to be worthy before being admitted to the circle.

New Albion proposed a political party that could operate within the existing representative democracy structure, but had its own internal standards for ensuring integrity and a commitment to the welfare of the whole nation.

I ended by saying the youth of today are the adults of tomorrow. This is the world we are about to inherit. Let’s make sure we’re ready for it.

And we already had nearly ten percent of the school on the membership. We’d inevitably lose some when they saw the commitment we were asking, but that was kind of the point. To find the gemstones among the rocks and to create a party that could stand against the prejudice of the far right and the selfishness of those who were only in the game for what they could get out of it.

Only the future would see if our brand of altruism had a chance.

So like I said at the outset, what is a story if not a snippet of someone’s life. The once upon a time for me began with that competition and the happily ever after? Well, I guess I’m not there yet, so welcome to the end of episode one.

Yeah, I didn’t cover that, did I? Epic sagas – stories that take a little longer, that are too much to read in one chunk. Like being on a long journey (to dispose of a magical ring of evil purpose, for instance) you’d need a place to pause and stretch your legs, have a coffee (assuming you like coffee).

So here’s my Welcome Break, my motorway service station on the way to somewhere better, my roadside café where we can rest a while.

I like who I am now, I’m stronger, more determined and I have a purpose. The road ahead looks challenging and six months ago it might have been enough to scare me into running away and hiding, but not anymore.

Astonishing how much can change in just six months.