Z - My Ems

"Oh my God!" She wants me to meet her parents. "Jeepers Creepers!"
"Holy
Moses!" Now how come I'd found myself politely replying: "Of course,
darling, I'd love
to!" ? How did that happen? The words just kind of trickled out before
I'd even taken a
breath. Before I'd had a chance to protest: "Who said that? I never
said that?" she'd smiled and given me one of her cutest little pecks on
the cheek, tossing her blond bob at me, as she does.

O.K, deep breath, pull yourself together dude. You've done the parent
thing
before, haven't you? Yep, sure you have. Be cool, man. Remember you met
Lucy's
parents the year before last? That was fine. No problemo. Right old
bimbo Lucy turned
out to be, but the parent thing worked out fine, didn't it? We met in
the Black Horse on
Tinkers Street I seem to remember. They asked me some sensible
questions. I gave
some oh-so-sensible answers. Thought I might have to go to an
orthodontist to get that
oh-so-charming fixed smile off my face afterwards, you know what I
mean? But it was
O.K. Sorted. I can do the parent thing&;#8230; Maybe. Maybe you can
buy one of those
rip-off self-hypnotic cassettes, like those "Be confident in 30 days".
I need a "How to
meet the parents confidently and with ease&;#8230;", could be a
major best seller that one.

Think of parents - no, forget your average parents. I have average
parents, my parents have average parents, my neighbours have average
parents (maybe not, one of
them does have a rather peculiar purplish wig). Anyway, these are not
average parents, the ones I have to meet I mean. Just my luck to have
to meet parents called "Sir George and Lady Harrington". I ask you, how
did I get myself into this one? Imagine people living the same way for
150 years, as if they managed to find some way of entirely by-passing
the space-time continuum. God, I've been reading too many books these
days - "space-time continuum?" I ask you. Must have been some kind of
Dr Who figure in my previous life. Anyway, there they are with all the
garb, values and speech of the mid-nineteenth century. Feeling "gay" in
the morning? Don't even go there. It means something entirely different
to them, as do most things it seems. Why there's got to be hills
younger than them Harringtons. Meeting them was a job for lucky boxer
shorts, lucky tie, no cutting yourself shaving, new dental floss, and a
pint of Dutch courage or two.

Bloody hell. Harrington Hall. I felt gob-smacked by it before I'd even
set eyes
on it. In the voice of the Saturday afternoon football scores:
"Inhabitants - 1: Sitting rooms - (pause) 4". Unbelievable! I reckon
people had been lost for days in that
East Wing. You could start swinging cats and die of dizziness before
you started running out of room, man.

Lady Harrington. Larger than life she is, an' all. There's got to be
some counties smaller than her backside. Perhaps that's a bit harsh,
but there could certainly be a photo finish in it between her and
Somerset. But you've got to give it to her, she's a jolly soul, and
friendly with it, and that's more than can be said for her grumpy groos
old man. Nasty doesn't even begin to describe him. Attila the Hun would
have chosen a night in with Ivan the Terrible over him, and that's
saying something. I wouldn't mind betting that your average frail old
meek and mild granny would rather stay in and watch a whole evening of
re-runs of Crimewatch than have a single cup of tea with him.

I was not just scared you know, I was S C A R E D. Full block capital
letters scared. Oh Emily, Emily&;#8230;. Well there was just one of
her gorgeous self, but I found myself going round the house for days
saying her name in duplicate: "Oh Emily, Emily", wondering just how the
hell I was going to handle it. (Kind of puts a different slant on
Juliet's "Oh Romeo, Romeo", doesn't it?). Anyway, what was I going to
do, Emily was my girlfriend, but I was kind of hoping it wasn't going
to stay that way for much longer. For, in the works of Baldrick, "I had
a cunning plan".

You know me. I've had girlfriends that never even showed up,
girlfriends that came and went, and girlfriends who stuck around for a
while. Yet in the end they've all realised that every dog has its day,
and they've moved co-operatively into the alternative categories of
"friend", "acquaintance" or "bitch who shall be nameless". But Emily,
Oh Emily, I was hoping would move swiftly into the category of
"fiancee", and according to the cunning plan, after six or seven months
be transformed into "My Lovely wife". I
could just imagine arriving at dinner parties and saying "and this is
My Lovely Wife", just
to rub it in, you know.

Even more amazingly, Ems was happy with the cunning plan too. I was
doing my best to act the dumb boyfriend (hard, I know, but when needs
must&;#8230;), doing my best not to notice her ominous hints about
baby booties and three-bedroomed houses, indicating she wished to
upgrade herself to "Mother" in the too-soon future. "Cross that bridge
when you come to it, boy". That's what my Uncle Bert used to say. He
came to a sticky end mind you, but that's another story. I'd just have
to do my best to keep Emily away from bridges for at least the next
three years. Definitely no honeymoon in Wales, then, unless maybe a
nice little flight to Cardiff? First class of course. Only the best for
my Ems you know.