him a sticker for being a brave boy. He didn’t like that.
Daniel: Emma? What would you expect from her? She always has to have the last word. I bet she didn’t have such a smart mouth in prison.
Emma: I can’t stand the bloke. He’s one of those men that, before they’ve even opened their mouth, you know they’re one of those ‘you-can’t-say-anything-nowadays’-types. The sort that goes on about winning two World Wars, even though he wasn’t there for either. He’ll own a massive four-wheel drive, even though he never goes anywhere near the countryside. He’ll spend an hour droning on about the plague of average speed cameras on the motorway, or complaining that there’s now a vegan option at his favourite pub. He’ll talk about running over all cyclists, or saying how women’s football shouldn’t be anywhere near the TV. Not that he ever watches the lefty-liberal BBC, obviously. You think all that before he even opens his gob – then he starts talking and you realise he’s everything you thought he was but much, much worse.
Sorry, where was I? Oh, yeah. Daniel Dorsey. Complete dickhead.
Julius: I knew Emma was going to blow that first night. I could see it, even from the other end of the table. She and Daniel are, um… very different people.
Emma: Daniel owns forty-nine per cent of Dad’s company, so it’s hard to avoid him. I try to stay away from him, but there wasn’t much I could do when the only free seat was at this side. I was doing my best to ignore him, but he wouldn’t shut up. I swear, that skiing story was into its second hour and he’d somehow blended it into another ‘kids today’ rant, which is another of his favourite moans. He was saying something about how young people always want everything on a plate, and I suppose I snapped.
Julius: Don’t get Emma started about Boomers versus Millennials, or Gen X.
Emma: He kept saying how kids today aren’t willing to work for anything, and how they waste all their money on phones, so I fired back at him. I said: ‘Didn’t you buy a bunch of council houses because the government sold them off on the cheap?’ He took a breath and I think he was going to carry on as if I hadn’t spoken, so I kept talking. I said: ‘It’s a shame young people can’t do that now, isn’t it? Shame that houses today are ten or twelve times’ their average salary while you bought yours for eight grand.’
Julius: I don’t think Emma realised that she was shouting. Everyone else had stopped and I could hear every word from the other end of the table. There was this moment of silence and then Daniel came back at her.
Emma: He said: ‘That’s easy to say when someone else has paid for you to be here.’
I was going to say that I only came because Mum wanted me to. He wasn’t done, though. He was shouting in my face. I could see the red veins across his nose from where he’s such a massive pisshead.
He goes: ‘I don’t think you’re in a position to be lecturing others on morals.’ Then he held up his wine glass and angled it towards me, like he’s making a toast. He said something like: ‘Chill out. Have a drink and enjoy yourself.’
Julius: I thought Emma was going to smack him. I looked across to this waiter who was carrying some dirty plates across towards the kitchen. He was frozen and watching, like everyone was. There was this long pause and it felt like anything could happen. Good job Mum was there.
Emma: The words were stuck, like I couldn’t get out a reply. He knew exactly what he was doing when he tilted that wine glass towards me. You know that saying about ‘When they go low, we go high’? Daniel is the opposite. He’ll go as low as he possibly can… though not in any physical sense, of course. It’s been a good two decades since he last saw his feet over that gut.
Daniel: Back in your box, little girl. Back in your box.
Emma: Dad just sat there and it was Mum who answered. She spoke really quietly – and yet it felt so powerful. Like, sometimes the quietest voice in the room is the one that talks the loudest. She goes: ‘Let’s not do this now.’
That put an end to it because everyone listened to her, even Daniel. Daniel gulped his