Is your dad as handsome as you are? I said

Why, are you thinking about going there? He's very right-wing. I would point out that he's also still married, but when has that stopped you before?

Oh, that's nice. Now who's hostile?

I'm sorry, he said. You're so right, you should seduce my dad.

Do you think I'm his type?

Oh yeah. In the sense that you greatly resemble my mother, anyway.

I started to laugh. It was a sincere laugh but I still wanted to make sure he would hear it.

That's a joke, said Nick. Are you laughing there, or weeping? You don't resemble my mother.

Is your dad actually right-wing or is that a joke too?

Oh no, he's a real wealth creator. Hates women. Absolutely detests the poor. So you can imagine he loves me, his camp actor son.

I was really laughing then. You're not camp, I said. You're aggressively heterosexual. You even have a twenty-one-year-old mistress.

That I think my father would actually approve of. Happily he'll never know.