Fragment #77 - Father!

“Oh, Charlie, come in.”
“Good morning, Father.” I enter the room, followed closely by Steve.
“Sir Collomb, hi, I’m Steve.”
My dad looks at me with a question mark in his eyes.
“He is my boyfriend, Father.”
“Very nice to meet you, Steve. Charlie, why did you wait so long to come and see me?”
I stay mute for a couple of second, and then look straight at my dad.
“Do you really wonder, Father? Oh, and by the way, where is your so useful lawyer?” I say with a very ironic voice.
My father looks extremely embarrassed and tensed. I can see that he is hurt by my behaviour. I can feel also that Steve is not exactly at ease, but I can’t help myself: I’m still angry after my father and I can’t keep it to myself. He takes Steve by his arm and moves towards the big sofa in the centre of the room. They sit down and start talking about Steve’s work. My dad knows how to be extremely civil and interesting when he wants to. I’m walking around the room, trying to calm down.
Finally, I burst out.
“Father, what are you doing here?!”
“What? I’m chatting with your boyfriend. Do you see anything wrong in that?”
“No more lies. What are doing in Glasgow? What did you do in Africa?” I throw the blue file on the table in front of him. “Why does that Abou guy have a file on me, with private information, among which your name and our family connection?” I yelled the last sentence.
My father looks at me, puzzled. He opens the file and start browsing it. The more he reads, the more his face drops. At one point, he lets the file fall on the table and hides his eyes behind his hand. We wait in silence for awhile, until he recovers and, when he looks up, there are tears in his eyes.