It rankled him for days after his father had asked him about the Fleur de Lis. It was a crossword clue 'French flag symbol pre-revolution'. He'd garbled some nonsense about the French having 'several pre-revolutionary flag symbols' but this feeble answer simply elicited a look of puzzled disappointment on his father's face; which was only compounded further by his mother piping up with 'Wasn't it Fleur de Lis?
Mysteriously, he'd been awarded a First Class History degree by a less-than-first-class 'university' (not even 'red-brick' more 'jerry-built'), and this had convinced his father that his eldest son must know everything about the history of the entire world. He wasn't aware of the term 'modular': that you could study little 'modules' of history with almost total disregard for the wider picture. It was true that he had studied aspects of European history but the Fleur de Lis along with so much more had never been mentioned.
Now that circumstances had seen him back living with his parents in their perfectly presentable one-bed flat in the leafy suburbs of London, he very quickly found himself vulnerable with regard to their evident predilection for crossword puzzles. To him they were as the sun was to Count Dracula. Morning, noon and night they'd fire questions at him, especially those of an historical nature, though they believed his intellect just as well disposed to Quantum Physics and the Natural Sciences, poems and poets and all philosophy back to Thales of Miletus. He would be called upon for dates of wars and names of chemical elements, through theology and how Disraeli liked his eggs. Did he not know the names of Aztec kings and queens and the noble dynasties of China?
He twitched and jerked with spasming nerves. His parents witnessed him leaping balletically out of his chair as they had only just began to genuflect a question (he could read the signs with the precision of a Venus Fly-trap)..
"Just going to the toilet"
At night in bed they discussed whether he was suffering from some form of food-poisoning, diarrhea or some exotic strain of giardia, although they were sure he hadn't been living in the woods anytime recently. What they didn't know, and what would have perhaps alleviate their concern was also something he could never tell them. He, in fact, sat on the little toilet, feverishly hoping that they'd come up with the answer between themselves. He'd sometimes, though not very often, hear one of them go 'aahh Anne of Cleve's..!' or 'aaah Diogenes of Sinope..!' and then he could relax and re-appear only to risk further questioning.
In extreme conditions, he'd leave the house altogether, walking the leafy lanes on north London until he felt it was safe to return. Once such time, he'd insisted to his father that Churchill had reputedly said "To war-war is always better than to jaw-jaw" even when he knew he'd been mistaken and it was the other way around. His very soul shook with embarrassment and shame when he thought of his father, unwilling to challenge 'the brilliant scholar' but unable to hide the doubt and suspicion in his eyes. By the time he'd even partially recovered from the remorse of this colossal and imbecilic historical inaccuracy he'd walked the twelve miles into central London.
On his return, long past midnight, he at least expected the relief of finding his parents tucked up in bed, leaving the front room free for a bracing tincture and maybe watch a programme on the TV (not history related).
Imagine the ice-chilled terror as he crept along the hallway carpet only to hear the damning words emanating from an unlit bedroom..
"David! You'll know this...!"
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