"Oh, don't be ridiculous! What—turn down a place at Christ Church? Have another go and risk being turned down?"

He shrugged. "I'd back myself, obviously. But if not, there are other universities."

I couldn't speak for a moment. Finally, I found my voice. "Peter, if you remember rightly, they said come now or don't come at all!" My voice was shrill.

“That particular college, yes."

"Christ Church, Peter, Christ Church. Not any old college."

He looked at me calmly.

"No," I said firmly. "No. It is absolutely not all right, it is out of the question. I forbid it." I was sweating. Trembling. "You can't. Don't be silly."

I stared at him impotently. Felt sick. I also knew I was hyperventilating. I got up. Walked around the garden, arms tightly clenched, my heart pumping. I came back but couldn't sit.

"Look, Mum, I knew you'd be upset—"

"After all we've worked for," I whispered, close to tears. “To chuck it in."

"All I've worked for." But he knew what I meant. Years of hoping I'd got it right: hoping I was keeping this clever boy on track, away from too many festivals, away from drugs. Every exam he took, pacing the kitchen, looking at the clock, thinking . . . he'll be going into Maths. Now lunch. Now Spanish. And it had just been me, because Hugo had been much more relaxed, hadn't got involved. If you asked Hugo, he'd have to think what A levels Peter had taken. Four: Spanish, Biology, Physics, History. But I'd pretend not to remember one of them, as many hovering, helicopter mothers disingenuously did.

“What's the last one?" Brow furrowed. Indelibly planted in my brain, I'd finally retrieve it. "Gosh, what a mixture!" mothers would then respond. "Is it?" I'd reply innocently, as if I didn't know. Didn't know he was a polymath, could dip into the Sciences just as easily as the Arts. Could indeed do anything. No tutoring, thank goodness, because he hadn't needed it, so I hadn't had to lie about that as some did. "Just a bit of help with a local girl on a Thursday." The truth being every day in the Easter holidays, with a History professor. Or, at a ruinously expensive crammer, where Sandy's eldest had gone, Peter told me. Sandy didn't. They had no money. But somehow she'd managed it. Quietly.