AIDAN. Your daughter is very developed for a fourteen-year-old. I’m sorry to speak so bluntly, but the point is, those two facts, your… absence, as a father, and her, accelerated development, biologically speaking (which of course has led to this unfortunate mix-up in the first place), those two things are, well, they’re linked, aren’t they?

BRADSHAW. No, I don’t accept that.

AIDAN. It’s in the New Scientist, Mr Bradshaw. It’s not up for debate. So you can understand, can’t you? I mean, obviously the anger, the hurt you feel clouds any rational – but you can see how the mistake was made?

BRADSHAW. I don’t accept this, what you’re –

AIDAN. How we ourselves were deceived? And that you, as a father, your actions, your – I’m so sorry – your failures as a parent have biologically impacted on your daughter, to the extent that at fourteen years old, her body has given her commands, hormonal commands, that she had no choice but to obey.

BRADSHAW. We’re very close, we speak on the phone, we read vampire stories.

AIDAN. This is a, it’s a mistake, it’s unfortunate, but it’s done. It can’t be undone.

BRADSHAW. We go to Alton Towers. She’s my girl. She’s my girl –

AIDAN. Shh. It’s okay.

BRADSHAW. She was my little, you’ve taken that away, my little funny wriggly creature, you’ve stolen her, scabs on her knees and the brace on her teeth – I used to do metal-detecting, and she’d get me to run the metal detector over the brace and she’d just, scream with laughter when it beeped and make me do it again.

AIDAN. And she’s got lovely teeth to show for it.

BRADSHAW. She had a special brush. To get in the, because when she ate, specially cabbage or, crisps, it would get stuck in the brace, and she’d do it on purpose, grin at me and this grin, it would, it would just cripple me, this grin, the food stuck in it, and you’ve taken it you’ve, spoilt it, the sound of her breathing, when she fell asleep on me on the sofa, we used to watch Only Fools and Horses videos, that was what we liked, and I wouldn’t move all night just listen to her breath whistle through the metal till it was morning and her mum came to take her away again.

He breathes through his teeth so it whistles.

It was that sort of sound.

AIDAN. Was it?

BRADSHAW. Yes. It was like that.

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AIDAN looks at CHARLOTTE. AIDAN looks back at MR BRADSHAW.

AIDAN (gentle). And when you go home later? Will you tell Carrie what happened here today?

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Will you tell her you were offered twenty-five thousand pounds, and that you turned it down because of what a decent bloke you are?

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