Every time you make a move

Switzerland

Hotel Fairmont de Montreux

"Mr Bulsara?" Mrs Brannigan, Monica's mother looked across the dinning table at him in the dining area.

He lifted his head from his lap.

"Please, Mercury." He politely corrected her. "In fact, Freddie is perfectly fine."

"Freddie?" She sighed and repeated.

Freddie nervously glanced over to his future father-in-law engaged in conversation with his heavily pregnant daughter sitting in the lounge area, before glancing back to the woman.

"Yes?" He chirped, fidgeting with the corner of the ivory tablecloth.

"I appreciate you paying to accommodate my husband and I," she said. "But, I'm afraid your generosity doesn't compensate for the concerns that I have not only for my daughter, but also for you as a father of my grandchildren."

Freddie looked the woman up and down. Her tight-curled hair was mousey brown, unlike Monica's, and her figure in the prim grey suit was a little more bony. She did have her daughter's eyes though, but with wrinkled sockets and crows feet.

"Concerns?" Freddie picked up his teacup.

"My daughter went on a city break with a friend... a few days later she phones to tell me that she's leaving home and staying to go and live with a man that she hardly knows who is 10 years older than her," Mrs Brannigan folded her napkin up. "A man who also happens to be a rock star. Don't tell me it's not normal to be anxious."

Freddie could sense that she didn't like him. Already he'd won Monica's father's approval since they'd met that morning after a conversation about furniture, doing his best to come across as the gentleman any father would accept if she ever brought one home ("the polar opposite of Roger", he told Monica that morning). It did mean he had to sacrifice his leather jacket and jewellery for the visit, but it was all for the same of a good first impression.

He sipped, then set his cup down, "Your daughter was-still is, a school girl, yes. And that vulnerability is what keeps me on my feet-"

"But she was meant to enroll at university that fall." She added. "Now she's here in a world of A-List, preparing to give birth in Switzerland! Sometimes I don't know what goes on in that child's head... it's stuck in the clouds."

"I know, but... don't you think her opportunities are better in London than they were in Belfast?"

Mrs Brannigan slowly stood up, leaning across to him as her eyes narrowed. Freddie looked back up, still and holding his breath.

"If you do anything to hurt my daughter, or those twins," she firmly told him. "I'm making sure she can confide in me and that they're on the next plane back to Ireland."

"Who would want to confide in her with those icy eyes?" He thought. Monica had given him them countless times when he was about to do something not very sensible, like when he'd put things in the shopping trolley that they didn't need or he'd feed the cats milk and ham out of the fridge. But her mother's eyes, he decided, were enough to stop him in a trice.

The things he wanted to tell her at that moment. Behind his tight lips he was fighting back the urge to unleash his frustrated rage or to pour his heart out-

"You alright, honey?" Mr Brannigan appeared, placing his hand on her back.

Freddie looked around, "where's Monica?"

"The powder room," He replied. "She needed the toilet."

"Ah... that bladder." Freddie pulled his chair out.