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When I took my boyfriend, Freddy Krueger, home to meet my parents, they were disappointed, grey, fatigued, but not at all surprised They stood apart in the doorway and leaned, peering out of the frame like famine victims, their faces lit by the yellowing horizon    ‘At least,’ sighed my father as he closed the door behind us, ‘we don’t need to muzzle this one’ They frowned at us from their side of the table and picked at their food On the wall above our heads a wooden clock gave out stiff, arthritic ticks    ‘I don’t understand,’ my mother complained ‘I thought we were going to meet your new boyfriend’ She gestured with her fork ‘This is Freddy Krueger’    ‘That’s right,’ I said ‘It is Freddy Krueger is my boyfriend’ She looked at my father ‘Mr Krueger,’ he began cautiously, ‘aren’t you a little old to be dating our son?’   ‘Significantly older,’ my mother put in, ‘the age gap is remarkable Look at him! He’s positively wizened’ She stabbed a sausage with her fork ‘You’ll have nothing to talk about, nothing to bicker over, it’ll drive you straight to the heart of things Haven’t I warned you, son,’ she said to me gravely, ‘to keep away from the heart of things?’    ‘A wasteland,’ my father muttered to his mashed potatoes, ‘a frozen, empty place’   ‘So what if he’s a little older,’ I moaned ‘No one’s going to get sick and die over it Are they?’ I looked pointedly at my mother I saw her in rags, skeletal and delirious, clutching at her throat and gasping for breath, smoke filling her eyes, that I-told-you-so smirk She would go into the earth as she had lived upon it: outraged, confused, faintly scandalised    There was a pause ‘No’ she decided ‘No I suppose not’ She rested her eyes on Freddy for a few seconds Her mouth fell open ‘Have I – seen you before?’ Freddy hiccoughed in response I rubbed his back ‘Poor baby’    ‘I have,’ she insisted excitedly ‘I know I have In an ad for something Something silly and macabre’ She was snapping her