It Happened To Me | Dineli Matthews

Secret Boyfriend

When I was seventeen I had a secret boyfriend who my father couldn’t know about, because it was against our religion. Being a good girl, who did well at school and was generally quiet and obedient, I drew little suspicion. So what Secret Boyfriend and I got up to was limited only by our (very considerable) ability to lie in the cause of love.

The pinnacle of our deception involved SB living in our house for weeks on end, without anyone finding out – neither my father, nor the housemaster at SB’s boarding school.

It was surprisingly easy, although now, 30 years on, I am amazed by our audacity.

In the day we went to our respective schools, and in the evening SB would sneak out of his dorm, walk over to my place and follow an elaborate entry ritual. This hinged on the geography of the house, which was relatively large and inhabited only by my father and me, my mother being dead and my brother off at university.

SB would arrive at a pre-agreed time, climb onto the garage roof and lurk outside the bathroom window that overlooked it. I would lock myself into the bathroom, pretending to take a bath, and let SB in through the window. If my father was downstairs, life was easy. All we had to do was sneak out and up to the attic floor where my bedroom was located. If my father was in his bedroom, it was a bit more complicated. I would have to engage him in casual conversation, standing at his bedroom door and shuffling about in an awkward, teenager sort of way to disguise the creaking floorboards, as SB sneaked up the stairs behind me.

Once in my bedroom we were relatively safe. There was a walk-in cupboard under the eaves at one end of my little room and on the rare occasions when I heard my father come up the stairs to see me, SB would hide in there.

At night I opened a drawer on a small chest that was next to the bedroom door that served to block anyone entering. I kept my nighties in that drawer, the idea being that if anyone ever came up, I would stumble, bleary-eyed to the door, apologising for leaving the drawer open, while SB dived into the cupboard. But the system was never tested.

We had just one real scare. It was raining and we were in a hurry so SB ended up leaving his gloves and a can of beer on the garage roof. Once up in my room, I offered to retrieve them. Having seen SB climb in through the bathroom window many times, I thought it would be easy, locked myself in the bathroom and climbed out. That’s when the truth became clear: I was six inches shorter and considerably less athletic than him – and try as I might, I was stuck.

I started to think of explanations I could give for my situation. “My towel flew out of the window and I climbed out to get it,” was as ludicrous as it sounded. But why else, exactly, would I be there? As I was pondering my alibis, SB was waiting terrified in my bedroom, knowing what must have happened and trying to think up his.

Eventually, after an hour and a half of trying, I managed to get back in by standing on the beer can for extra height and looping my socks around the window handle to get extra pulling power. I have never been so relieved in my life.

My father eventually discovered I had a boyfriend, months later. It caused huge strife for a while, although he eventually accepted it. But he never found out the full story and I still haven’t told him.