‘Go on.’
Her mother sighed, shuffled over to a chair, sat down and regarded Louise thoughtfully. ‘It might be easier for you. But it might not be best for Oli. It’s not healthy him being with just you all the time.’
‘He’s not with me all the time,’ said Louise evenly. ‘He sees other people – adults and kids – regularly. And that’s one of the reasons I moved back, isn’t it? So he could be closer to his family and cousins and grow up knowing them.’
Her mother shrugged her shoulders and Louise found herself compelled to pursue this topic, realising as she spoke that it was essential to her that her mother endorse her lifestyle.
‘Oli has a very happy life, Mum. He wants for nothing.’
‘Except a father.’
Louise bit her lip, anger bubbling up like boiling fudge in a pan. ‘There’s nothing like stating the obvious, is there?’ she said. ‘Why do you have to focus on the one thing he doesn’t have instead of all the things he does? Like a mother who adores him and gave up her job to look after him?’
‘I know just how much you love him, Louise,’ her mother acknowledged, her voice softening. ‘It’s just, well … you know.’
The unsaid words hung between them, fuelling Louise’s anger. A father was the one thing she could not give her son. The only thing. The single, glaring flaw in the almost-perfect life she had so carefully carved out of the wreckage of her marriage. And she tried not to be bitter about the past. She ought to be applauded for what she had done, not derided.
Louise’s chest was so tight, she could hardly breathe. She fought against it for a few moments and managed to say, ‘It’s not how I would have wanted it either, Mum. Not in an ideal world. You know that. But do you have to go rubbing salt into the wound? What I need is support – not people, not my own mother, criticising me.’
Her mother let out a long weary sigh. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.’
‘You didn’t mean to upset me?’ cried Louise. ‘That’s a good one.’
Her mother glared at her then, her eyes flinty and full of rare anger. ‘You can’t expect your father and I to approve of something that goes against our values. And people won’t understand.’
‘So that’s what this is about, is it? What other people think? Do you care more about that than your own daughter’s happiness?’
‘No,’ said her mother with a steely gaze. ‘You might not care what people think, Louise. But you ought to. For Oli’s sake. If I was you I wouldn’t go round blabbing your story to people. I’m not sure Ballyfergus is ready to hear it. You don’t want Oli singled out for being different.’
‘He’s no different than any other child from a single-parent family.’
‘Most people don’t set out to be a single parent, Louise.’
Louise took several deep breaths and fought to retain her composure. ‘I know you don’t approve but get over it,’ she hissed. ‘Oli’s here now. Why can’t you just get on with the business of grandmothering him and stop finding fault with us both?’
‘I’d never find fault with Oli,’ said her mother quickly. ‘He’s perfect.’
So the fault lay with Louise, did it? Louise blinked, tried to ignore the tightness in her throat and hold the tears at bay. Why did her mother have to be so judgemental? Why couldn’t she give Louise the unqualified, wholehearted support that she so desperately craved?
Her father padded into the kitchen just then, breaking the tension. He rubbed his hands together briskly. Whiskey had lent his eyes a rheumy quality. ‘Anyone for a wee drink?’
Louise shook her head. ‘Not for me.’ Since she’d had Oli she rarely drank alcohol – and she’d no stomach for it today, not after that horrible, hurtful exchange with her mother.
‘You’ve had quite enough already, Billy,’ said her mother sharply. ‘Why don’t you make us all a cup of tea instead?’ She folded the tea towel and draped it over the radiator to dry.
Her father gave Louise a mournful look and she forced the corners of her mouth up in a smile. He filled the kettle noisily.
Louise glanced at the clock on the wall and said, ‘It’s time I took Oli home. He needs an early night.’
Her father switched the kettle on. ‘Sit down and have a cup of tea. A few more minutes of TV won’t do him any harm.’
Louise whipped her head around and said sharply, ‘What’s he watching at this time of night?’
‘Oh relax, Louise,’ said her father, taking mugs out of the cupboard. ‘It’s one of those children’s channels. It’ll not do him a bit of harm.’
‘I don’t like him watching TV this late. Not just before bedtime. It over-stimulates his brain.’
Her father rolled his eyes. ‘You fuss too much, Louise. Let the child be.’
‘I think I know what’s best for my own son,’ said Louise, tears pricking the back of her eyes. ‘I am his mother after all.’ And with that, she huffed into the TV room, grabbed Oli and stormed out of the house.
‘That smells fantastic. What is it?’ Gemma Mooney lifted the lid on a pot bubbling away on the stove in Joanne’s kitchen on Walnut Grove. She bent her long elegant neck over the pot and peered inside, her chunky metal bracelet clanging against the lid.
‘Black Bean Chilli,’ said Joanne, smiling with satisfaction. She was no match in the looks department for Gemma – with her long legs, angular athletic frame and those bright cat-green eyes – but at least Joanne could cook. While she often joked about Gemma’s domestic incompetency, it made Joanne feel secretly superior to her friend.
‘Hey, Gemma,’ she grinned. ‘What’s in your fridge?’
Gemma shook her head of thick black curls. Not many women could wear their hair as short as she did and get away with it. ‘Oh you know me. A lemon, a few mouldy spuds, some ice and a bottle of wine.’
Joanne laughed and wiped her hands on the front of her apron, acutely aware of her insubstantial, scrawny frame. She loved Gemma to bits but she always felt a little in adequate, a little child-like, in her presence. Still, today she’d made the best of what she had with high heels for extra height, a full skirt to fill out the hips she didn’t possess, and a knitted cardigan to create the illusion of a chest.
‘What about the kids? What do you feed them?’
‘Oh, they’re used to fending for themselves. Roz can rustle up a pretty mean pasta and tomato sauce.’ Gemma replaced the lid on the pot. ‘This’ll be delicious,’ she said and gave Joanne a brief squeeze across the shoulders. ‘Everything you make is. You’re such a good cook. Not like me – I’m hopeless.’
‘You could cook, if you tried,’ said Joanne but she couldn’t resist a satisfied sigh as she looked around the kitchen. The table was laid with plates and dishes of food covered in cling film and cutlery rolled up in napkins. Heidi, the family’s black, two-year-old Flat Coated Retriever, lay on her bed in the corner, watching them with soulful dark amber eyes, her ears flattened against her smooth bullet-shaped head.
Everything, from the home-made vol-au-vents to the fresh strawberry tart, looked good. So why did Joanne still have a niggling sense of dissatisfaction at the back of her mind? Heidi lifted her head and let out a long low heartfelt whine, a protest at being surrounded by food yet not allowed to touch any of it. Roughly, she grabbed the dog’s collar.
‘Here, you’d better go in the utility room or you’ll eat everything like you did last Friday.