‘All right,’ I growl, stomping back towards the test centre now. ‘Can I just ask, what about Flynn? I mean, does he know anything about this?’
I hear her inhaling deeply. ‘No, I haven’t told him yet …’
‘Are you intending to?’
‘You’re shouting again. Yes, of course I am. Look, I’m going now …’
‘I’m demented here! Can you imagine what it was like for me to find that note? I mean, a bloody note! Why couldn’t we just talk, like normal people?’
‘Hang on,’ she murmurs.
‘It really is the pomegranate fragrance I’d like,’ her customer explains, as if her world will crumble if she doesn’t get one.
‘Yes, it is a lovely homely scent,’ Sinead agrees. Then, back to me: ‘I’ll come over tomorrow evening, okay? But I want the three of us to sit down together and talk – not just you and me—’
‘But we need to talk things through on our own,’ I protest, despite being aware that arguing is futile right now.
‘Not tomorrow,’ she murmurs. ‘You’ll try to persuade me to come back, Nate, and I can’t handle that right now. I want Flynn to be there …’
‘But he’s only sixteen!’
‘Yes, and he’s a smart boy. He deserves to know everything. There’s nothing I’m going to say to you that I can’t say in front of him. So, I’ll see you at the house about eightish, okay?’ And with that, she’s gone.
So it’s already ‘the house’. Not our house anymore. But at least she’s agreed to see me, I remind myself over and over as the afternoon crawls on. Not today, but tomorrow – and I’ll just have to make do with that.
And now, as I drive home, I picture her sitting next to me on our sofa and explaining that she just lost her mind temporarily and, okay, I have been a bit crap, but I’ll try much harder and everything will be all right. In my vision of her, she is wearing one of her vintage frocks covered in spriggy patterns (‘you’re the only man I’ve ever known who calls them frocks,’ she once remarked with a smile), with a snug-fitting cardigan in perhaps light blue or pink. She is quirky, I suppose: delightfully unique. Sinead knows her own style, favouring flat shoes with a strap across the front – Mary Janes, I think they’re called – and wears her fair hair quite long and not especially groomed, just flowing and natural and soft to the touch. In short, she is a ravishing natural beauty – a blue-eyed blonde, with a strong nose, a wide, sensuous mouth and an absolutely knockout body.
God, I love her so much.
I park up and let myself into the house.
‘Dad?’ Flynn calls through from the living room. I stride in, fearing the worst: i.e., he knows already. His mum did call him after all – or he’s simply figured it out for himself.
‘Hi, son. How was your day?’ My heart is pounding as I take in the sight of him lying flat out on the sofa, phone in hand, schoolbag spewing books and crumpled papers all over the floor. His brown eyes fix on mine. He is growing up into such a handsome young man, his jaw more defined now, his boyish softness remoulding into sharper angles.
‘All right, I s’pose. Miss Beazley said to remind you not to park on the zigzags again?’
‘Oh!’ I almost laugh. ‘God, yes. I definitely won’t—’
‘So, when’s Mum coming home?’
Instinctively, I check my watch. It seems so old-fashioned to wear one, but I’m terribly attached to mine. It was left to me when my father died.
‘Erm, she won’t be around till tomorrow, actually,’ I mumble.
Flynn scowls. ‘Why not? What’s going on? She’s not answering her phone—’
‘She’s, um, staying at Abby’s,’ I reply quickly.
I fiddle awkwardly with my watch as he stares at me. Dad wore it for as long as I can remember: dependable and unflashy, like its owner. I always suspected that was why Mum divorced him when I reached my teens – because Dad was just too quiet, too normal, working for an accountancy firm and tinkering away in his shed. Perhaps he was ultimately disappointing to her. I’d never found him disappointing. As a shy kid, with a brother five years younger who was the apple of Mum’s eye, I could have been bored out of my brains in our bleak suburb of Huddersfield. However, while Joe commanded our mother’s attentions, I could always find plenty to discover in Dad’s shed. It was a grotto to me where dreams could be made from a few screws, some offcuts of timber and a tin of Humbrol enamel paint. I’d always assumed I inherited at least some of my father’s DIY talents – but Sinead clearly thinks otherwise.
‘Dad, are you listening to me?’
I flinch and look at Flynn. ‘Sorry? What were you saying?’
He sits up and regards me with the penetrating stare of a particularly astute lawyer. ‘Can you please just tell me what’s going on with you and Mum?’
I sense the blood surging to my cheeks, and feel rather sick as I perch gingerly on the sofa beside him. Both dogs are standing in the living room doorway and gazing at me, as if blocking my escape.
I clear my throat. ‘She, erm … wants some time away from me,’ I murmur. ‘She hasn’t been very happy, so we’re trying to sort things out. I’m sorry, Flynn, I really am. I don’t know what else to tell you …’
His expression is unreadable. ‘Why didn’t you say?’
‘I am. I’m saying now.’
‘Yeah, ’cause I asked,’ he says sharply. ‘’Cause I forced it out of you—’
I exhale slowly. ‘Look, I didn’t say anything this morning because, well, I didn’t know what was going to happen. I still don’t, really. Mum’s staying at Abby’s – that’s all I know. It’s all come as a total shock …’
Flynn gets up from the sofa, which I take as a signal that it’s okay to hug him – that he wants to be held. However, I must have misread the signs as, when I scramble up and try to pull him towards me, he stands there, rigid as an ironing board, arms jammed to his sides.
‘So, what’s going to happen now?’ He disentangles himself and peers at me as if I have gone quite mad.
‘I have no idea. All I know is, she’s coming over tomorrow evening so we can all have a chat.’
‘A chat?’ he repeats bitterly.
‘Well, yeah.’ I shrug. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t really know what else to call it.’
‘Huh,’ he grunts. We look at each other in silence. As I can’t fathom out what to say next, I call Scout to me, and ruffle his head. It’s almost a relief when Flynn slopes off to his room.
Normally, during any kind of tense situation involving our son, I have always tried to be resolutely – possibly irritatingly – cheerful:
Don’t worry, Flynn. It’s school policy to report any bullying, so I really have to go in …
There are loads of ways to play every chord. If that inversion of the G seventh is tricky, we can easily find another one …
It’s okay, son. Hopefully it’ll be Margot again, that nice physio lady with the sticker sheets …
Only he’s sixteen now, and this isn’t something that can be sorted with a Superman sticker or a Freddo bar. There’s no point in following him upstairs, as anything I say will be deemed patronising. These days I seem to patronise him simply by inhabiting the same room. It’s a miracle