‘You’re imagining things.’
‘I’m not,’ she said patiently.
‘Well. Look,’ said Keith. He removed his feet from the table, leant forwards and held his hands out wide, palms upwards as though weighing the truth in them. ‘Did Clare and Liam say anything to you about it? I saw you talking to them just before they left.’
‘No,’ said Janice and shrugged her shoulders. ‘Of course not. They’re far too polite to criticise their host’s son. I apologised to them though.’
‘And what did they say?’ said Keith.
‘They made out like it was nothing,’ she was forced to admit.
‘There you go then,’ said Keith, dropping his hands and relaxing back into the seat again, barely managing to keep the smile off his face.
Janice was reminded yet again of the pitfalls of arguing with a barrister. Keith had a way of rounding an argument into a corner, like a sheepdog. And once he had you cornered, you felt just as stupid as a sheep. She gripped the edges of the wrap and pulled it tighter, like a swaddling blanket.
‘I always said you let him wind you up too easily, Janice. The trick with Pete is not to let him know he’s got to you.’
Ignoring this comment she said, ‘And what about him molesting that waitress? You’re not going to shrug that off too, are you?’
He said, ‘Again, I think you’re over-reacting. Maybe they were just messing about – both of them. I don’t know. But a quick grope in the hallway hardly constitutes sexual assault.’
‘She didn’t ask for it, if that’s what you mean, Keith. It wasn’t like that. It was totally inappropriate. She was horrified and when I went looking for her later on, I was told she’d gone home.’
‘Her going home may have had nothing to do with Pete.’
‘You’re not taking me seriously, are you?’ she said, balling her fists in frustration. ‘You never believe me when it comes to Pete.’
‘I never believe you,’ he repeated, nodding his head slowly. ‘Hmm.’ This was one of his favourite devices in a debate. By drawing attention to her inaccurate generalisation, he was attempting to divert the argument into a siding. She knew what was coming next. ‘Do you think it’s fair to say that “I never believe you when it comes to Pete”?’
‘That may be an exaggeration,’ said Janice quickly, determined not to let him deflect her. ‘But you persistently fail to accept that Pete isn’t…isn’t…’ She floundered, searching for the right word. ‘He isn’t right.’
Keith rubbed his hand through his hair until it stood up on end. ‘He’s a normal seventeen year old, Janice. And, yes, I acknowledge that his social skills aren’t as refined as we might like. But that’ll come with experience. You know sometimes you talk about him as though you don’t even like him.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. He’s my son,’ protested Janice.
Keith sighed. ‘Look, if it makes you any happier, I’ll get him to phone Liam tomorrow.’
‘Thank you,’ she said ungraciously, pleased to have made some ground but frustrated that she had had to fight so hard for it.
‘Though I’m sure he’ll wonder what on earth Pete’s calling him for…’
‘No he won’t,’ said Janice.
‘I’ve said I’ll get him to apologise, Janice. What more do you want?’
‘And what about the waitress?’
‘I’ll talk to him about that. It wouldn’t be…wise,’ he said, placing careful emphasis on the last word, ‘for him to contact the girl about that. Just in case she decided to take it further. But I’ll make sure,’ he added firmly, ‘that he understands his actions were unacceptable.’
Janice sighed. That was something. ‘Okay,’ she said quietly, mollified but not entirely content.
‘Right. Let’s just leave it at that, shall we?’ he said.
She nodded.
‘Let’s go to bed,’ he said and came over to her and held out his hand. She took it, stood up and he kissed her on the forehead – without heels, she was three inches shorter than him. ‘I know you worry about Pete, Janice. But he just needs to find his own way a bit. And he’s going to be alright. I know it. Let’s forget about him for now.’
Janice rested her head on his shoulder and swallowed the lump in her throat. She had a terrible sense of foreboding. Something bad was about to happen; no, more specifically, Pete was about to do something bad. And yet when she tried to articulate this thought, it sounded ridiculous. She closed her eyes and tried very hard to believe Keith’s optimistic words.
‘Oh Keith,’ she said, ‘I do love you.’
‘I know you do,’ he replied, with the unerring confidence of someone who believes that good things are their due.
It was Saturday afternoon, a fortnight after the party at Janice’s, when Kirsty stood by the bedroom window in her unnervingly quiet house, facing up to the reality of making good on her New Year’s Eve resolution. Janice had talked her into her first blind date – her first date of any kind – in over fifteen years. And while Janice and Keith would be there to support her at the meal in a local restaurant – and she was sure Janice would not pair her up with someone horrible – she was absolutely petrified. She puffed up her cheeks, then blew out slowly, trying to calm her shaky nerves.
Her instinct was to cancel, but that would be the coward’s way out. She would be letting Janice and Keith down and insulting Keith’s colleague, Robert. She told herself that there was nothing to be afraid of. She was sure Robert would be perfectly charming. But it wasn’t him Kirsty was worried about.
She had no idea how to act on a date. Not any more. She was so out of touch with everything. She had only the vaguest handle on current affairs. She had no idea what was hip in the music world. The only movies she went to see were romcoms with her girlfriends. All she had to talk about, really, when she thought of it, was her two sons and re-runs of CSI, House and Numbers – her favourite TV shows. Not for the first time, she told herself, she should get a job – at least then she would have something interesting to talk about and, God knows, she could use the money. But this time she really meant it. She should’ve made that her New Year’s resolution, forget about men, and save herself all this emotional angst.
But focusing on work wasn’t the answer. She was lonely and the only remedy was male company. She had not been with a man since her husband, Scott, died three years ago. He’d been killed while out cycling early one crisp Sunday morning in November, by an old man driving his battered Peugeot 107 to church. Scott’s helmet had not been secured properly, it had flown off in the impact and he died instantly. The first Kirsty knew about it was the call from the police.
Looking back, it comforted her to know that Scott was not alone when he died – that members of his cycling club, people who cared for him, were there. She prayed that he hadn’t endured even a second of consciousness in which to remember her and his little boys – or to realise that he was never going to see them again. She prayed that he died still believing that she loved him.
Three years was a long time to be alone. Since the accident, everything had revolved around looking after the children and helping Scott’s devastated parents, Harry and Dorothy, come to terms with their loss. More and more Kirsty found herself dissatisfied with the narrowness of her life. And, increasingly, she found herself ready to face the world again. Not only