‘Um, yeah, just round and about really,’ he says vaguely. Oh, for Christ’s sake. I know he’s eager to get away, but he doesn’t have to be so uncommunicative. It’s like having another teenager in tow.
‘Would you say the marshes are the best place?’ I suggest.
‘Yeah.’ Will nods. ‘Depends what you’re looking for really …’
‘Well, I guess we’d better let you get on.’ I smile brightly, realising I’m trying to compensate for Will’s standoffishness, and feel decidedly out of sorts as we troop back to our house.
‘Did you have to do that?’ Will hisses as we cross the road.
‘Do what?’
‘Interrogate the boy …’
I gawp at him as we reach our house. ‘I didn’t interrogate him. I just asked a few questions. At least I was interested. It’s better than being rude, like you were, pretending you couldn’t quite remember what a bicycle is …’
Will emits a gasp of irritation.
‘Charlotte! Just a minute …’ I turn to see Sabrina, her ravishing hair shining like copper as she hurries towards us. ‘Sorry,’ she adds, ‘I should’ve said. We’re having a few friends around for a barbecue next Saturday. A sort of christen-the-house thing. It’d be great if you and your family could come … we’d love to meet you all properly.’
Clearly, she wasn’t appalled by me ‘interrogating’ her son. ‘That’s kind of you,’ I reply. ‘We’d love to, wouldn’t we, Will?’
‘Uh … yeah,’ he says, in an overly bright voice, unable to disguise the fact that he’d rather clean our tiling grout than fraternise with the new neighbours.
*
Will’s mood has lifted by the time we’re all installed in our favourite local Malaysian restaurant for his birthday dinner (well, it’s everyone’s favourite apart from Ollie’s – he nagged to go to the Harvester and is beyond thrilled that Rosie’s best friend Nina started working there recently). ‘You should have heard Mum, grilling the poor boy,’ Will chuckles.
‘I only asked a few polite questions,’ I correct him, not minding a bit of light ribbing as long as we have a fun evening out.
Will laughs, tucking into fiery prawns. ‘You didn’t ask questions. You fired them at him like a machine gun. He was virtually ducking for cover.’ He shields his head with his hands and grins at Ollie. ‘She wanted to know all about his future career plans, what he intends to do with the rest of his life …’
Rosie sniggers. ‘Yeah. You were out there for ages, Mum. And they were obviously dead busy …’
‘… And the boy—’ Will starts.
‘Zach,’ I cut in. ‘His name’s Zach.’
‘… he was smoking in front of his parents,’ Will goes on, ‘and it wasn’t just a roll-up either.’
‘Wasn’t it?’ I ask.
‘What was it then?’ Ollie demands, eyes wide.
‘D’you mean it was pot?’ I blurt out, at which Rosie snorts with laughter.
‘Pot? Who calls it pot?’
Everyone is sniggering now as the waiter clears our table. ‘Mum does, obviously,’ Will says with a grin. ‘She thinks it’s still 1972.’
‘I wasn’t even born in 1972, Will. And what am I meant to call it?’
‘Pot!’ Ollie mimics me. ‘Look, we’re having a groovy night out! Would anyone like some pot?’
The waiter glances back and smirks.
‘Hash, then?’ I suggest with a shrug. ‘Ganja? Whacky baccy? Assassin of youth?’
Ollie and Rosie convulse with laughter. ‘Where d’you hear that?’ she exclaims.
‘In a film,’ I reply, in mock indignation, to which Ollie enquires – of course, I should have sensed the question hurtling towards me, like the thundering rock in Raiders of the Lost Ark – ‘Have you ever smoked pot, Mum?’
I sip my wine while formulating an appropriate response. Outright lying doesn’t feel right – but then, do my children need a full inventory of every misdemeanour from my distant past? Anyway, as far as they’re concerned I was never a young person. I was born a middle-aged woman forever stuffing sweaty pants into the washing machine and moaning about the loo being left unflushed. ‘I, uh … had a nibble of a space cake once,’ I say, hoping that’ll satisfy them.
‘What’s a space cake?’ Ollie asks eagerly.
‘It’s a little bun with, er, stuff baked into it.’
‘Like pot?’ Rosie giggles.
‘That’s right,’ I say in a small, regretful voice. ‘I thought it was an ordinary cake actually.’
‘Like from Starbucks?’ Will smirks.
‘Yes. A sort of … herbal muffin.’
‘No, you didn’t,’ Ollie teases. ‘You knew it was drugs, Mum. You wanted that cake, I can tell …’
‘She only had a little nibble,’ Will adds, his mouth twitching with mirth.
‘Where did you have it?’ Rosie asks. ‘At a party?’
I pour myself a glass of sparkling water to prove how pure I am now, and not the type to consume suspect bakery goods of any description. ‘Yes,’ I reply simply, ‘it was at a party.’ In fact it was Fraser, Rosie’s real father, who I’d sampled space cakes with – in Amsterdam, unsurprisingly, on our Inter-railing trip. It had become ‘our’ trip by chance. I’d planned to travel with Angie, a school friend, and when she’d contracted glandular fever I’d decided to go on my own. En route to Paris I’d met Fraser, whose refined features and floppy fair hair suggested a privileged upbringing involving rugby and cricket and an expensive education. Certainly, he had enough cash in the seemingly bottomless pockets of his khaki shorts to spend four months drifting around Europe, stopping off to see various wealthy friends, whereas I’d only been able to scrape together enough for three weeks. From then on we’d travelled together, and by the time we rolled up at an Amsterdam hostel, we were in love.
‘What was it like?’ Ollie wants to know, making my heart jolt. Oh my God, it was heaven. Lying in Vondelpark with him kissing crumbs from my lips, and not knowing if it was the druggy cake making my head swirl, or the beautiful blond boy who looked like one of those carved marble angels you see in cathedrals …
‘Mum?’ Ollie prompts me.
‘Er, yes?’ I nearly knock over my glass of water.
‘What did it taste of?’
I take a fortifying glug of wine. ‘It was horrible,’ I fib. ‘The most disgusting thing I ever ate. It made me very, very sick, and if either of you are ever offered anything like that, just say no.’
Rosie grins. ‘They actually call it weed these days, Mum. Weed or spliff or cheese.’
‘Cheese?’ I repeat, feeling decrepit. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Yeah, you hear people saying they’re gonna score some cheese …’
I splutter involuntarily. ‘Who are these people?’
She shrugs. ‘Just people.’
‘Are you sure that’s what they mean, though?’ I ask.
‘They could just be going to buy a Camembert,’ Will offers, sending the kids into hysterics again.
I