Mark seemed unaware. He freed himself and straightened up, wiping his eyes and managing a smile.
‘Sorry,’ he said again.
‘Don’t be,’ she told him.
He was obviously embarrassed, as though feeling he’d given way to an unmanly display.
Sweet heaven! she thought. He’s only twelve years old.
‘It’s getting late,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you go to bed?’
‘Will you come and say goodnight before you go?’
‘Yes, I promise.’
She gave him another hug, then went downstairs, feeling thoughtful.
Through the open door of the front room she could see Justin, and walked in.
‘Is he all right?’ Justin asked gruffly.
‘Not really. But he’s calmed down, and he’s going to bed. I promised to look in and say goodnight before I leave, but I think you should go up to him now.’
‘There’s no point,’ he said wearily. ‘This has happened before. He won’t talk to me. He hates me.’
‘He doesn’t,’ she said at once.
He looked at her sharply. ‘You know that? What did he say?’
‘I can’t tell you what he said. It’s confidential between him and me—’
‘That’s nonsense,’ he said impatiently. ‘I’m his father—’
‘And I’m the person you had to bring in to help you. I’m the one he talks to, although he said very little even to me. I’ll tell you that he doesn’t hate you. Far from it. But I won’t break his confidence. Please understand that that is final.’
‘Like hell it is!’
‘OK, throw me out!’
‘Don’t tempt me.’
For answer she pulled out her cellphone and dialled. ‘Andrew?’
Justin’s hand closed over hers, gripping her so tightly that it hurt. ‘It’s better if you stay.’
‘Really?’ she said, freeing her hand and flexing the fingers. ‘I’m glad you made your mind up about that. I can’t stand a man who dithers.’
He drew a deep breath. ‘Now Andrew will be wondering what happened. You’d better call him back.’
‘No need. I wasn’t really connected.’
‘Playing games?’
‘No, just warning you not to try to push me around. I’ll help all I can, for the sake of that poor child. But it has to be on my terms, because they’re the only ones I can use.’
‘I’m the same way myself,’ he said grimly.
‘Then one of us is going to have to give in.’
She realised then how far she had travelled in a short time. Once she’d feared to antagonise Justin in case it rebounded on Mark. But now her instincts were telling her that he only respected people who stood up to him.
Deference equalled disaster.
Besides, she didn’t do deference. She didn’t know how.
From the thunderous silence she guessed he was assessing his options, realising that they were limited, but not knowing how to admit the fact.
‘Don’t you think you should tell me what’s really happening?’ she said. ‘Why did Mark go to that cemetery? You said his mother was dead, so I thought she must be buried there, but he says not.’
‘No, she’s not. Did he say anything else? Or can’t you tell me?’
‘He said she ought to be there.’
‘Hell!’ he said softly.
‘What did he mean?’
‘My wife left us two years ago.’
‘Us?’
‘She left us both. There was another man. She went to live with him in Switzerland.’
‘She didn’t take her son with her?’ Evie asked, aghast. ‘Or did you stop her?’
‘I wouldn’t have stopped her if she’d wanted him, but I don’t think she even thought of it,’ he said in a soft voice that had a hint of savagery.
Evie rubbed her hand over her eyes.
‘I just don’t understand how any mother can do that,’ she said distractedly. ‘To leave a man—well, it happens if the relationship isn’t working. But to abandon a defenceless child—’
‘It’s the crime of crimes,’ Justin said sombrely. ‘It’s unnatural, unforgivable—’
He stopped. Evie stared at him, alerted by something in his voice that went beyond anger. Hatred.
‘That poor kid,’ Evie breathed. ‘Did she stay in touch?’
‘She wrote to him, telephoned sometimes. There were presents at Christmas and birthdays. But he wasn’t invited to visit her. The new boyfriend didn’t want him, you see, and he was much more important to her than her son.’
Again there was that bitter edge of something that was more than anger. More like pain.
‘It must have devastated him,’ she murmured. ‘How does he cope?’
‘He’s brave and strong,’ Justin said unexpectedly. ‘And he knows what the world is like now.’
‘He’s too young to learn that side of the world,’ Evie said quickly.
He gave a mirthless laugh.
‘Is there a proper age for a boy to learn that his mother doesn’t want him?’
‘No, of course not,’ she agreed.
‘Any age is too young, but it happens when it happens, ten, nine—seven.’
As he said ‘seven’ his voice changed, making her look at him. But he didn’t seem to notice her. He was talking almost to himself.
‘And then the whole world becomes unreal, because it can’t have happened, yet it has happened. All the reference points are gone and there’s only chaos. Disbelief becomes a refuge when there’s nothing else.’
‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘That’s how it must be.’
‘But it isn’t a reliable refuge,’ he said in a low voice. ‘The world blows it apart again and again, and it becomes harder to find excuses to believe the thing that’s least painful.’
‘Mr Dane—what are you telling me?’
‘I’d have done anything to save my son from the knowledge that his mother rejected him. I stalled on the divorce, went out to Switzerland to see her, begged her to return to us. I hated her by then but I’d have taken her back for his sake.
‘I even bought this house for her. It’s bigger, better than the one we had. She liked nice things. I thought—’
‘You thought you could get her back by spending money?’ Evie said, speaking cautiously.
‘She wouldn’t even come home for a while, even to look at it. She was besotted by her lover. She cared about nothing else.’
‘What happened?’
‘She died. They died together when his car crashed. I was over there at the time, and since she was still legally my wife it fell to me to oversee her funeral. I suppose it should have occurred to me to bring her home, but it didn’t. She’s buried