‘Thanks.’ Lydia took her glass and this time sat on the floor, on the lilac rug they’d chosen together when they first moved in. With her free hand she lost her fingers beneath the fibres.
‘I wish you’d say something, Lydia.’ Theo was gulping back his wine as though it would help.
‘Did the gambling carry on all through uni?’ She couldn’t look at him, she had to trust him to tell the truth now.
‘No, I swear. The fresher year was the worst of it and after the showdown with Dad when he found out what I’d done – I told him during a blazing row one night, thinking it’d show him what he’d driven me to – I got my act together and stayed away from the casino. The others tried to get me down there but I wasn’t having any of it. I went a few times after that but drank beer and sat in the background watching.’
‘What did your dad say?’
‘He was furious, told me how stupid I was, that I hadn’t wronged him but I’d wronged myself. He was right but I despised him at that point because Mum was in a bad way.’
‘What brought you to your senses?’
‘Mum. She got worse.’ Tears pricked the corners of his eyes, but Lydia couldn’t be sympathetic, at least not yet. ‘She’d been coping when she was on the medication. But then Dad told her everything that had gone on with me, and after that she fell apart a second time.
‘I felt awful. She didn’t deserve a mess of a son as well as a husband who’d upped and left. I pulled myself together for her and for myself.’
‘But not for your dad,’ Lydia concluded.
His silence confirmed it. The anger he still felt.
‘What happened this time, Theo? What made you go back to your old ways?’
He shook his head. ‘I haven’t gone back to my old ways at all. I got carried away on a couple of occasions, that’s all. The first was at the horse racing, the second at a dog track. I had sure-fire tips and they didn’t pay off. And then I got stupid. I thought, I only need to win big once, and I’d done it before, then I could put all the money back in the account and you wouldn’t even have to know.’
Lydia sighed. ‘So even then, you were lying to me.’
‘I wasn’t lying to you.’
‘You were. You were lying by omission.’
‘I’m sorry, Lydia.’ He put his wine glass on the coffee table and knelt in front of her. She resisted at first when he tried to pull her into his arms but eventually relented.
‘Your dad only mentioned to watch out for you because he worries,’ she said when they pulled apart. ‘It shows how much you mean to him.’
Theo looked deep into her eyes and with his fingers below her chin, tilted her mouth up to meet his. His kiss told her everything would be okay. ‘I know, but I’m angry he brought it up with you, because it’s my own business. I’m not his little boy anymore and I wish he’d stop trying to fix the family he left.’
‘He didn’t leave you, Theo. He left your mum, not you and not Grace.’
‘It feels like much the same thing to me, Lydia.’ He looked sad and she saw the layers of vulnerability he usually hid so well. ‘I’m sorry, I really am. I’ll make this up to you, I swear.’
‘You made a mistake.’ She said it more to convince herself than to absolve him of any guilt.
‘A huge mistake,’ he agreed. ‘And it won’t happen again.’ He looked into her eyes. ‘It won’t, I swear. I’ll do anything to make it up to you, anything.’
She thought about it. ‘Come with me to the karaoke bar on Friday night.’
He pulled a face. ‘Walked right into that one, didn’t I?’
‘You have to sing.’
‘Okay.’
‘I mean it. Any song, but you’re getting up there on stage and proving to me how sorry you are.’ If he ever pulled anything like this again she’d string him up for it. They’d worked hard to save and in a few moments of madness he’d lost a ridiculous sum of money.
True to his word, Theo did exactly what she’d asked, and in the karaoke bar that Friday night after a bottle of wine at home for Dutch courage and another gin and tonic each when they arrived, Theo came through on his promise. He got up there on the stage in front of a crowd cheering and clapping and he belted out Kenny RogersThe Gambler. And all the while, Lydia had a huge smile across her face. Because this was her guy, her man. He’d made a mistake and he’d told her everything now, and for that, she couldn’t punish him any more than he was punishing himself.
