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‘I’m okay, I’m okay …’ Matt gasped, clenching his hands, but seemingly in discomfort rather than because he wanted to fight.
‘James! You hit him!’ Laurie rose to her feet with a look of horror on her face.
‘What are you thinking?’ Amy said.
‘What am I thinking? More like what are you thinking!’ James’s breathing was almost as ragged as Matt’s.
‘We’re divorced, James! This has nothing to do with you.’
‘It does when it concerns my son!’
Amy turned to Laurie, who was standing awkwardly behind James. ‘Laurie, I wonder if you could take the boys for a short walk down the lane? They don’t need to hear any of this, and I have some things to say to James.’
‘Boys? More than one?’ Laurie said, sounding surprised. ‘I’m not sure I …’ She’d gone pale following that punch.
Amy was worried about Matt, who was still catching his breath, doubled over at a distance from James, who stood with his fists balled, shoulders tense. She put a hand on his shoulder, and he exhaled.
‘And I’ve got some things to say to him!’ James said, taking a step towards Matt.
‘No! You stay where you are,’ Amy snapped. ‘Leave him alone. I don’t know what your problem is, but you can sort it out with me. This has nothing to do with Matt.’
‘Matt? Who the hell is Matt?’ James said, turning towards Amy.
‘What do you mean? This is Matt, you just punched him!’ Amy said, incredulously.
‘And Oliver? Who is this Oliver then, the one who has been hurting Harry? You’re Oliver, aren’t you?’ he demanded of Matt, almost as if he was willing him to admit it.
There was a long, long silence and the adults looked at each other as the truth began to dawn on them all. James was still breathing heavily. Laurie took his arm and tried to draw him backwards.
‘Oliver? Could you come down from the pop-top please?’ Matt called out, as he pulled himself into an upright position, wincing slightly. Amy took his hand for a moment, but he shook it off as he heard Oliver open the sliding door of the campervan.
‘Don’t worry, I’m fine. Winded, that’s all,’ he muttered to her.
‘I don’t feel very well,’ Oliver said as he came out of the awning.
‘That’s because you ate all the biscuits, when we —’ Harry said.
‘Shut up Harry!’ Oliver hissed.
‘You shut up, Oliver!’
‘You’re Oliver?’ Laurie said, her voice shaky. Oliver nodded.
Harry explained, ‘Oliver’s my friend from school. He’s got Goat Gunge in the pop-top.’
‘He’s got … what … in the what?’ Laurie stuttered.
‘This is the Oliver who’s been fighting with you?’ James asked, sounding as if he was the one who had been punched.
‘It wasn’t really fighting, was it Oliver?’ said Harry, obviously worried about getting into trouble. ‘He didn’t punch me, not like you punched Matt —’
‘I think we should take a few minutes, James.’ Laurie’s smooth forehead furrowed with worry lines. ‘I think we need to discuss this.’
They moved away, amid much gesticulating. If there was an argument going on Laurie seemed to be winning. James’s shoulders began to slump. Matt and Amy couldn’t make out many of the words, over the boys’ many questions, until suddenly they heard Laurie’s anguished cry of ‘… and you could be struck off!’
James walked back across the campsite towards them, followed by Laurie, who was still struggling with her heels in the mud. Her suede boots would never be the same again, but it was James who had undergone the greatest transformation. Gone was the red-faced belligerence and the aggressive stance.
‘I … um … I have to apologise to you, Matt, Amy. I’ve made a dreadful error of judgement, it seems. I was out of line and I totally misunderstood what was going on here.’
