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‘Distant.’
‘I’m not being distant. It’s all in your head.’
‘You didn’t come over last weekend.’
‘I told you, I was working.’
‘The weekend before, you cancelled on us.’
‘You think I wanted to? I’ve been up to my ears the last few weeks. Work’s crazy.’
‘And yet you’re always sleeping when I call. It’s just like back in—’
‘You need to get a grip, Ams. You’re being ridiculous.’
‘You never phone.’
He sighed heavily. Exasperated.
‘You’re always phoning me, hardly gives me a chance to call you.’
It was no different when he came over.
‘I got us a treat,’ he’d said the other evening, pulling a bottle of Laurent-Perrier out from behind his back with a flourish. Ta-da!
‘You ever had pink champagne, Ams?’
My mother narrowed her eyes at him the way she did when she suspected I was fibbing about having done my homework.
‘Not Laurent-Perrier, I haven’t. It’s over fifty pounds a bottle.’
‘Should be rather special then, eh?’
‘Is this what you drink with her?’
‘There is no her. Christ!’
She flinched. She had a thing about blaspheming, as he well knew.
It went on and on, the walls slowly closing in. What was happening to my mother? Where was the woman of the bed picnics and sea glass hunts? The person who eschewed bedtimes and twirled to Sergeant Pepper? How had she lost her sense of fun around a man as fun as Matty? Become so buttoned up?
I could see he was getting fed up too, his whole demeanour changing. His movements became slower, as though he were sleepwalking, his shoulders stooped. And even though he always seemed to be napping, there were dark shadows under his eyes. His skin was pale and puffy.
‘What’s your problem? Why can’t you have any faith in him?’ I demanded.
They’d had yet another row. My mother was sitting at the kitchen table, nursing a glass of Chardonnay. Not a natural drinker, she’d added a splash of orange juice to sweeten it.
She slid her fingers up and down the stem of the glass.
‘I don’t expect you to understand.’
‘I understand you’re going to drive him away. Just like you did with Dad.’
Her face tightened on its frame.
‘Go to your room, Sophie.’
‘For God’s—’
