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That takes me a second to parse, so I just say “s’pose” to fill the gap.
“You don’t have to leave.” She scootches her chair around towards me, sliding it across the kitchen floor with aburrdurrof rubber feet on tiles. “Jonathan’ll come round.”
“I don’t think he’s the coming round type.”
“He weren’t the having the whole family over for Christmas type neither but look how that went.”
I try not to listen to that with my hopeful ears on. Because whatever time of year it might be, I’m past expecting miracles. “It don’t feel right to stay. Not after…what I did.”
“I’m sure you know best.” She clearly isn’t and I clearly don’t. “But you really don’t want to be driving back to Sheffield this time of night.”
Fuck, I really don’t. For so many reasons. “I’ll work something out.”
“I’m sure you know best,” says Wendy again, sipping her tea.
I look at her across the table. “You know I’m wise to this trick.”
“What trick?”
“You telling me you support my decisions so’s I’ll all second-guess myself and think maybe I’m wrong.”
“Oh.” With a ceramic clink, she sets her mug down slightly to the left of the nearest coaster. “That trick.”
Swallowing hard, I try to psych myself up to say some things I’m not sure I want to say. “I know you think he’ll be fine,” Ibegin, “but the thing is—I think I won’t. Like I don’t know how to face him.”
That gets through to her. She gives me this quiet, understanding look that I’ve not really had from anybody since my own nan went and it sort of makes my mouth go dry in ways I’m not prepared for. “Fair enough,” she says. “Let’s see about getting you sorted out.”
Getting me sorted out, it seems, means making sure Gollum’s in his travel case, then trying to work out where the hell I can find a pet-friendly hotel room at basically no notice the wrong side of midnight. Both of which take longer than they have any right to.
“Well,” Wendy says, with that over-eager expression mams get when they know they’re going to offer you exactly what you need exactly when you need it. “If you’re okay going without water you can stay at ours.”
“I couldn’t,” I tell her and then immediately follow it up with, “I mean, I might have to, but I’ll feel bad about it.”
“Don’t be silly,” she reassures me. Beside her, Gollum makes grumpy noises in his carry case. “Best for everybody. Besides, means there’s somebody to turn the lights on so burglars don’t know we’re out.”
“My mam used to think about that too,” I tell her. “If I’m honest, I sometimes wonder if burglars spend as much time watching hall lights as we think they do.”
She shrugs. “Well, all I can say is I always leave me lights on, and I’ve never been burgled. So I must be doing something right.”
My tea’s still hot so I can’t really drain it, but I take a big swallow, then push the mug away. “I should—y’know.”
“Yeah,” she says, “alright, love.” She hands me my bag, and my case of irate house pet, and that’s it. I’m going. Standing in the doorway taking one last look back at Jonathan’s huge, pointless, nowhere-near-as-empty-as-it-used-to-be detached residence in the nice part of Croydon.
Wendy gives me a hug. “You stay in touch, you hear?”
“Will that not be a bit odd?”
She doesn’t look like she cares if it is. “You’re a nice boy, Sam, which is more than I can say for most of Jonathan’s exes. More than I can say for Jonathan sometimes.”
“Still it—”
She shushes me, then kisses me on the cheek. “You know where we are if you need us. Have a safe trip.”
And then I go. Just me, my cat, and my dad’s van, off to spend the night in my briefly-boyfriend’s mum and dad’s house.
It was sweet of Wendy to offer but, good God, does it feel shit in practice.
Les and Wendy’s place is only about thirteen minutes away from Jonathan’s, but it’s a very different style of house. A two-up-two-down terrace job that was probably originally built for factory workers in Victorian times or something. I let myself in, go to get a glass of water, then remember there won’t be any. I think about turning in—to my immense relief they’ve got a spare room which means I’m not going to have to sleep in Jonathan’s mum and dad’s bed—but I’m still too agitated to really sleep at all. So I let Gollum out and watch him run around like he’s looking for lost pirate treasure while I flop down in their living-room-slash-dining-area and try not to think about anything.
