‘Well, we had to really,’ I tell her, avoiding eye contact by fiddling with the kettle. ‘Ant wanted the house back, so . . .’
‘He didn’t kick you out, did he?’ Amy asks. ‘Because I wouldn’t have thought he had the right.’
‘No, we did more of a deal, really,’ I tell her. ‘He sort of bought me out – well, a bit. We needed some money to do this place up, so . . .’
‘And he’s OK about the girls living so far away, is he?’ Amy asks, and I realise we’re going to discuss Ben being so far away from Amy through the proxy of Ant and the girls.
‘Well, they have to live somewhere, and it was part of the deal,’ I tell her. ‘He couldn’t have them during term time anyway. Not with working and everything, so this makes sense. He’s going to take them from time to time during school holidays. He’s taking them next week, actually. Joe and I are going to Rome. He was taking all three, but now you—’
‘To visit your sister?’ Amy asks, interrupting me. ‘She lives there, right?’
‘That’s it,’ I tell her. ‘I’ve never been before, so that’s really quite exciting.’
‘He is here, isn’t he?’ Amy asks, suddenly, urgently.
‘Ben?’ I say. ‘Yes, of course. He’s upstairs playing video games with Lucy. Do you want me to get him?’
‘In a bit,’ Amy says. ‘I’d like to take him out for lunch, if I can.’
‘Of course,’ I say. ‘He’s your son.’
‘Yes!’ Amy says pointedly. ‘Yes, he is!’
I’m just about to launch into a defence of the fact that we have Ben here with us – perhaps even to point out that, having checked herself into a psychiatric ward, it’s a damn good job we do have him with us – when, thankfully, Joe appears.
He crosses to the sink and starts washing his roller. ‘Well, that’s done,’ he tells me. Then, turning to Amy, he adds, ‘I didn’t know you were coming. You’re lucky we were here. We’re off to Rome next week. Another few days and you would have missed us.’
‘Yes,’ Amy says. ‘Heather just said.’
‘You could have called,’ Joe says. ‘My number’s still the same.’
‘Yeah, so’s mine,’ Amy says. ‘You could have called to tell me you were taking my son to the other end of the country.’
‘Our son,’ Joe says.
‘I’ll, um, leave you two to have a chat,’ I murmur, handing Amy her drink and heading towards the door.
But Joe frowns at me and says, ‘No, stay. Please.’ So I swallow and return to the kitchen table, where I tuck myself into the corner, hoping they’ll simply forget that I’m there.
‘So, look, Ame,’ Joe says. ‘We had to move, OK? Ant wanted the house back. We didn’t have anywhere to live.’
‘No, I get that, Joe,’ Amy says, sounding more reasonable. ‘But, you know, maybe a phone call or something? It was a bit of a shock to come home to an empty house.’
‘You were in a . . .’ Joe says, and I suspect from the fact that he interrupts himself that he was about to say something unfortunate like mental hospital or even loony bin.
‘You were in that clinic,’ I interject, hoping to help him out.
‘Exactly,’ Joe says. ‘It hardly seemed appropriate to worry you about all of this, not when you were in the middle of having a breakdown. As for coming home to an empty house, what were we supposed to do? Leave Ben there, alone, waiting for you?’
‘It didn’t seem appropriate?’ Amy says. ‘Christ, Joe! He’s my son.’
‘Our son,’ Joe says again. ‘And you’re not listening, Amy. I had no choice. Neither I nor Ben had anywhere to live.’
‘You could have lived at mine,’ Amy says. ‘You know full well you could have lived at mine.’
‘Yours,’ Joe says.
‘Ours, the house, whatever.’
‘Yeah, but you said yours,’ Joe says. ‘Which, if you think about it for a bit, is exactly why I couldn’t stay there.’
‘Oh, now you’re just being argumentative,’ Amy says.
‘I’m not,’ Joe tells her. ‘I’m really not. I’m just explaining how things were. You can’t just fuck off to Switzerland for six weeks and expect everything to stay in stasis.’
‘I didn’t fuck off to Switzerland,’ Amy says.
‘Only you kind of did.’
‘I was in hospital, Joe.’
‘Yes, you were. And if you try really hard, I think you can understand that it didn’t seem a good idea to burden you with the fact that neither Ben, nor I, nor Heather had anywhere to live.’
‘I . . .’
‘Please, just take a breath and try to understand,’ Joe says.
And surprisingly, Amy does just that. She stares into the middle distance for a moment, takes a deep breath, and finally sighs and sips at her drink. ‘OK,’ she says. ‘OK, look, I get that. I do. But what happens now, Joe? I want my son back.’
‘Our son,’ Joe says, for the third time.
‘Christ, OK, our son!’
‘I’m not sparring with you,’ Joe says. ‘He is our son. And we both need time with him. And he needs time with both of us. And I guess what needs to happen is that we talk about it like adults and decide. But you know . . . you didn’t give me a great deal of choice, Ame. I just want you to understand. We did the best we could.’
‘We really did,’ I add. ‘There weren’t a whole lot of other options.’
Amy nods at me. ‘OK,’ she says. ‘OK. Fine.’
The sound of hammering footsteps descending the stairs reaches our ears, and then Ben appears in the kitchen doorway. ‘Mum!’ he says. ‘You’re out!’ He runs to Amy and lets her sweep him up in her arms.
‘I am!’ she tells him. ‘They finally agreed to let me loose on the world.’
‘Are you better?’ he asks. ‘Or are you still mad?’ And because he’s only
