Just as I was leaving, it crossed my mind that she might be with Ant, and so I called her to make sure that wasn’t the case. The idea of Ben spending the day with the two of them was unbearable to me.
‘No, don’t worry,’ she reassured me. ‘Ant’s at work too. I thought I’d take Ben shopping in Canterbury.’
‘Good,’ I said. ‘He’ll like that. And if you see a shoe shop, he needs new trainers.’
I spent the day pulling down ugly units from a rich old lady’s kitchen. It felt good to be destroying something, and once I’d finished, though there was no reason whatsoever to do so, I smashed the old cupboards with a sledgehammer.
When I got home at six, Amy’s sports car was parked outside, and that seemed really weird. It was as if she was taking a liberty by parking it there – I can’t really explain why.
I found her in the kitchen drinking herbal tea, and her ownership of the kitchen got to me even more. I reminded myself that the house was hers, but it didn’t seem to help.
‘Hello, Joe,’ she said, when I reached the doorway.
I merely nodded by way of reply.
‘Do you want tea or something?’
I shook my head and crossed to the kitchen sink, where I filled a glass with tap water.
‘Have a Coke,’ she said. ‘There’s loads and loads of Coke in the fridge. You’ve got gallons of the stuff.’ Amy didn’t approve of Coke. This much we knew.
‘Water’s fine,’ I said, refusing to rise to the bait. I moved to the window and looked out at the garden. ‘Where’s Ben?’ I asked, without looking back at her.
‘In his room. I bought him this Atari thing and I think he’s trying to set it up.’
‘A games console?’ I asked, addressing her reflection in the window. It was the same strategy I used during the gory bits on telly, where I’d squint at a reflection of the surgeon with the scalpel rather than looking directly at the screen.
‘Yeah, they’re back in fashion, apparently. It’s all gone retro.’
I nodded and thought about the fact that Ben would almost certainly tire of Space Invaders within half an hour, but that I’d probably enjoy playing it myself. ‘Cool,’ I said, and then, mocking her without her knowing it, I added, ‘That’s just great.’
A silence fell and eventually I turned back to face the room. ‘So?’ I prompted.
‘I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say,’ Amy said.
‘Me neither,’ I told her.
‘Do you have, you know, any questions?’ she asked.
I snorted at this, then closed my eyes and attempted to cool my mounting anger. ‘Just one, I guess. Are you still with him?’
‘With Ant?’ Amy asked obtusely.
I shrugged. ‘Unless there are others? But maybe there are. How would I know?’
Amy took a deep breath and stared straight ahead, past my left shoulder. ‘Yes, Joe, I’m still with Ant,’ she said flatly.
I nodded slowly. ‘So it’s a goer, is it, your little love affair?’
Amy thought about this and I thought I saw her stifle a smirk. It made me want to slap her. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Yeah, it’s a goer.’
‘He is a tosser, you know. I hope you realise that.’
‘Yes, I’m sure that’s what you’ve been told,’ Amy said. ‘Exes do tend to say that kind of thing.’
‘Is that what you’ve told him about me, then?’ I asked.
‘No, Joe. You know it isn’t,’ she said. ‘Anyway . . .’
‘Anyway . . .’
‘Look, I don’t know what you want me to say, Joe. I pretty much said all I have to say in the email.’
‘And I don’t know what you want me to say.’
‘Maybe tell me how you feel?’ she said. ‘You could have answered the email, but you chose not to.’
I glared at her and wondered why she felt the need to witness my pain. But then I thought, Fuck it! Let her own it.
‘I’m devastated, Amy,’ I said. ‘I’m angry and I feel betrayed and depressed. And a whole shitload of other stuff besides. Happy?’
‘No, Joe,’ she said. ‘No, that doesn’t make me happy at all. It makes me really sad, if you must know.’
‘Good,’ I told her. ‘I’m glad you’re sad. I just . . . I can’t believe you’ve chucked our whole family down the drain, Ame. Do you even realise what you’ve done?’
‘It was a mistake,’ Amy said.
‘No kidding,’ I said.
‘I mean, coming here, today . . . it’s too soon.’ She crossed to the sink and poured away her drink.
‘If you want to see me all bright and breezy, I suggest you come back in a few years,’ I said.
‘So, Ben,’ she said, with a sigh. ‘I can take him any day you want. I’m not working until mid-September, and I know that you are, so . . .’
I covered my eyes with my hands and took a couple of deep breaths to calm myself. I was struggling to believe that this conversation was real – that this really was where my life had got to. ‘That would be good,’ I said finally. ‘But I don’t want him hanging around with that twat.’
‘Ant was fine for him to hang around with in Spain,’ Amy said.
‘Yeah, well, he wasn’t shagging my wife then,’ I muttered.
Amy stared at me robotically and blinked a few times before saying, with forced calm, ‘No, of course. I understand. So maybe I should take him on weekdays, while you’re working, and you can have him at weekends when Ant’s off. OK?’
‘I guess. This week, at least. He’s back to school on Monday, so . . .’
‘I’ll come and pick him up at eight forty, just after you’ve left for work,’ Amy said.
‘Can you spend your time with him here?’ I asked. I’d just visualised Ben wherever Amy and Ant were living and hadn’t liked the image. ‘I think it would be better for him. Healthier, if
