‘Sure,’ Amy said. ‘Why not? The flat’s small and a bit empty, anyway. He’d get bored.’
‘It’s Powell’s, is it?’ I asked.
Amy nodded. ‘How did you know? From Heather?’
I shook my head. ‘A guess. I know he’s still got empty units out there.’
‘We’re in the show flat,’ Amy told me, and I really wished she hadn’t. I’d fitted the kitchen units and bedroom cupboards in the show flat, so I knew it well. Now I could imagine their living arrangements only too perfectly. I imagined Ant hanging his suits in the fitted wardrobe I’d built, right next to my wife’s dresses. I shuddered as if I was cold.
‘But you’re right, it’s better if he spends time here as usual,’ Amy continued. ‘It’s why I want you and Ben to stay here for now, even though, technically, the house is mine.’
I nodded. ‘OK,’ I said. I was probably supposed to be thanking her for her largesse, but that wasn’t happening, not today, and probably not ever.
‘Is he OK?’ she asked. ‘I mean, he seems OK, but . . .’
‘Yeah, he’s fine,’ I said. ‘For a kid who’s living through what he’s living through, he’s doing great.’
‘You told him that we’re best friends,’ Amy said. When I frowned, she added, ‘Me and Ant? You said best friends, apparently.’
I nodded vaguely.
‘Thanks for that,’ she said. ‘It’s classy. So I’m grateful.’
‘Classy,’ I repeated, thinking that it was a strange word to use, considering the situation. ‘Whatever . . . Look, Amy, are we done here?’
‘Sure,’ Amy said, heading for the door. ‘I’ll just say goodbye to Ben, OK?’
The final days of August whizzed by – I was working like a madman.
Joe-the-younger was still on holiday, and where my usual day finished around eight, now I had to be home by six to look after Ben. Amy tried to be home by six thirty for Ant, she told me. He liked to eat quite early, she said. Just the thought of it made me feel sick.
She’d arrive to look after Ben just as I left the house, and because she generally jumped in her car the minute she saw me coming home in the evening, there was very little communication between us.
I was feeling dazed about it all – that was my overriding sensation. When I was working, I’d slog hard enough to drive the entire situation from my mind, but in the evenings, though I put on a brave face for Ben, the truth was that I just felt numb. There was a vague feeling of waiting for something, too, as if the status quo couldn’t continue to exist. Sometimes I thought I was waiting for her to realise the folly of her ways and come back to us, and other times I was merely waiting to feel better about the fact that she was gone. But basically, those were the sensations: numbness and waiting.
The following Monday Ben started back at school, so Amy was no longer required to look after him during the day. I’d drop him at school in the morning, and he’d walk back with Heather and her kids in the afternoon, then stay at her place until I got home.
Though Heather and the girls were just down the road, and despite the fact that I did think of them often – wondering in particular how Heather was coping with her similar situation – the truth is that I avoided engaging with her. She was a part of this whole horror story and things seemed complicated enough without throwing her feelings into the mix.
But at the end of Ben’s first week back, I got home to find her sitting on the wall at the end of our drive. I parked the truck and walked back down to greet her.
‘Hi,’ she said, once she’d hung up. ‘Just chatting to my sister. Sorry.’
‘Hello, Heather,’ I said. ‘How have you been?’
‘Oh,’ she said lightly, ‘you know . . . Ben’s in the back garden with Lucy and Sarah.’ She nodded towards the rear of the house. ‘He wanted to show Lucy something and they ended up playing with a football, so I thought I’d leave them to it for a bit. Sarah was chatting to your cat the last time I looked.’
‘You can go back there and sit in a chair, you know,’ I told her. ‘You are allowed.’
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘But here’s fine. And I need to get home soon anyway.’
‘So, come on,’ I said. ‘How have you been? Are you OK?’
She looked at me soulfully and licked her lips. ‘Do you know,’ she said, ‘I have no idea? I think I’m waiting for some profound realisation to come along, but nothing’s popping up. I don’t expect that makes any sense to you.’
‘It does,’ I told her. ‘It totally does. Come inside. Have a drink. We can catch up.’
‘Thanks,’ she said, ‘but not today. I really do need to be getting along. But maybe another time, OK?’
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Any time.’
‘Have you heard . . . ?’ she said. She cleared her throat and started again, saying, ‘I don’t suppose you’ve had any news, have you? About whether they’re . . . you know . . . happy? I can’t help but wonder how it’s all going.’
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Me and Amy aren’t exactly chatty right now.’
‘No,’ Heather said. ‘I can imagine. Ant doesn’t tell me anything either.’
‘But there are no signs of cracks that I know of. If that’s what you’re hoping for.’
‘Oh, no, I’m not,’ Heather said. ‘I’m not hoping for anything at all.’
‘No?’ I said. ‘Well, good for you.’
‘But everything just feels so . . . temporary, I suppose,’ she said. ‘I mean, Ant’s still living in that show flat. We have no real arrangement about anything, really. Not about the bills, or the house, or the future . . . It’s all just ad hoc, day to day, you know . . . It’s a very strange way to be living.’
‘It’s destabilising,’ I said. ‘I agree.’
‘Yes, it is,’ Heather said. ‘Destabilising is the word.’
At that moment, Ben came running around the corner of the house,
