‘Go and get your sister, will you?’ Heather told her, pulling the stick from Lucy’s grasp and throwing it into the bushes. ‘We need to be getting home.’
Once Lucy had caught Sarah, we waved them goodbye and started to walk back towards the front door, only to be interrupted by the arrival of Amy’s red Mazda.
Ben ran to greet his mother, giving her a hug when she stepped from the car. On being told she needed to talk to me, he climbed the stairs to his bedroom. I led Amy into the lounge and closed the door behind us, wondering what this was about.
‘So,’ Amy said. ‘What’s up?’
‘Um, you’re the one who just said you needed to talk,’ I told her, feeling confused.
‘You’re right. And we do. We need to talk about when I can get to see Ben,’ she said, sounding almost aggressive.
With Ben having started back at school, it was true that she hadn’t seen him all week. So I’d guessed we would have to rejig things somehow.
‘You’re going to have to choose between weekends or week nights,’ Amy continued. ‘Because you simply can’t have both, Joe. I do need some access to my son.’
I frowned. ‘Right,’ I said. ‘Of course. No problem.’
‘And if that frown’s about Ben seeing Ant,’ Amy said, ‘then you’re really going to have to get over it. Because there’s no way around that one, I’m afraid.’
And I was worried about that, it was true. But I was also trying to imagine how Amy could have Ben to stay. The show flat at Powell’s was a single-bedroom unit, after all.
‘Are you still in that tiny flat?’ I asked. I instantly regretted having said this, fearing I’d opened a path to a potential conversation about my tenancy in the house.
‘We are,’ Amy replied. ‘But another one’s come free – a three-bed unit on the second floor – so hopefully we’ll be moving into that one.’
I nodded and tried not to imagine the scene, but failed, remembering the high-gloss kitchen units I’d screwed to the walls with my own hands, the cupboards I’d fitted in all three bedrooms.
‘So, what do you think?’ Amy prompted.
‘I think we need to see what Ben thinks,’ I told her.
‘Sure,’ Amy said. ‘But I don’t think we should put him in a position where he thinks he’s responsible for what happens. We don’t want him thinking he has to control all this, do we?’
I crossed to the sink and poured a glass of water to give myself time to think about this. ‘Actually,’ I said, on returning to the table, ‘maybe we should let him feel he has some control. I mean, obviously he needs to see both of us, but we could at least let him choose when and where and how, couldn’t we? He hasn’t had any say in the rest of this, after all.’
Amy nodded and licked her lips. Her expression was impossible to read.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘I’m scared,’ she said.
‘Scared?’
‘I’m scared he’ll choose you,’ she said quietly, her voice gravelly with emotion. ‘If we give him a choice, I’m scared he’ll just choose you.’
‘Oh, Amy,’ I told her. ‘You’re his mother. He adores you.’
‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘Maybe not. So do you want to talk to him about it, or shall I?’
‘Both of us together might be best.’
Amy nodded and brushed a forming tear from the corner of her eye. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Let’s get him down here and see.’
I poured a packet of Cheesy Wotsits into a bowl. I’d read somewhere that bad news is easier to accept while you’re eating, though – like most of what we read these days on social media – I have no idea if it’s true.
Amy spelled out the dilemma for her son. She was missing him, she said, and she needed to know when she could see him.
Ben shrugged and filled his mouth with Wotsits.
‘Basically, your choices are weekends or school nights,’ I explained.
‘I don’t care,’ Ben said, in a weird unemotional voice that I hadn’t heard before.
‘OK, well, what works best for me is if I have you at weekends,’ I told him. ‘Because that’s when I have time to actually do stuff with you.’
‘OK,’ Ben said.
‘But that means staying with your mum on school nights.’
‘OK,’ he said again.
‘Not here, though, yeah?’ I explained. I suspected that he wasn’t really getting the picture. ‘In the flat.’
‘In the flat?’ Ben repeated. ‘With Ant?’
I swivelled slowly to face Amy and indicated with a nod of the chin that she could continue the conversation. I couldn’t bring myself to discuss Ant with my son.
‘Yes, with me and Ant,’ Amy said. ‘You like Ant, though, don’t you?’
‘What about the girls?’ Ben asked. ‘What about Lucy and Sarah?’
Amy shook her head. ‘Not yet, but hopefully soon, once we have a bigger place.’
Ben pulled a face.
‘You told me you liked him the other day,’ Amy said.
‘He’s OK,’ Ben said. ‘But it’s boring there. There’s nothing to do. And where would I sleep?’
‘You can have our room,’ Amy said. ‘Ant and I can sleep on the sofa bed.’
‘Eww,’ Ben said. ‘That’s rubbish. I don’t want to sleep in your stinky bed. I want my room.’
‘I know,’ Amy said. ‘But it’s all we have, because for the moment I want to let you and your dad live here.’
For the moment, I thought. I had a self-destructive urge to say, ‘You know what? I’ll just leave.’ But I managed to restrain myself.
‘Only you don’t. You want me to live with you in that stupid flat,’ Ben said.
‘Yes, but at weekends, you’d be here with your dad. Do you understand?’
Ben nodded but looked utterly miserable. ‘Are you with Ant now?’ he asked her, surprising me, and, by the look on Amy’s face, confusing her. ‘Are you with him, like, for ever?’
Amy chewed her bottom lip and swallowed. ‘I’m, um, not sure about for ever, darling,’ she told him. ‘But for now, yes, I’m with Ant.’
‘Don’t you love Dad any more, then?’ Ben asked.
