Pastures New (15 page)

‘Josh does too,’ said Amy.

‘They don’t make them like they used to any more,’ said Ben.

‘Oh I don’t know,’ Amy replied, ‘you should see how many versions of Action Man there are these days. SAS Action Man, Rock Climber Action Man, Underwater Action Man – for all I know they do Robocop Action Man. I can’t keep up.’

‘But the originals are always the best, don’t you think?’

‘I guess so,’ said Amy. Then, ‘Why are we having a conversation about Action Man?’

‘What else should we talk about?’ said Ben.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Neither do I.’

There was an awkward pause.

‘About this morning,’ she began hesitantly.

‘Yes, I’m sorry about that,’ said Ben. ‘I don’t know what came over me.’

‘Oh.’ Amy was disappointed. He evidently thought he’d made a mistake. Then he looked at her, and she knew without a doubt that wasn’t what he was thinking. He hadn’t made a mistake, and neither had she.

She went towards him, still hesitating. But almost as if she had no will of her own, she stumbled into Ben’s arms. The dizzying feeling from that morning –
was it only that morning? It seemed like a lifetime ago
– returned, and he pulled her towards him to kiss her, and –

‘Mummy, what are you doing?’ Josh was standing at the bottom of the stairs, with a look of horror on his face.

For the second time that day, Amy pulled away from Ben.

‘I hate you. And I hate Ben!’ Josh burst into tears and ran upstairs.

And after what he’d said to Mary too. Oh my God. How could she have done this to him? Ben stood looking awkward. ‘I should go,’ he said eventually.

‘Yes, you should,’ said Amy. ‘Sorry, I’ve got to see to him.’

‘Of course, of course,’ said Ben. ‘I’ll let myself out.’ ‘I’m sorry,’ said Amy. ‘Josh has to come first. You do understand, don’t you?’

‘I’m renowned for my understanding,’ said Ben, with a lightness he didn’t feel. ‘Merry Christmas, Amy.’

‘Merry Christmas, Ben,’ Amy replied, turning away, not trusting herself to speak. How could a day that had begun so right, end up going so dreadfully wrong?

Ben drove down the motorway towards his parents’ house. His doctor’s duties over, he had a few days to kill between Christmas and New Year. Given that he had blown Caroline out for skiing, that meant a long and lonely Christmas week on his own. So he had decided to pay an extended visit to his parents. His mum would be pleased. Or so he kept telling himself.

Coward
, a little voice said in his head. The real reason, of course, was Amy. After Josh had seen them kissing, Ben was clearer than ever that he had overstepped the mark. The stricken look on Amy’s face was enough to tell him so. Several times he had toyed with calling round, but every time he couldn’t bring himself to. Seeing her would do more harm than good. Which was, of course, an easy way to justify his actions.
Coward
, the voice in his head taunted him again. And, damn it, it was right.

‘Ben, how fantastic you could come after all.’ His mum knew how to press all the right buttons. Now he was feeling guilty for using his parents as an escape
route from facing up to Amy, as well as feeling guilty about running away in the first place. Ben bent down to kiss his mother, all five foot two of her. She seemed to shrink every time he saw her.

‘Sorry it was such short notice,’ said Ben. ‘The on-call thing was a bit of a pain.’

‘Well, you’re here now,’ his mum beamed widely. She was so pleased to see him. He was crap about coming. He should come more.

‘How are you both?’

‘Oh, fine, fine,’ said his mother, bustling about making tea, while his dad just grunted from behind his paper.

Ben’s heart sank. The lounge, still complete with seventies flock wallpaper, swirling brown carpet and boarded-up fireplace, hadn’t changed in nearly thirty years. The artificial tree had finally been replaced by a real one, but it was slightly lopsided and shedding pine needles faster than his mother could sweep them up. The Christmas decorations, lovingly removed and scrubbed free of dust every year, looked gaudier than ever. And now there were the three of them, sitting staring at each other, not knowing what to say. Never knowing what to say. Ben thought fleetingly of the warmth and happiness in Saffron’s house, and compared it with the sterility of his own. It wasn’t that there was a lack of love in his home, it’s just that it was fossilised, trapped in time, and stuck in that one day, all those years ago, where they were all doomed to stay forever.

He thought of Amy and his heart ached for her. She
too was trapped in a moment of pain. And so long as Josh prevented her, she would be unable to move on either. Ben had to face it. However much he wished things could be different, there was nothing he could do to change them. Either for his parents, or for Amy. It was just the way things were.

Saffron was feeling gloomy as she plonked pansies in Linda Lovelace’s pots. She couldn’t quite believe how disastrously Christmas had ended up. Her mum had been unable to shake off her stomach bug, so the promise of a New Year’s Eve out hadn’t materialised. Instead Saffron had invited several people round for drinks, but everyone was busy. That being the case, she had thought at least she and Pete could have a cosy evening watching TV in bed, but nothing much was doing there, either. Although she and Pete had managed sex a couple of times over the Christmas period, they had been desultory occasions, and Saffron had the feeling that not only was her own fire not lit, but Pete’s had nearly blown out. The sight of milk spouting from her boobs was, she suspected, going to stay with them both for a long time. Perhaps she should start taking lessons from Linda Lovelace. She snorted loudly at the thought.

It was a relief that the kids had gone back to school so soon after the New Year, and she and Amy could get back to work. It gave her something else to think about.

‘How much more to do?’ Amy came wandering
down Linda’s huge garden bearing cups of tea. She looked pale, Saffron thought. She had also been withdrawn since Christmas. This was the first time that they’d seen each other for more than five minutes. Amy had been elusive, and had cried off the New Year’s Eve invite.

It was most odd. Saffron had had the distinct idea that something had been going on between Amy and Ben on Christmas Day, but nothing since then seemed to suggest it had. Ben also seemed to have disappeared off the face of the universe – or certainly the allotments – even Harry didn’t know where he was. It was most unsettling.

Damn it, all this pondering wasn’t going to get Linda’s pansies planted.

‘There’s a fair amount, still,’ said Saffron, waving towards one of Linda’s many flowerbeds. ‘There are a whole load more plants by the greenhouse.’

‘I love pansies,’ said Amy, as she picked up a tray of them. ‘They’re so sweet. I always think they look as though they have little faces, don’t you?’

‘You have the strangest ideas, but I see what you mean,’ laughed Saffron. ‘Are you okay? You look a bit peaky.’

‘I’m fine,’ said Amy. ‘I haven’t been sleeping well. Josh has been a bit upset. He missed his granny over Christmas.’

Her look brooked no further discussion, so Saffron left it alone, turning her thoughts once more to the crisis in her own love life. She was getting so desperate that perhaps taking lessons from Linda Lovelace wasn’t
such a stupid idea after all. She had to do something to restore not just her libido, but Pete’s.

The ringing of Amy’s mobile jolted her out of her thoughts. ‘He was where? Doing
what
? How on earth did that happen? Right, I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

‘Problem?’

‘That was the school,’ said Amy. ‘Josh escaped from the playground at lunchtime, and they’ve just found him down by the river. I’ve got to go.’

Amy rang the buzzer at the main door of the school, her heart thumping nineteen to the dozen. Such a shame schools had to have so much security these days. Even more of a shame that, for all the security, no one had kept an eye out for her son. She could get cross about that if she chose, but she was feeling so guilty about Josh that she didn’t think she’d be able to bring herself to. This was all her fault. It had to be.

Josh hadn’t been the same since he’d caught Amy and Ben kissing. His behaviour over the Christmas period had been abysmal. He had disobeyed her constantly, and screamed and shouted when she told him off. His tantrums were spectacular, and then when they were over he would break down into sobbing fits that lasted ages.

And now this. Amy had already been beside herself not knowing what to do, or who to turn to. She couldn’t even talk to Saffron, whom she would trust with her
life. How to admit to someone else that you had just screwed your kid up?

But now it looked like her choice would be made for her. No doubt Josh had told his teachers what kind of a mum he had. And they would be forming their own conclusions. No, don’t be paranoid, Amy told herself. She had sat on the other side of the desk in these situations, after all, and had felt for a mother struggling through no fault of her own. Why would Josh’s teachers be any different?

To her relief, Josh’s teachers were so wound up about the fact that he had escaped that they weren’t looking to blame poor parenting for his bolting lapse.

‘We are so sorry, Mrs Nicolson,’ said Miss Burrows, who had taken Amy off into an unused classroom. ‘It appears that there is a gap in the fence in the playground that no one knew was there. Josh wriggled through it at the end of lunchtime play, and we only realised he was missing when we called the register. Luckily he’d told Matt what he was doing, so we were able to get him back pretty quickly.’

Amy was shaking by now at the thought of what might have happened.

‘But he’s okay?’ she said, her voice trembling.

‘Yes, thank God,’ said Miss Burrows. ‘He gave us all a fright, but though we found him by the river, he seemed to at least have the sense not to go near it.’

‘Can I see him?’

‘Of course,’ said Miss Burrows. ‘He’s very upset, so it might be best if he went home for the afternoon.’

‘Has he said why he did it?’ Amy asked, feeling sure
that any minute now a hand of God was going to fall in front of her saying, It’s Your Fault, Bad, Bad Mother!

‘No, he hasn’t breathed a word. All I could get out of him was that he wanted to go and see his granny.’

Amy sighed. ‘He probably does,’ she said. ‘Oh God, this is all my fault. I took him away to a new place, away from all his familiar surroundings. Of course he wants to see Granny.’

‘It is true that Josh has been having some trouble settling in,’ said Miss Burrows. ‘But I am surprised at this. I hadn’t got him taped as a bolter.’

Amy laughed through her sniffles.

‘It isn’t like him, it’s true,’ she said. She couldn’t face admitting that she had added to Josh’s problems by kissing Ben. ‘I’ll have a long chat with him. It won’t happen again, I promise.’

Saffron had tidied up the rest of the pots, and was heading for the kitchen door, where Linda Lovelace was on the phone. Linda nodded to Saffron to put the cups down on the side. Saffron didn’t like to come in with her muddy boots, but Linda waved her inside.

‘Yes, doll,’ she was saying. ‘I do classes on a Wednesday and Thursday evening at Legends nightclub in Bairstow. Do you know it? You can try out a taster session, if you like, before booking for the whole six-week course. And you get a certificate at the end to prove you’ve completed it. Great! See you Wednesday then.’

She snapped her mobile phone shut. ‘Hi babe, I owe you some money,’ she said.

Saffron had to hide a smile. Most of her clients had to be reminded to pay up, but Linda was almost embarrassing with her largesse. Saffron suspected the woman didn’t have a clue how much anything cost. She and Amy could probably get away with charging twice what they did.

‘Amy gone then?’ Linda delved into her Gucci handbag for some money.

‘Yes, she had a problem with her son,’ said Saffron.

‘Shame,’ Linda said, although Saffron thought she was probably just being polite.

‘I was telling Amy only the last time I saw her, she should come to some of my pole-dancing classes,’ continued Linda. ‘Good-looking girl like her shouldn’t be on her own.’

‘I’m not sure pole dancing is really Amy’s thing,’ said Saffron.

‘Oh don’t be put off by the idea,’ said Linda. ‘It’s not about exotic dancing any more. It’s more about aerobic exercise. And it’s a great way to lose weight. You should try it.’

Reminding herself that Linda was a client, so telling her to shove her pole-dancing classes up her rectum wouldn’t quite be the thing, Saffron smiled politely instead, and said, ‘Yes, perhaps I should.’

‘Here, I’ve just printed a new leaflet,’ said Linda. ‘Why not take one and have a look? I’ve got a new course starting soon. You could come for a taster lesson if you like.’

‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ said Saffron, suppressing a fit of the giggles, and shoving the leaflet promptly in her pocket with every intention of binning it as soon as she got out of the house. It was only when she got into the car and released the gales of laughter that had been building up inside her that she took the leaflet out, and, impelled more by curiosity than anything else, had a look.