One Day in May - Catherine Alliott [107]
‘What’s the problem, Mum? Why the violent reaction?’
‘No reason, no reason, you’re quite right. I’m being ridiculous. And you’re just friends, so that’s lovely. Anyway, let’s go in. Look, there’s Laura.’ I spotted her through the kitchen window.
‘Well, we are just friends at the moment, but I really like her. She’s really nice. Fit, too.’
Don’t rise, don’t rise. Somehow I knew he was lowering the worm, dangling it in front of my nose to reel me in, but I wouldn’t take it.
‘It’s just, I worry, Seffy,’ I said, keeping my voice level with a struggle. ‘You know, we left the last school because it wasn’t right, and now you’re starting with a clean sheet. It would be a shame to—’
‘We did not leave the last school,’ he roared, making Laura turn, even through the glass. ‘I was expelled, as you well know, for drinking a bottle of wine and inadvertently setting fire to the common room as I fell into a drunken stupor with a lit cigarette. We did not decide it wasn’t right for me, for pastoral and academic reasons, as you’re so fond of telling people, as if I could pick and choose. I was fucking well kicked out!’ His face was white with anger; eyes ablaze. He never swore at me. I felt myself shrivel inside, as if a hand had reached in and scrunched me up, like a desiccated old leaf.
‘No. No, you’re quite right. We do both know that. But I like to protect you, to—’
‘Lie,’ he said fiercely. ‘You like to lie. You call it glossing over the truth, but the fact is, Mum, you can’t face reality.’
I felt myself rock back in my shoes at this: with the force of his venom.
‘I tell anyone that asks that I was sent down, but you, you have to big it up, don’t you? You have to blag and lie your way out of everything, and d’you know what? Sometimes it’s downright evil.’
We were by the kitchen now and I reached out to hold the wall with the flat of my hand. To steady myself. I could feel my eyelids flickering under the force of his invective, his onslaught; could already hear Laura’s footsteps running down the passage from the kitchen towards us. Through half-shut eyes I looked into my son’s furious, glittering ones. It seemed to me I looked down the passage of time, right back to the beginning of everything; right to the core of my soul.
Laura’s hand was on my arm. ‘Hattie!’ She gave me a little shake. ‘Seffy – what’s wrong?’
Seffy’s face in that instant crumpled. Collapsed like a puffball that’s been pricked, and even though he turned and ran, I saw his eyes fill as they had when he was a little boy. For some reason, a moment when we were on holiday, years ago in Croatia, on the Dalmatian coast, sprang to mind. He must have been about ten. He’d built a fort on the beach. Not a castle you understand – he was too old for those – no, this was an intricate Camelot affair, complete with arrow slits and roads and a drawbridge. A child, running backwards, pulling a kite, had accidentally trampled through it, wiped it out in moments. It was that same, aghast look he had on his face, as if his world had caved in.
Laura took me inside and I managed to babble something innocuous. About how shocked I was at Seffy being sent home, and how, stupidly, I’d balled him out. How cross I was, especially after all that had happened. But then I stopped. Because you see, I couldn’t remember if Laura had been told the lie: about Seffy choosing to leave the last school, and move elsewhere. Luckily she was prompting me, sitting us both down, her hand still on my arm.
‘I know, because he was sent down before, of course you’re worried.’
Yes, yes, I had told her, that’s right. It was Mum who didn’t know. Dad did. Seffy had told him. My mouth was very dry, though, and I was glad of the glass of water she put in front of me. I drained it in rapid gulps. It seemed to clear my head, as if I’d rinsed my brain under a cold tap.
‘Stupid of me. I yelled at him, you see,’ I repeated, dimly aware I was fabricating again. ‘Got cross, and he exploded.’
‘But at least you’ve cleared the air,