‘We can’t wrap them in cotton wool. Finn’s going to come up against worse, mark my words. That’s life. You both have him totally mollycoddled. He needs to toughen up.’
‘Oh you want him to be a macho man like you, fighting with his fists and getting hooked on porn?’ Jay challenged.
Hugo blinked angrily. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘You know very well,’ Jay went on.
‘Stop now, Jay,’ I said, placing my hand on Jay’s arm, feeling mortified.
Maya blinked back tears. ‘I told you that in confidence, Liv,’ she said, shaking her head.
‘You told them?’ Hugo blazed, turning to his wife. ‘You told them something that was private and meant to be between us?’ He shoved back his chair and stood up from the table in fury.
‘Hugo, wait,’ Maya begged. ‘I was upset, I didn’t know who to turn to…’
‘That’s our business,’ he said, hammering his fist down on the table, causing the crockery to jump. ‘It was meant to stay between us.’
Maya started to cry. ‘I’m so sorry.’
Suddenly, we heard a small voice behind us. We turned around to see Elliot had woken up and wandered downstairs.
‘Mummy,’ he said, rubbing his eyes with one hand and a well-worn comforter gripped in his other one. ‘I can’t sleep.’
‘Oh look, it’s the little bully himself!’ Jay quipped under his breath.
‘Jay!’ I hissed. ‘That’s not helpful.’ Why was he adding fuel to the fire?
Hugo leaned across the table towards Jay. ‘What the hell did you just say?’ he challenged.
‘You heard me,’ Jay said, not backing down.
Elliot started to cry and despite everything that was going on between him and my son, I felt awful for him having been woken up from his slumber and walking into this mess. I knew he must be scared and confused.
‘Come over here, baby.’ Maya opened her arms to him to climb up onto her knee.
‘See? See what you’ve done?’ Hugo went on. ‘You’ve some cheek coming here tonight, coming to our house, sponging off our hospitality and then you go and upsetmyfamily!’
‘Now, hang on a minute,’ I said, trying to defuse the situation. ‘Maya asked us to come here tonight; she said we were going to talk about the bullying. We didn’t know it was going to be a bloody dinner party. We just want to get this sorted out.’
‘Please can everyone just calm down,’ Maya begged. ‘Let’s not do this in front of Elliot.’
Hugo turned to Jay and me then. ‘Finn is such a prissy mummy’s boy, is it any wonder Elliot can’t stand him?’ He was like a cornered animal, fighting back.
‘Come on, Liv, let’s get out of here,’ Jay said, standing up. ‘I’m done. We’re wasting our time. Clearly, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.’
Suddenly, Hugo lunged across the table at Jay, grabbing him by the neck of his t-shirt.
‘What the fuck did you just say?’ he blazed. The bottle of wine was knocked onto its side and red liquid glugged out of the neck, spreading in a bloody pool, soaking along the white linen tablecloth.
‘Go on, hit me, macho man,’ Jay goaded.
‘Jay!’ I chastised. ‘That’s enough!’
‘Stop it, both of you,’ Maya ordered. ‘Sit down, Hugo. You’re scaring Elliot.’
But his words seemingly had no effect as Hugo drew back his fist.
Jay struggled to release himself from Hugo’s grip and the two of them moved away from the table and tousled around together. Time seemed to slow down as I watched Hugo’s fist move stealthily through the air just as Elliot jumped up and ran in front of his father screaming, ‘Daddy, no!’ Instead of punching Jay, Hugo’s fist connected with the tiny face of his son.
