‘Did she indeed?’ Mum gives him an unimpressed look.
‘But only because he was picking on me,’ Josh adds gravely.
Mum arches an eyebrow in Holly’s direction. ‘Is this true, Holly?’
Holly nods, and shrugs guiltily. ‘He made him break his glasses, so…’
‘She smacked him in the gob,’ Josh finishes, clearly still awestruck. ‘Pow! She was totally awesome. The headmistress told her off though, so Mum brought us here for some apple pie as a treat.’
‘Not a treat, twit!’ Holly rolls her eyes in despair, and then turns her best beguiling gaze towards Mum. ‘Because we’ve had a really bad day.’
‘Ah, I see,’ Mum says, as I stand there, dripping rain all over the carpet and willing myself not to cry in front of the children. ‘In which case, you shall have some. But upstairs first. Grab some towels from the airing cupboard and give your hair a good rub. Both of you – go on. And then into the lounge and watch some TV while I talk to your mum.’
Ushering them in the direction of the stairs, she turns back to me. ‘I take it it’s not Holly hitting some little bully you’re looking devastated about?’ she asks shrewdly.
Breathing in hard, I shake my head, pull my phone from my pocket, select my texts and hand it to her.
A frown crossing her face, Mum reads the cryptic text Jason eventually sent in response to mine:Need some space. Don’t wait up for me. About the financial backing, by the way, it’s not happening. Your father way exceeded my expectations.
That was it. No further contact, and his phone’s been going to voicemail since. I have no idea where he is. How he is. What happened between him and my father. I can only assume he went through Jason’s accounts and turned him down.
Mum’s frown deepens. ‘Oh no.’ She closes her eyes, a swallow sliding down her throat, then, ‘Thatbloodyman,’ she seethes. ‘What on earth is he up to now?’
Her eyes are fraught with worry as she looks back at me. ‘I take it you two have argued again?’
‘Worse than.’ I avert my gaze, fixing it hard on ceiling, but as hard as I try to stop them, still the tears come. ‘I think he hates me.’
‘Nonsense. Jason couldn’t hate you if he tried,’ Mum says, discernible agitation in her voice as she tries to reassure me. ‘You’re overreacting.’
That’s exactly what I’ve done. My father is the one full of hatred, for Jason, for reasons I will never understand. He hinted that there might be evidence of my husband cheating on me on his laptop and I leapt on it. Evidence that might even have been planted there by him. I don’t know whether my father would sink that low, but I’m not sure I believe Mark’s claim to have been using Jason’s laptop either. Isn’t it more likely that, realising Jason needed help getting out of a hole, he was covering his friend’s back? Regardless, I can’t believe Jason would do such a thing. Yet I hurled accusations at him, loudly, in front of his staff. And all this after he’d come from a meeting with my father that had clearly been soul-destroying. Jason should hate me, but he could never hate me as much as I hate myself right now.
‘He found me in his office,’ I confide miserably, as Mum wraps an arm around me and steers me firmly towards the kitchen. ‘He came back from seeing Dad to find me checking his internet history.’
‘His internet history?’ Mum’s step falters. ‘But… Why?’
‘Because of Dad,’ I say, as she stares at me, astonished. ‘Why is he doing this, Mum? What does he have against him? I don’t understand.’ The tears come in earnest then. ‘Please… make him stop.’
Nineteen
DIANA
Hearing Robert’s key in the lock, Diana placed the last of her grandchildren’s dinner dishes in the dishwasher and braced herself to go and speak to him. She rarely talked to him about anything meaningful, mainly because, being the opinionated person that he was, Robert rarely listened. But she needed to now. She had to establish what had gone on between him and Jason earlier that day. Karla was worried to death, and she couldn’t believe Robert was so oblivious to that fact that he would continue these ridiculous attempts to drive Jason from her life. He and Karla were together, married with two children, for goodness’ sake. It was time Robert damn well accepted it.
‘Evening,’ he called shortly from the hall.
Diana didn’t answer. That would be far too happy-couple-ish. They hadn’t been that in a very long time. They rubbed along, he doing his thing, she doing hers, but that was all. She was content to do so. If he rocked the boat, though… She had assets now, and wouldn’t hesitate to leave him clinging to the wreckage on his own.
She waited a moment while Robert flicked through his mail before going to the lounge for his pre-dinner drink – he was a creature of habit, and she was wise to it, though little did he know it – and then followed him in.
His glass half full of whisky, Robert arched an eyebrow as she walked through the door. He would be surprised, she supposed. She normally retired to the orangery to read, leaving him to microwave his meal once he’d had his aperitif –often more than one. As Robert rarely read, and was therefore disinclined to join her, it was the only place she really felt able to relax.
‘Want one?’ Robert pointed his glass in her direction.
Diana shook her head. ‘Not yet, no.’ She would have one later, when Robert was out, which she had no doubt he would be, and she was free to talk to Michael without fear of him overhearing.
‘Good day?’ he asked her, taking a large gulp of his own drink and turning away.
‘Average,’ Diana answered. ‘You?’ she asked him, out of civility.
