He leans against the sink and looks at me. Like his dad, Eddie is strikingly handsome: brown-eyed, with defined cheekbones, having recently grown into his looks. His hair is dark and glossy, rarely cut or washed – or even combed – but somehow still the hair any young man would want.
‘Dad back soon?’ he asks with studied casualness.
‘Yeah, should be,’ I reply. ‘Why, love?’ Normally, our movements don’t even register on his radar. We could be at home, or out – evendead, I’ve sometimes thought. It’s all the same to Eddie as long as meals appear, miraculously, at dinnertime.
‘Just wondered.’ He places his mug on the worktop and grins at me in an odd way. As if he’s holding something inside him. Something that’s bursting to come out.
‘You seem very perky today,’ I venture with a smile.
‘Perky?’ He chuckles.
‘Well, yes.’ And his deathly pallor has gone, I notice now. In fact he’s more like the old Eddie. TheyoungerEddie, I mean, who’d hug me for no reason at all, before this interminable malaise set in, like a mould, that no amount of forced jollity, or trying my damnedest to be kind and patient could shift.
‘It’s nice to see,’ I add, ‘but you seem, I don’t know …’
‘Well, I have news!’ he blurts out.
‘News?’ My heart clangs. ‘What kind of news?’
He rubs his hands together and pushes back his hair. ‘I’m moving out.’
‘You’rewhat?’
‘Moving out. Leaving home.’ He laughs. ‘It’s what people do when they’re adults, Mum. They break free of parental constraints. They fly the nest and forge their own independent lives. They grab opportunities …’
‘But …’ I catch myself.Be pleased! This is good news, right?
‘Aren’t you happy for me?’ Eddie arches a brow.
‘Yes! Yes, of course I am!’ I sip my tea, scalding my lip. ‘But where are you going?’
‘Well, there’s this room in a flat in Edinburgh.’
‘Edinburgh?’ I repeat. ‘Wow!’
‘Yeah.’ He nods. ‘In Raj and Calum’s place. Their other flatmate moved out. Their landlord had someone who wanted the room but that’s fallen through. So it’s mine if I want it. So of course I said yes.’
‘Wow, that’s great news …’ I’m trying to remain positive. ‘But how will you afford this flat, love?’ Surely he doesn’t think his dad and I will pay his rent?
‘It’s really cheap,’ he announces. ‘Like,socheap you wouldn’t believe it. Some friend of Calum’s dad owns it, so he’s done them a deal on the rent.’
‘But it must costsomething,’ I remark.
‘Yeah, but I’ll work, Mum. I can work, you know!’
‘Oh, I know, darling,’ I say quickly. ‘Of course you can. But what kind of work?’
‘In a restaurant. I have a job already. Don’t look so shocked!’
‘But how … ?’ I start.
‘Someone Raj knows works there and said they really need staff. So I emailed them and we spoke on the phone. They want me. They’re really keen. So they’re going to try me out.’
‘Waiting tables?’ I ask.
‘No,kitchenwork.’ Oh God, last time Eddie fried an egg he set off the smoke alarm and the incinerated pan had to be thrown away. And aren’t people always cutting and damaging themselves in kitchens? Eddie isterrifiedof blood. As a little boy every cut or graze was a major drama. ‘It’s kitchen portering,’ he continues cheerfully. ‘But if they’re happy with me, they’re gonna train me up to be a chef!’
I blink at him, remembering the time he was grating some cheese and somehow grated his thumb. I’d found him bleeding, traumatised, lashed in sweat. ‘Will you be okay, doing that?’ I ask.
