‘You’re with me now, Jason,’ she said harshly. ‘You can cut the posh accent.’
The row had been pyrotechnic. Jason had yelled that he’d got out of his past and she was just jealous. He began to boast about the plans he had for a villa in a private estate in Portugal and how dare she think she knew what was enough.Hewould decide that.
‘You’re nothing but a jumped-up control freak who manages to fool people,’ her mother had said when Jason was mid-boast. ‘You don’t fool me, you never have. You control my Claire. I can see it even if she can’t. You’ve cut her off from her old friends and you try to cut her off from us—’
Jason had interrupted. ‘What’s wrong with cutting her off from drug addicts?’ he had spat back, eyes enraged. ‘Your precious son Freddie is nothing but a heroin addict who still tries to pal around with Callie’s ex, another damned junkie, even if he thinks he’s Mr Big Rock Star.’
‘Freddie’s clean, he’s getting help,’ hissed her mother, all sense gone now.
‘How many times has Callie paid for him to go into rehab with my money?’ Jason’s voice was icy. ‘Twice? Is the third time a charm, Pat?’
‘How dare you?’ said Callie’s mother, beginning to cry. ‘You have no idea what it’s like, what I go through, and God help him, he tries his best.’
‘We got out of the backwater of Ballyglen for a reason,’ Jason went on. ‘Because it would drag us down. Like the people. If you keep that druggie son of yours at home, then forget about coming to my house ever again—’
‘Jason, no!’ said Callie, distraught.
Her husband’s hand had shot out and held her back. ‘No, Callie. We’ve moved on and up in the world. Your mother and Freddie want to stay in the gutter. They’re not welcome here. I won’t have Poppy exposed to a junkie and the sort of viciousness your mother likes to dish out.’
‘Please, no, Jason.’ Callie was crying now, desperate to fix it all. ‘Ma, we’ll get Freddie help, we will and—’
‘Not with one cent I’ve earned, you won’t,’ warned Jason fiercely.
He’d stormed out of the room, throwing a Waterford crystal goblet onto the marble floor, where it had shattered into hundreds of tiny shards.
Callie ran after him to get him to reconsider.
‘It’s crazy,’ she said. ‘We’re not living in the Middle Ages. You can’t banish my mother. Yes, Freddie is not welcome here while he’s still using, and he knows that, but my mother—’
‘That woman is never coming into this house again,’ he’d told Callie when she’d found him in his study, smoking his precious cigar. He was still shaking with rage.
‘Nobody speaks to me like that in my own house,nobody! To say that tome! To say I’m jumped-up ...’
‘Jason, lovie, Ma had a couple of drinks. You know she’s not used to wine—’
‘She’s not used to good wine,’ he said harshly. ‘Only thing she likes is that rotgut they serve in the bar round the corner from her house. Fucking lush.’
‘My mother is not a lush!’ said Callie furiously. ‘She rarely drinks.’
‘And she never has a cigarette out of her hand,’ Jason went on, oblivious to the cigar he was holding. Jason had managed to convince himself that a few Dunhills every day and the odd Cohiba were not smoking.
‘She just lights one from the old one, sucking the life out of it. Well, she is not coming here again to contaminate our daughter. I won’t have anyone who doesn’t respect me in this house. We’re finished with that life in Ballyglen and your bitch of a mother is not setting foot in here again! That’s final!’
‘Jason! She’s my mother.’
He’d been so filled with rage, he was almost frightening. ‘You choose, then, Callie,’ he’d sneered. ‘Her – or me and Poppy, because you can’t have both.’
God help her, she’d chosen Jason and Poppy.
She hated herself for being helpless in the face of his control.
‘Please apologise to him, Ma,’ she’d begged the next day, when her mother packed up early and rang for a taxi.
‘I won’t apologise for speaking the truth,’ her mother said. ‘What’s he done to you, love? You used to be your own person and now you’re like a tame creature he keeps on a lead.’
Callie had flushed. She could see the truth in it, but she’d experienced the world before Jason, the world of Ricky and the drug-infested life he loved. There was no security in that. And Callie craved security. She never wanted to go back to eating jam sandwiches again.
When she and Jason had bumped into each other in Dublin, just after she’d broken up with Ricky, she’d been drawn to his calm control. Here was a man who was charismatic, handsome, and far removed from the world of addiction. They had Ballyglen in common, knew each other already. He was perfect. He adored her, cherished her, made her feel safe.
