‘Nothing. But he will do. He showed me the toy that slip of a girl made for him and said it was better than anything his mother had bought for him. I thought it was, too, even if she did buy up half of Knightsbridge every Christmas. Had a play with it myself after he went to bed. Beat your mother at it fair and square.’
Matt grinned, despite himself. ‘You’re such a pair of big kids. Anyway, it’s just a toy. Beth’s good at that kind of thing, makes them for her friend’s children, too. Mariska didn’t have the time.’ The comparison had been staring Matt in the face for a while now and he was acutely aware that Mariska didn’t come out of it particularly well.
‘Don’t make excuses for her. She had the time for anything where there was a camera involved.’ His father wet his thumb and cleaned a little patch in one corner of a slate tile, holding it up to the light so he could see its colour properly.
‘What do you expect me to do, Dad? She was my wife.’
‘She didn’t act like it. And I’m not just talking about the affair you found out about when she died. Even when she was alive, you and Jack were never first on her list of priorities and the boy knows that. Beth shows more interest in him than his mother ever did. He talks about her all the time, you know.’
Cold fear clutched at Matt’s chest. ‘Look, Dad. Beth’s been great with Jack and I’m really grateful to her. But I don’t want him to start thinking that she’s going to be like a mother to him, it’s too much to ask of her. And he’s lost enough already to be disappointed again.’
His father grimaced. ‘There’s nothing you can do to save him from being hurt. I learned that with you and your sister.’ He glared at Matt. ‘Particularly you.’
‘Yeah. I never did quite realise how much you and Mu
m worried for us until I had a child of my own. I want everything for him, Dad.’
‘I know. And for what it’s worth I think you’re doing a great job with the boy. But if you think that building your own world, where everything is the way you want it to be and you’re in control is going to ensure his happiness, then you’re wrong. You can only keep it up for so long before you start struggling with it and the boy sees that.’
Matt was stunned to silence. His father didn’t often voice his opinions, but when he did he took no prisoners. He slumped down onto an old cast-iron safe that stood by the doorway and stared hard at some wood shavings on the floor.
He felt his father’s hand on his shoulder. ‘It’s not your fault, you know.’
‘It was my marriage. I let it fail. I didn’t give her what she needed.’
‘She needed attention. Not just from you, from everyone. You treated her like a queen and she still wanted more. Even her own son wasn’t enough for her.’
Matt shook his head. There was more to it than that, but even his father didn’t know the whole truth. Only he and Mariska. And she was dead now and that left just him.
Or did it? He’d reckoned that Jack had been too young. The thought that his son might be carrying even a portion of the burden that weighed him down, drowning him in deep waters, was too much to bear. ‘How do I make it up to him, Dad?’
His father sat down next to him on the corner of the safe, and Matt slid to one side to make room for him. ‘Let it go, lad. What’s done is done. If you leave it where it ought to be, in the past, then you and the boy can both move on.’
Dad hadn’t called him lad since he was a teenager. A lump rose in Matt’s throat and he swallowed it back down again. ‘I wish I could. I’m just not sure that I know how to change.’
His father barked out a laugh. ‘Well, I’m not the one to ask about that. Try your mother and let me know what she says. Now, go and fetch that girl of yours.’
‘What do you want Beth for?’ Dad was in an unusually loquacious mood this afternoon and goodness only knew what he might say to Beth. ‘And she’s not my girl.’
The denial came too late to be even slightly convincing, but his father let it go. ‘Someone’s going to have to tell me which of these slates will match what’s already up there. Since it’s her roof and she’s a damn sight prettier than you are, I reckon you’d better go and fetch her.’
Matt opened the back door softly, to hear Beth describing how Josh had thought that yew berries were safe to eat. No doubt Mum had managed to extract full details of her job, where she lived, what she was doing for Christmas and whether she had any pets by now.
‘Oh, that poor woman.’ His mother looked up and saw him in the doorway. ‘Hello, darling. Beth was just telling me about your adventures last night.’ She turned back to Beth and leaned towards her. ‘You know, when Matt was about that age he was fascinated by astronomy and decided that he was going to spend all night up on the garage roof, stargazing. He got up out of bed and climbed up there and lay on his back, so no one could see him.’
‘Mother…’ Matt could feel the back of his neck reddening and Beth giggled. His mother warmed to her theme.
‘Anyway, when we found that he was gone, of course all hell broke loose. We looked for him everywhere, calling for him, and when he heard us he tried to sneak back down on the other side, away from the house. He fell and broke his arm and we spent all night in Casualty, getting it X-rayed and plastered. It was then that he decided that star-gazing wasn’t for him and he was going to be a doctor.’
Matt tried to look annoyed, but the sight of Beth, her face full of laughter, disarmed him completely. She was luminous—almost joyful—and obviously having a good time. Maybe now she wouldn’t baulk at coming to his home when his mother was there, as she had done so inexplicably before.
‘Well, if you’ve quite finished with my youthful indiscretions.’
His mother looked at him, her eyes softening. ‘There’s plenty more where that one came from, dear. I seem to remember that the years that followed were particularly fruitful in that respect.’
He grinned at his mother. ‘And I suppose the age limit on parents embarrassing their children means nothing to you.’
‘Maybe I should fetch Jack. He might be interested in knowing about this age limit.’ Beth’s eyes were mischievous and she caught his mother’s eye, laughing with her.