Chapter One
Six months earlier: January
Living at Kilmory Cottage: Carly, Frank, Eddie
Carly
My son is lying on the sofa as I make my approach.
Be casual, I tell myself. Keep it light. The open Quality Street tin rests on his stomach, and a few gleaming wrappers are scattered around on the floor.
‘Eddie?’ I start.
‘ What? ’ He jolts, as if electrocuted.
‘I saw this job advertised. I thought you might want to—’
‘Not-qualified-for-it,’ he snaps.
I exhale slowly, trying to remain patient. ‘It’s not head of ICI, Eddie. It’s not Secretary-General of the United Nations. It’s just an admin assistant role with HMRC—’
‘What’s HMRC?’
‘The tax office—’
‘Oh my God! ’ he wails, interrupting me again. ‘You think I want to spend my life doing that? Going round taking money off people?’
I blink down at him, sprawled there at 6.27 on a Monday evening. He’s been lying there all day, I can sense it – festering in that terrible brown hooded robe. Marketed as a dressing gown (foolishly, I bought it for him) it now looks as if it was peeled off a dead shepherd and seems to permanently swathe his body these days. I fear that my son and his robe will eventually merge with our sofa, in the way that a stain disappears into the carpet if you leave it long enough.
‘You wouldn’t be personally taking money off them,’ I explain. ‘It doesn’t work like that.’
‘It’s the government taking money, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, but they don’t go round , Eddie. They don’t turn up at people’s houses and wrench it out of their hands. And this is just an office role.’
‘ Urrrr! ’ He shudders.
‘Y’know, general admin-type stuff.’
‘Oh no. No thanks.’ As if I’d said, You’d be extracting worms out of cods’ intestines, with your teeth.
‘It wouldn’t have to be forever,’ I add. ‘It’d just be something to have on your CV.’
‘My CV’s fine, thanks.’
‘Is it, though, Eddie? Really?’
He shrugs, exhales forcefully and dunks a hand into the tin. He grabs a sweet at random, as if making an active choice would be way too much effort.
Does Eddie’s CV even exist? Or is it a mythical thing, like dragons and mermaids and home-made hummus that doesn’t turn out looking and tasting like clay? If there is such a document it would read something like this:
Eddie Silva, aged 22
Left school at first opportunity despite being extremely bright.
Tried college, hated it, left.
Sat at home for a year, arse scratching.
Eats too many takeaway pakoras in bedroom.
Leaves pakora cartons, with pointless salad garnish untouched, under bed.
Doesn’t seem to register his sister Bella (a year younger) upping sticks for London, or his other sister Ana (three years younger!) heading off to art school in Dundee.
Resists parental cajoling/nagging to get a job.
Drives parents to drink.
Tried college again. Hated it again. Left again.
Currently engaged in further arse scratching and advanced studies in using all the mugs in the house but never putting them in the dishwasher.
Is it us? Is it him? I drive myself crazy going over it because this boy – this man – could do anything he wanted, if he’d put his mind to it.
Eddie lets out a soft burp and unwraps the chocolate.
‘I thought you didn’t like those ones,’ I remark.
‘Now you’re deciding which Quality Street I like?’
‘For God’s sake, Eddie! Why are you being like this?’ Orange Cremes are the devil’s work, he used to announce, when he was funny and sweet and beavered away at his homework without even having to be asked. As a little boy, he was often right there at my side, clutching my hand. A mummy’s boy, I suppose; my funny little buddy. I’d have to coax him to walk into a birthday party. ‘Mummy, I want to go home with you!’ he’d announce tearfully. Turned out he was scared of balloons. So, maybe I’ve mollycoddled him, and this is why he lies around in a fug, while Frank and I are out all day, earning money to keep him.
However, Eddie’s sudden tolerance of Orange Cremes suggests that things have taken an even darker turn.
He sighs and tosses down the sweet wrapper to join the others on the floor. ‘Can you please stop dropping wrappers?’ I ask.
‘I’ll pick them up later.’
‘Well, you say that but you never do. You just leave it all, Eddie. A trail of litter for me to—’
‘I said I’ll do it later,’ he snaps.
‘No need to speak to me like that!’ It’s another mythical thing – this ‘later’. When is that exactly? In fifty years’ time when, presumably, he’ll still be lounging in his robe, the only difference being that his father and I will no longer be around to buy Quality Street, pick up his wet towels from the bathroom floor and the roll-up butts he leaves scattered around by the back door? (He’s long since shed any discomfort about us knowing he smokes.)
His best friends Calum and Raj left home straight after school, both heading for Edinburgh University. It’s not that I compare Eddie to them, or believe that he should have gone to university too; of course I don’t. He reckoned it wasn’t for him and, beyond making gentle suggestions for courses, his dad and I weren’t going to pressurise him. However, four years have spun by and throughout that time, he’s seen his old mates less and less. Soon Calum and Raj’s holidays were no longer spent back here in Sandybanks but travelling with girlfriends or groups of new friends. Or they’d stay in Edinburgh, which had clearly become ‘their’ city, working at the Festival or in various clubs and bars.
Then straight after uni, both of the boys landed grad-scheme roles at the same company, so now they’re proper professionals. Their parents aren’t braggers but whenever we run into each other around town there’ll be an update. ‘He’s not earning heaps,’ Raj’s mum told me recently, ‘but he’s getting by and loving his job. What’s Eddie up to these days?’
‘Not an awful lot,’ I replied with a grimace.
‘Aw, I’m sure it’ll all work out. Give him my love, won’t you?’
Wouldn’t Eddie like to nip over to Edinburgh to see his oldest friends? Whenever I’ve suggested it, he’s snapped Yeah-maybe and stomped away.
I can’t understand why he’s allowed his closest friendships to drift. It’s not as if the boys had moved to Alaska; Edinburgh is only two train journeys away, each one less than an hour. And his sisters aren’t like that. They’ve always maintained contact with old friends, despite the physical distances now. Eddie still has a few mates here but their numbers are dwindling as, one by one, they move away too. Soon, I fear, there’ll be no one left. And then what will he do?
He’s glaring at me now, willing me to leave the room. ‘Can you stop looming over me? It’s freaking me out.’
Mechanically, like a robot programmed to follow instruction even under intense provocation, I lower myself on to the arm of a chair. ‘So, if that job’s not for you, then maybe you could—’
‘I don’t need you to plan my life for me, Mum.’
A terse silence hangs over us. ‘All right. But how about going back to college?’
‘College wasn’t my thing.’
‘So, what is your thing?’
‘I don’t know!’ he announces. ‘I don’t have one. I mean, I haven’t decided what it is yet.’
‘But, love, everyone needs a thing .’
‘Well, I don’t. I’m not like you, happy to trundle off to the library every day of my life for years and years and years —’
‘ Eddie! ’ It’s like a punch to my gut. ‘D’you realise what it’s done? This job of mine that you seem to think of as so tragic?’
‘I didn’t mean that.’ He looks away. ‘I just meant—’
‘I’ll tell you what it’s done,’ I cut in. ‘It’s kept this family together. How else d’you think we paid the mortgage and bills and bought food when your dad’s schemes went tits up?’
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’ he cries.
‘I’m just saying . I’m making a point.’
‘Well, don’t!’ he shouts. ‘Don’t make points!’
‘But I only—’
‘—And don’t suggest jobs for me because I’m never going to be tax inspector—’
‘But I never said—’
‘—No matter how much you want to see me in a suit and a tie with a briefcase—’
‘A briefcase? When did I ever—’
‘’Cause I’m just not doing it, all right?’ He leaps from the sofa, sending the Quality Street tin flying and clanging onto the floor, its contents scattering all over the room.
‘Eddie!’ I exclaim as he charges out, robe flapping behind him, and thunders upstairs. His bedroom door bangs, rattling the house.
I stand there for a moment, pressing my hands over my hot, smarting eyes. Don’t cry, I will myself. You only suggested a job! You were trying to help. But was that wrong? Are you too controlling? Should you just let him flump about in that disgusting robe for the rest of his life?
I gaze round at the scattered sweets and wrappers, picturing the six of us – me and Frank, our three kids and my father – dipping into the tin when we were all together at Christmas. Paper crowns, mince pies and rowdy games of Pictionary and Boggle. Frank and I were so happy to have the girls home, albeit briefly. Bella and Ana have gone back now, keen to return to their flats and their friends and their New Year’s Eve parties.
And now my heart seems to crumple like one of those discarded wrappers on the floor.