Another Mother's Life by Rowan Coleman Page B

with him, but then that bitchy mother would be back again for sure, so she let that particular battle go the same way as the “don’t swear in the house” debate had gone, which was out the window. Dominic had a lot less respect for her moral qualifications recently, and swilling juice directly from the carton was only one of the ways he chose to show her that. The trouble was Alison felt that her son was largely right about her, so she tried to ignore his challenges, happy to have contact with him at all.

    “We can invite your friends over if you like,” she told him. “To hang out.”

    “Ooh, yes, we can have a tea party and jammy dodgers,” he teased her. “Tally fucking ho.”

    He was about to exit the kitchen when he stopped in the door frame for a second and looked back over his shoulder at her.

    “How did Muffin get on?” he asked, using the pet name he had coined for Amy when she was born because of her two black button eyes that looked like blueberries in a muffin.

    “She found it hard,” Alison told him with a sigh. “All she wanted to do was to stay at home with that mutt.” She nodded at Rosie, who trotted cheerfully out of the utility room dragging a Wellington boot that was almost twice her size.

    “Come here, hound.” There was a flicker of a smile on Dominic’s face as he bent down and gently retrieved the boot from between Rosie’s jaws. “I don’t blame Amy, I want to stay at home all day with Rosie too.”

    Alison smiled, enjoying this brief moment of normality with Dominic. Less than two years ago she and Dominic had always talked like this when he got in from school. He’d been her confidant, her best friend. The struggle with his emergent manhood hadn’t gotten to him then, he hadn’t discovered his father’s imperfections or his mother’s weaknesses.

    “Did she cry?” Dominic asked, his voice gentle now. He’d been with Alison when Amy was born. Marc had not got there in time because he’d been caught up with something or someone at work.

    “She cried a lot,” Alison admitted. “And when you didn’t come back she was really worried. You know how she is, so make sure you go in and say hi, okay?”

    “I don’t know why you made us come here,” Dominic remarked, turning to face her and leaning against the door frame. “Muffin was pretty happy at home, Gemma was the queen of all her friends. And the stuff I was into wasn’t that bad. If you’d told him where togo after that business with the Christmas party and showed some self-respect, then you wouldn’t have had to worry about what the neighbors thought and move us all out of the city.”

    “The neighbors?” Alison laughed harshly. “Is that why you think we left? The month we left London, eight kids your age were stabbed to death in less than two weeks. I didn’t want you to be one of those kids, Dom.”

    Dom shook his head. “That was never going to happen to me. Don’t use me as an excuse for this. You’re running away from the wrong thing. It’s not houses or areas you need to run away from, Mum, it’s him. It’s Dad that causes all the trouble, not me.”

    “It wasn’t Dad sitting in the back of a stolen car, was it?” Alison asked her son, shamelessly changing the subject. “No fourteen- or fifteen-year-old thinks he’s going to walk out of his house and die,” Alison said. “None of those boys or girls did. But it happened all the same. I want to protect you because whether you like it or not, I love you.”

    “Yeah, you reckon,” Dominic observed sceptically, his implicit disbelief in her feelings for him hurting Alison more than any insult he could dream up.

    “Yes, I do reckon. And anyway it’s better for Gemma and Amy, a better place to grow up in, and Amy will settle in eventually. You know how she hates change.”

    “Sometimes things have to change whether you like them to or not,” Dominic replied steadily.

    “Yes, they do,” Alison said firmly. “Like us