“Jesus,” Sophie says nervously. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this.”
“You should go,” I say firmly to Miles.
“Yes, Miles.” Lucy’s voice is little more than a whisper, and when Miles turns toward her, she flinches. It’s a tiny movement, barely more than a twitch, but with a sudden flash of intuition I think: She’s scared of him. “Let’s go home.”
“Give this to Theo,” he says to no one in particular, pulling a box out of the shopping bag. It’s an Easter egg, a huge one. He puts it on the table.
I suddenly realize that Pete and I should have gotten something for David. We should have investigated low-protein eggs, or thought of a non-chocolate alternative. But it hadn’t even occurred to us.
Miles puts the wine on the table as well. “Come on,” he says to his wife. “Let’s get out of this shithole.”
45
Case no. 12675/PU78B65, Exhibit 23, email from Peter Riley to Miles Lambert.
Miles,
After a day’s reflection, it seems to Maddie and I that none of us handled yesterday evening very well. Certainly, we shouldn’t have told that white lie about Maddie’s brother coming over from Australia. Please understand that we only did so out of a desire to spare your and Lucy’s feelings. We’ve been seeing quite a lot of you recently, which has been on the whole a great pleasure, and we just wanted a little time to ourselves.
Also on reflection, it was remiss of us not to sit down with you both much sooner and work out some ground rules for how this is going to work. Clearly, the effort we’ve all been making to keep it friendly and informal is going to have to be supplemented by some agreements about visiting times, responsibilities, how much input we should each have into each other’s parenting styles, things like that. And we are all going to have to be very clear about what is and isn’t acceptable language to use with each other.
In many ways we think it’s a good thing that harsh words have now been spoken and the air has been cleared. That’s what happens in families, isn’t it—a row, followed by reconciliation. And we definitely are a kind of family, even if it’s an unconventional one.
What do you say—shall we agree to put last night behind us, for the sake of our children, and take it from there? There are so many positives to be had from this situation, even if it is going to take effort and commitment on both sides to make it work smoothly.
Best wishes,
Pete and Maddie
46
MADDIE
PERSONALLY, I THINK THE email is way too conciliatory. I’m still furious at the way Miles and Lucy ruined our evening, and it’s taken all Pete’s powers of persuasion to convince me that the future relationship with them is worth swallowing my anger for.
“Think of David,” he said quietly. “Think of our biological son, sitting in that huge house with a father who virtually ignores him because he’ll never make the first eleven. Are we really going to walk away from our son just because Miles is turning out to be trickier than we first thought? David needs us to be bigger than that, Mads.”
At which, I burst into tears and told him to write whatever he liked. I haven’t told Pete this, but sometimes at work I get up that Facebook video of him reading to David on the play mat and watch it over and over. That’s the family I could have had. Should have had, even. And—much as I adored the family I did have—I didn’t find the idea off-putting. Pete just looked so right with David, so natural. So if he’s correct, and a mollifying email is what’s now required to reset the relationship with the Lamberts, it’s a price worth paying.
Our friends, of course, had been stunned by what they’d witnessed. “A nutter as well as a prick” was Richard’s assessment, and it did seem apt. As usual, Pete tried to see both sides—“He’s just like that. He blows his top, and then it’s all forgotten”—but even he had to admit that Miles’s behavior had been downright weird.
And besides, Miles hadn’t blown his top. That was one of the things that was so strange about it—the eerie calm with which he’d hurled his insults at us.
I made Pete take out a bit in the first draft where he apologized more profusely for not going to Cornwall, though. It might have been our suggestion to spend the day together, I pointed out, but we’d never signed up for a long weekend, let alone a whole week. If we implied we were in the wrong about that, Miles would simply walk all over us.
It was me who insisted on the bit about unacceptable language, too. Because I’m not having some rich entitled pom thinking he can walk into my home and call it a shithole.
* * *
—
WE FINALLY SEND THE email at four P.M. Miles doesn’t reply. Not that evening, or on Easter Monday.
“What do I do tomorrow?” Pete says over supper. “Take Theo to the Lamberts’ as usual, or keep him here?”
“God, I don’t know.” I think. “I suppose, if you do take him, at least it’ll be a chance to talk to Lucy. Find out where she stands.”
“Or there might be a massive row. If Miles is there, I mean.”
“Maybe a massive row is what’s required right now.”
“Um,” Pete says. “In front of Theo?”
I glance at him. If Pete has a weakness, it’s that sometimes he’ll try to smooth things over when what’s really required is a bit of shouting. But he’s right, of course—we shouldn’t be teaching Theo that shouting is how adults resolve disagreements, at least not while his own behavior is still so erratic. “Then why not keep him home for a day?” I suggest. “That might give Miles a reason to get back in touch, after all.”
47
PETE
SO I KEPT THEO home.
Around eleven, while Theo was drawing what he claimed were dinosaurs on the giant pad we kept especially for rainy days, my phone rang. I glanced at the screen. MILES LAMBERT. Slightly apprehensive, I answered it. “Hello?”
“Pete, mate. What’s up?” Miles said cheerfully. “Is Theo all right?”
“Theo’s good, thanks. Why?”
“Lucy texted to say you hadn’t turned up this morning.”
“That’s right,” I said cautiously. “You hadn’t replied to our email, so we weren’t sure if you were expecting him.”
“Of course we were. That was the deal, right? Daytimes at ours, nights at yours.”
I frowned. “I don’t think we exactly formalized that into a deal, Miles.”