All that had changed. No fancy holidays now.
She dashed back in and put the food on her plate. Once she’d finished eating she dug out the chocolate from its hiding place in the top cupboard. As if by magic, Sammy wandered in.
‘Oh, yes,’ he said, seeing the slab.
‘Mine.’ Gill narrowed her eyes.
‘One piece – go on.’
She gave him a black look, broke off a bit and handed it to him. ‘Give you spots,’ she warned.
‘I’ve already got spots,’ he said. ‘Oh, it was well good…’ his eyes lit up, ‘in the Russian test, the one before ours, this girl said she felt ill and the teacher said she couldn’t leave the room and she just barfed, like threw up everywhere. And the worst thing was’ – his face animated, relishing the memory – ‘the rest of them had to stay there and do the test after that!’
‘They cleared it up?’ Gill said.
‘Yeah, but you could still smell it. We could even smell it in the afternoon. They should give us extra marks.’
‘In your dreams, matey.’
‘A bit more?’ He nodded at the chocolate.
‘No. You’ll be sick.’
‘Har har.’
‘Want me to test you?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Gonna watch Peep Show.’
‘You start.’
They shared a love of good comedy and there wasn’t much else they watched together. Sammy liked extreme sports and adventure stuff. Gill’s guilty pleasure was costume drama. Something a million miles away from work, that she could deride and poke fun at, but that felt cosy, comforting, the televisual equivalent of hot chocolate. She heard Sammy laughing from the other room. He was a good kid.
Three years since she and Dave split up. Sammy wasn’t doing so bad, but Gill still couldn’t tell whether he was putting a brave face on things for her sake. She had done her best not to slag Dave off in front of Sammy, always referring to him in a civilized tone, but the boy wasn’t a fool, he knew Dave had wrecked the marriage, that it was Dave who had been shagging around and who now lived across town with the uniform from Pendlebury. Sammy had been hurt; he missed his dad, although recently they had got into the routine of weekend visits together.
It was Janet who Gill had turned to for help in the wake of walking in on Dave and said uniform. Her own house, her own bed, her own so-called husband, arse in the air, blonde bimbo with a fake tan, cooing, ‘Ooh, Dave, ooh, Dave!’ as Gill stood there, sick, seething.
There had been a vase of lilies on the dressing table: big, white, waxy flowers, a heavy, thick glass vase. Gill had grabbed it, hurled with all her might before escaping downstairs and out of the house. Beside herself with fury and the pain. To tell Janet. To get drunk.
