‘Daniel, do you want to go and wait in the car? I just need to talk to Daddy about something.’
She needn’t have worried about him overhearing – the little boy was already on his way down the path to the car, flinging open the door and turning back, a stricken look on his face. ‘Where’s Keira? Why isn’t she here?’
‘She’s at home, buddy,’ said Ben. ‘She’s got a bit of a cold, so I didn’t bring her with me today. But you just hop in and we’re going straight home to see her. Actually…’ He turned back to Eve. ‘There’s something I wanted to talk to you about as well.’
‘Me first,’ she said. ‘This is quite serious. I went to that parents’ evening at school. The one I told you about? The one you couldn’t make?’ She hated herself for point-scoring, but if Ben had been squatting beside her on a child-sized chair in the classroom, she might have felt less vulnerable and handled Mrs Russell’s criticisms more effectively. ‘Anyway, Daniel’s teacher – she’s a grumpy old cow, can’t say I warmed to her – said he’s causing a bit of trouble.’
‘What kind of trouble?’
‘He’s pushing other kids in the playground, getting into fights and refusing to listen when he’s told off.’
Ben looked confused. ‘That’s not like him at all? He’s such a gentle little lad. He’s so good with Keira, and we never have any problems disciplining him.’
Eve felt the sting of the we, which clearly referred to himself and Lou.
‘Nor do I, he’s perfectly behaved when he’s here with me,’ she snapped. Why did Ben always manage to press her buttons like this? ‘Anyway, for some reason, he’s playing up at school. I haven’t spoken to him about it, apart from asking if he’s happy there. He says everything’s fine and I know he’s got some good friends, especially Robbie. I just don’t understand it – there was nothing like this last year, when he was in Reception. I’m not sure what to do about it.’
Ben had dug his hands into his trouser pockets and was nodding, his face inscrutable behind the designer sunglasses. ‘What did the teacher suggest?’ he asked.
‘Nothing really. She says they’ll monitor the situation. But if Daniel says there isn’t anything wrong, I don’t want to upset him by bringing all this up.’
‘He may just be settling in,’ said Ben. ‘Finding his place in a new environment with a different teacher? I’ll keep an eye on him though, when he’s with us, and try to chat to him about it. I’ll get Lou to have a word with him as well. They’ve got such a great relationship and they’re really close. Maybe, if there’s something worrying him, he’ll feel he can talk to her about it, even if he doesn’t want to tell us.’
No! shrieked a voice inside Eve’s head. Don’t you dare! She’s not his mother. I’m the one he should be speaking to, not her.
‘Whatever,’ she said, trying to sound as if it didn’t matter. ‘Although to be honest, Ben, I think it might be better coming from you and me.’
Having started to move towards the car, he turned around again. ‘Oh, I nearly forgot. There’s something I need to speak to you about, too.’
Eve waved at Daniel, in the back seat of the car, and blew him a kiss.
‘There are a few changes happening at work,’ Ben was saying. ‘We’re opening a new office in Glasgow in the spring and there are some opportunities for relocation. It’s been in the pipeline for a while and it now looks as if it’s all going ahead. If so, I’ve been asked if I’d like to go up there.’
‘What, to oversee the move?’
‘Well, partly. But to be based there once the office is operational. It would be a promotion – quite a lot more money – and the job would be interesting. It would be a real challenge for me. Apart from anything else, it would be good to be back up there again.’
Eve’s brain was trying to process what he was telling her. Ben was from Stirling and his parents and older sister, Josie, still lived there. When they first met, he used to talk about moving back to Scotland at some stage, although she’d never believed he was serious. Once they were living together, he mentioned it less, and seemed content with trips to visit his family a couple of times a year. Then, much later, when he married Lou, Eve had presumed he was settled in the south for good.
It was strange, thinking about Ben’s family now; she used to get on well with Josie, but hadn’t seen or heard from her for years. His whole family had been at Ben’s wedding – at that stage Eve was stalking him regularly on Facebook, and she’d pored over the photos, enlarging them so she could study all the guests in the group scenes. There was Josie, throwing rose petals outside the church, laughing as the newly-weds tried to duck away from the fragranced shower. There was Ben’s best friend, Mark, and his wife, who’d spent so many weekends staying with Eve and Ben in the house in Bedminster before Daniel was born. There was Ben’s dad, Graham, with his arm thrown across Lou’s shoulders, half turning towards her, looking at her so fondly. Eve had always got on well with Graham; such a lovely man. He used to look at her like that.
Flicking through the dozens of photographs was like picking at a scab. She hated herself for it, but couldn’t stop doing it time and time again over the days and weeks that followed. It didn’t get any easier. One evening, about six months after the wedding, buoyed by the best part of a bottle of wine, she unfriended Ben. She regretted it as soon as she’d done it, but also knew it was the right thing to do. The grown-up thing. Otherwise, the temptation to spy on his perfect new life would have been overwhelming and she’d never be able to move on. Which she really had to do, now he was married. She often thought about sending him a new friend request, but pride wouldn’t let her do it.
That had been more than three years ago, and thinking about Ben’s family now felt strange – like a distant memory that had happened to someone else. But a move to Scotland? That was a such big deal for him.
‘It sounds good,’ she said. ‘Especially if it’s a promotion.’
He nodded. ‘We’ve not made any definite decisions yet, but Lou has talked to her partner, who would be prepared to buy her out. She was feeling ready for a change anyway, so the idea is that she’d open another florist’s up in Glasgow. She’s got so much experience, and a great reputation for what she does, I’m sure she’d make a go of it and we’ve been investigating lease options for retail premises in the city centre.’
‘How long have you been thinking about all this?’ Eve asked. For some reason it seemed important to know that; to hear how long they’d been planning this major life change. It was clearly more than a vague idea that was being floated around. She had no right to be involved – Ben’s life was his own business – but this would have a big impact on all of them.
‘I mean, it’s great news,’ she continued, not waiting for him to answer. ‘And if Lou’s happy as well, then I’m pleased for you. But we’d obviously need to think about the effect it would have on Daniel. He’s used to having you living nearby, and spending a lot of time with you. I guess he’d have to come up during school holidays? But he’s too young to travel on his own – I wouldn’t be happy about putting him on a plane alone, even though I think the airlines have that system where they look after kids. So, I’d need to go with him, and that would get expensive.’
Ben took off his sunglasses and started polishing them on his shirt. ‘Well, actually we’ve been…’
‘I suppose we could come up by train,’ said Eve. ‘But it’s all going to take a lot of organising and I wouldn’t necessarily be able to get the time off work. Do you think you’d ever come back down to the Bristol office for meetings? That would make life easier. I’m happy for you, of course I am. But we’ll need to think really carefully about all this, before we say anything about it to Daniel and tell him you’ll be moving.’
Ben was still rubbing the lenses of his glasses, not meeting her eye. He looked pained, almost sheepish. ‘The thing is, Eve, I’m not suggesting anything like that. Lou and I have talked about this, and we both think it would be really hard for Daniel to only see us a few times a year – even if it was for longer periods. He’s so close to Keira, he just adores her – you’ve seen them together. It would break their hearts if they weren’t able to be with each other.’ He put his glasses back on and cleared his throat, digging his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. ‘So, what we’re thinking, me and Lou, is that Daniel could come with us – move up to Glasgow?’
In the silence that stretched between them, Eve could hear her own heart thumping like a drum. Over Ben’s shoulder, the branches of the horse chestnut tree down the road were waving softly in the breeze, just a handful of persistent leaves still clinging on. She’d always loved that tree: each autumn Daniel gleefully filled his pockets with shiny brown conkers that he would later line up on the windowsill in his bedroom.
‘We could do a trial period,’ Ben was saying now. ‘If we go up in January and take a couple of months to settle into a new house, we could get him booked into a local school after Easter and see how he likes it. He’s such a friendly little boy, I’m sure he’d adapt really easily. Lou won’t be working at first, while she sorts out the logistics of the new shop, so she’ll be able to spend lots of time with him and make sure he’s okay.’
There was still a straggling row of conkers up on Daniel’s windowsill, carefully arranged in order, from the biggest, most-prized specimen, to the smallest, most insignificant, no larger than a marble. Possibly thirty of them in all. They were past their best now: most of them drying up, their skins wrinkling in the heat thrown out by the bedroom radiator. But Daniel was refusing to let her throw them away. Just the other day he’d taken one of her dusters from the cupboard under the sink and Eve had watched through the open bedroom door as he sat polishing the mahogany shells until they shone.
Ben was still talking; she wanted to put her fingers in her ears or turn away, but she kept her eyes fixed on his lips as they moved.
‘There are some great schools in Glasgow,’ he was saying. ‘Lou’s been doing some online research and the reports are impressive.’
She wanted to butt in, to say something. But she didn’t know what. There was a roaring sound in her ears, like waves crashing across the pebbles on a beach.
‘It sounds like the timing is spot on for all this,’ Ben was saying. ‘Daniel isn’t settling in well at school here, as you’ve just pointed out. We don’t know what’s going on, but he obviously can’t be happy if he’s behaving badly. So maybe a new start is what he needs?’