Page 66 of Jenny James Is Not a Disaster
“Are you pleased?” I ask, sensing his tension. “I thought you’d be pleased...”
“Did you?” he mutters back. “Didn’t it occur to you to possibly ask how I felt about it before you made any decisions on my behalf? Did it occur to you to ask if I wanted to live here, not just assume I’d agree with anything you suggested?”
“Charlie, I’m sorry, son, but making decisions on your behalf is kind of part of my job description! You need a home, love. You need somewhere to feel safe, somewhere to come back to when you’re away at uni. I know it’s not the world’s most exciting place, but I genuinely think it’ll be good for you!”
He stands up and looms over me. I sit upright, perched on the edge of the bed, and frown at what I see. His fists are clenched, and his face is rigid with anger.
“Mum, I have my own mind, you know, and I’m perfectly capable of using it. I’ve really loved being here—meeting my family, getting to know everyone. But I never imagined it being permanent...”
“Well, what did you imagine?”
“Oh, right, now you ask?” he spits. “Well, I’ve been thinking too. I’ve been looking to my own future, and I’m not sure it’s exactly the one you have mapped out for me.”
“What do you mean?” I say, standing up to face him. Teenagers are nothing if not unpredictable, and of course I have argued with my son before—but this has totally wrong-footed me.
“I mean that this road trip has changed me as well. It’s made me think a bit more about what happens next. I’m not sure I want to go to uni this year—in fact, I’ve already spoken to the Admissions people about deferring.”
“What?” I splutter, taken aback. “Why? You haven’t even got your results yet! Why do you want to defer? You can’t imagine we’ll just stay on the road for all that time, can you?”
“What if I did? Would that be so bad? And anyway—no. That’s not what I thought. That’s what I thought you might do, but not me. I’ve been talking to Dad a lot, you know, through this trip?”
I nod, feeling fingers of dread slip around my heart. He has, yes—they have FaceTimed more recently than the rest of his life put together. Something about our road trip has opened up some common ground that wasn’t there before, given them a shared link to explore, to communicate through. I have been telling myself that that is a good thing, no matter how ambiguous my own feelings are about Rob—he remains Charlie’s father, and it is positive for him to be close to him.
“Well, he’s invited me to go and live with him for a bit.”
“In Paris?” I say, sounding as shocked as I feel.
“As that’s where he lives, then yes! He said we could do a bit of a road trip of our own as well, go around the country, and he’s got friends in Spain and Italy we could visit...”
Oh, I think, feeling my stomach curdle,I bet he has.Rob has never laid down more than half a root in his life. He is by nature restless, always searching for his next adventure, his next thrill, his next experience. The next thing that might actually make him happy. He’s done this for as long as I’ve known him, nomatter what the collateral damage—which was, in fact, me. Me and his own child.
Life was hard when he left, but we survived it—I survived it and gave Charlie what he needed. Gave him love and stability and did all the boring things, like make him eat his vegetables and wash his undies, and go to parents’ nights at school. I made him do his homework, and drove him to his mates’ houses, and dealt with the hormonal moodiness, and took him to university open days. I kept him safe, kept him secure—I protected him. And now Rob thinks he can just waltz into his life, without having done any of that, and take him away? Derail his life, his plans? Suck him into his own aging-hippie world?
Rob always had a tentative relationship with reality and, back in his twenties at least, a far more committed relationship with booze, with recreational drugs, and with partying. Nothing I have seen of his world since then convinces me that that has changed.
No, I think,I cannot let this happen.This is not fair. This is dangerous, and it is my job not to allow my son to blunder into anything dangerous, no matter how much he wants to.
“Charlie, no!” I shout, interrupting him mid-flow. I hold my hands up and say, firmly: “No—that is not what is going to happen here! I won’t let you do that. You are going to stay here, with me, until September. Then you are going off to London to start your degree. Your dad might seem like a lot of fun, and maybe you can visit him sometimes, but there is no way you’re spending a year with him. This is not up for discussion, okay?”
He screws up his face and glares at me. We have not argued for so long that I had almost forgotten how violent these spats can be.
“Not up for discussion?” he repeats slowly. “I can’t actually believe what I’m hearing, Mum! I don’t know if you’ve forgottenthis tiny fact, but I’m eighteen, not eight! I don’t even need to be discussing it with you at all!”
“Yes, you do!” I reply snappily. “You might be eighteen, but I have your passport, and you don’t have any money, and you’re just not going to Paris, okay? This is the end of it!”
He looks at me with what I can only describe as disgust, and I wonder how we got here so quickly—from lying on the bed together chatting to being sunk into this pit of aggression.
“You know what, Mum,” he says, striding off toward the landing, “you are a complete cow sometimes. I don’t think our house fell off a cliff at all—I think it was so sick of you and your bullshit that it jumped!”
And with that he exits, leaving me with only the echo of a slamming door.
Chapter 20
I decide that we both need time to cool off. I have learned from experience that there is no point chasing him down the hallways, trying to talk to him. He is not in the mood to listen, and, to be entirely honest, neither am I. I know he spoke in the heat of the moment, I know he doesn’t really hate me, but they still sting, the things he said.
He needs space and so do I. I stay in my room for a while, licking my wounds, until Richard pops his head around the corner.
“You okay, sis?” he asks, frowning at the sight of me curled up in a soggy ball on the bed. “Charlie asked if he could go over to Rebecca’s, spend the day with the kids. I asked him if it was okay with you, and he said, direct quote, ‘She’s not the boss of me.’ I didn’t want to argue with that one, but thought I’d just check if it was all right with you before I dropped them off...”
