Page 86 of Bare
The call came on a Tuesday.
Neil had expected it sooner. Had braced for it every evening, the phone vibrating, the name on the screen. But Diane Ashworth operated on her own schedule.
He was bracing for a different call, too. Quieter but constant. The one from Webb’s office about Howard Prentice. Four weeks since Sue had tipped him off. Silence since. Either Webb absorbed it and it was dead in a drawer, or she was holding it.
He was marking Year 9 essays at the kitchen table. Freddie at Gemma’s. The flat quiet. The sketchbook Rory had given him sat on the kitchen counter, untouched but present. He hadn’t opened it. He wasn’t ready. But he hadn’t put it in a drawer either.
The phone rang at twenty to eight. The landline. Nobody rang the landline except Gemma about Freddie and occasional cold calls about accidents that hadn’t happened. The landline was deliberate. A conversation she did not want on a device Neil could read notifications on afterwards.
He picked up on the fourth ring. Made her wait the standard amount.
‘Neil.’
‘Mum.’
‘I hope I’m not interrupting.’ She wasn’t asking.
‘You’re not.’
A calibrated pause.
‘I wanted to ring. About Saturday.’
Saturday was the birthday. Fourteen days ago.
‘Right.’
‘I’ve been thinking about the situation.’
There it was. _Situation_.
‘The situation,’ Neil said.
‘I have been thinking about what’s best for Freddie.’
‘Right.’
‘I am not ringing to criticise. I want you to hear me say that, before I say anything else. I am not criticising.’
‘All right.’
‘I am concerned about the pace at which your choices are affecting the environment he is growing up in. That is all. That is the whole of it. The pace.’
Neil felt his back teeth find each other. The old click. He pressed the receiver harder against his ear and said nothing, because saying nothing was the first lesson his mother had ever taught him and the lesson she would now have to listen to.
Seconds.
‘I’m sure you have your own views on the pace,’ she said. ‘I only wanted you to know I’d had mine.’
‘All right.’
‘Your father sends his love.’ That was the line she had not rehearsed. Then, quieter: ‘I’ve done a casserole. I’m putting a portion in Tupperware. If you pass on Sunday I’ll give it to you at the door. Bring Freddie if he’s with you.’
‘Mum. Thanks.’
‘It’s a casserole, Neil. It’s not a ceremony.’
Click. She had hung up on him because Diane Ashworth had never in her life said goodbye on a telephone.
