‘How come?’
‘Just did.’ He opened the fridge.
‘Hey, this lot first, dishwasher and paper bin,’ she said, nodding at the mess.
‘I was,’ he said.
She laughed. ‘Hardly.’ She wondered who’d rearranged. Had Sammy put his dad off? She could see why he might. Dave wasn’t great company these days. His love nest with the whore of Pendlebury and their spawn had disintegrated and Dave was now back living with his mother. Not a good look for a man in his fifties. Sammy liked his grandma but was of an age where a handful of visits a year would suffice. But for all Dave’s failings, and they were legion, Gill still thought it best that Sammy maintain regular contact with his dad. It’d help Dave too, she reckoned, to know there was still somebody who loved him. A solid relationship that wasn’t going to go tits up when a younger model rolled along. Did Dave still see his second child? She’d never asked. It wasn’t her business, anyway. Dave was an adult, fact. Despite his sometimes childish behaviour. He could handle the fallout from his midlife crisis by himself. Why the hell should Gill concern herself with it?
Sammy put the crockery in the dishwasher and took the carton outside to the recycling bin while Gill fixed herself an omelette.
‘I need a suit,’ he said as he came in, ‘for the prom.’
‘What’s wrong with the one you’ve got?’
‘Too short.’ He went back to the fridge, opened it. The light shining out on him. Like a shrine, Gill thought, where he worships. He can’t eat enough. Eighteen and still growing.
‘You sure?’
‘Yes, it’s halfway up my legs. I look like a knob.’
‘Well, I think your dad’ll have to take you,’ she said, forking up the last of her food.
‘Why can’t you?’
‘Because I’ve just started an investigation. I’m not going to have time to draw breath.’
He sighed heavily, brought ham and cheese out of the fridge.
‘Or take Orla,’ Gill said.
‘Cool.’ Shopping with his girlfriend obviously appealed more.
‘Revision?’ she said.
‘Done some.’ He’d three more exams to sit, then his schooldays would be over.
‘Orla’s being nominated for prom queen,’ he said.
‘Is she now?’
‘Yeah. I think Daisy Tuttle will get it, she’s more popular.’
‘We never had any of that sort of thing,’ she said, ‘proms.’
‘You had a party, though, didn’t you?’
‘Of sorts. Smuggled in vodka to mix with fruit juice, crammed into the school hall. Smelled of sweaty trainers. Disco – that was our lot. No limos, or kings and queens. If anyone had worn a suit they’d have been laughed out of court. The only people who wore suits were teachers and squares.’ She laughed.