Mary straightened up again, her expression thunderous. ‘You’ve been lying to me.’

Gail began to weep, forcing sobs out.

‘And you can stop pretending to cry. There are no tears coming out of your eyes.’

‘I can’t help drinking. I get lonely. I’m no good at living on my own. It’s your son’s fault. He shouldn’t have left me.’

‘Were you drinking this much when the children were here?’

Gail tried to lie, but with that disapproving gaze on her, the words just wouldn’t come out convincingly.

Mary took a step backwards, lips so tightly pressed together they vanished into a thin, puckered line. ‘When you decide that you really want to change your ways, you know where to find me.’

‘Wait!’

But the old hag had gone before Gail could stop her. Groaning, she sank down at the table. Lifting her cup of coffee up with two hands, because they were shaking, she tried to think what to do.

But she couldn’t come up with anything.

What she needed was a hair of the dog. Only because this was a crisis. She never usually drank so early. There must be another bottle somewhere. She searched the kitchen, pulling things out of cupboards and leaving them scattered across the floor, checking all her old hiding places, but finding nothing.

‘Have to go and buy some more, then,’ she muttered. ‘I need something to help me through. I’ll give up drinking later, after Tom comes back. He’ll help me. He’ll have money then from his rich daddy.’ She was talking to herself again. She had to stop that.

Picking up her handbag, she hunted for her car keys, then went out. She hit one of the gateposts when backing out. The car parking space was too narrow, always had been.

The man at the off-licence frowned at her as she dumped a six-bottle container of the special-offer wine on the counter. ‘Should you be driving, love?’

‘Mind your own bloody business.’ She slapped her credit card down and entered her PIN.

She tried to manage on only one bottle that day, she really did, but it was so lonely on her own and the day seemed to go on for ever. It was Tom’s fault, all of it, and she was going to make him sorry he’d left her.

And if she had to do that through the children, upset them a bit, well, they’d benefit in the long run.

Tom definitely wasn’t going to leave her behind when he started living the high life.

Chapter Fourteen

Tom’s mobile rang and his heart sank when he saw it was his mother. But he might as well face her now as worry about what she wanted, so he sat down on the nearest chair. ‘Hi, Mum.’

‘I thought you’d have rung me before now, Tom.’

‘We’ve been flat out.’

‘Too busy for a short phone call to your parents to say you were all right?’

‘I was going to ring this evening. We’re in Jez’s house now, you know. The kids and I have a cottage in the grounds. It’s great. And Jane has a flat leading off it. They put a door through into my house specially so that she can look after the kids if I’m not there.’