‘How’d it go round your mother’s?’

‘It’s like a mad house, but Eileen’s all right. She seems happy enough. Tomorrow it will all be over!’

‘You look really lovely tonight, Bri. Really beautiful.’

She kissed him. ‘You don’t look too bad yourself.’

He poured her a drink and she sipped it gratefully.

‘That Ben ... he’s like you, Bri. I don’t just mean in looks but personality. You had the same naivety when I first met you.’

‘When I saved your arse, you mean?’

Tommy laughed, remembering.

‘He is a lovely boy though, Bri.’

She pushed her hair into place with one hand and nodded. ‘I know. It takes a lot for me to leave him. I feel like picking him up and taking him away. But even as I am now, with all my connections, my so-called friends, I know I couldn’t do it. If push came to shove the courts would take that bastard’s side.’

Tommy pulled her into his arms.

‘You’ll survive, Bri. That’s your greatest talent. You see him, you watch him from a distance. He’ll be all right.’

Briony looked up into his face and he saw the hurt she felt.

‘Sometimes, in the night, I see him. I wonder if he’s ill or feeling frightened, you know? And I’m not there to comfort him. To see he’s all right...’

‘Look, whatever you think of Isabel Dumas, she loves the boy. She loves him with all her heart.’

‘But she’s not his mother, is she? His real mother. I am.’

‘And you’re a good mother, in your own way.’

Briony pulled away from him and laughed scornfully. ‘Oh, yeah, I was a great mother me. I let them walk off with him. Take him from me and bring him up, a pervert and a frustrated spinster! Because that’s all she is, she’s only married in name, no other way. He couldn’t get it up with a woman, she told me that herself. I must have been stark staring mad!’

‘Not mad, Bri, young. Young and foolish. But think about it. Without him, you have all this.’ He swept his arms out to encompass the whole room.

Briony nodded slowly.

‘Yeah, I have everything and nothing. Because without my boy, this is sweet fuck all.’

Tommy shoved her hard in the chest, sending her drink flying everywhere.