Ever could not go through so much pain again in so short a time.

*

It had been confirmed only three months earlier, after a DNA test.

His son was indeed not his.

And the tragedy was, he supposed, that he never really questioned that his wife shouldn’t have custody of the child; in the absence of divorce proceedings, he hadn’t even contested it, he still felt that he was his baby boy.

She was living in their marital home, but he knew, in his heart he knew, but denied himself the cerebral acknowledgement, who the father of the child was.

His love did not diminish in the slightest, but he felt a pain in his guts all the time knowing that the boy would grow up calling that man father and he would, he presumed, be known as Uncle Ever.

A remote, but ever-loving figure, in the distance of his growing boy’s life.

He missed him with the pain of an absent limb.

Ron presented Ever with the documentation, his father’s accounts and assets which according to the will were transferring to him. He signed with a sadness for his father, knowing that the business end of his life had amounted, in the final tally, to nothing.

‘I hope I see you again. I mean, please keep in touch.’

A surprising expression of sentiment from Ron, but this time he avoided the embrace with an extended hand.

*

The further lack of successful cards in the pack of females that were dealt to Ever came in the form of his mother. She also failed to make an appearance at her ex-husband’s funeral.

She was a wonderful, fun-loving, gin-drinking party animal, who Ever adored and indeed she adored him, but she had never really understood the concept of being a mother. A party she understood, emotion she understood, when it related and connected to her, and those emotions were like a roller coaster, up and down, and without the benefit of medication, understandable in the absence of a professional diagnosis; she was tossed about like a boat on an ever-changing sea and you never knew what ocean you were going to be sailing on. The happy, becalmed, or the viciously white-capped, aggrieved, and sadly churning waters.

Life, she had determined for herself, had not treated her well.

She was in psychological terms a narcissist. Through and through. Indeed, if a conversation did not interest her, in that it wasn’t about her, she would, without compunction, tell the person to shut up. Pure and simple, and in a way, honestly direct.

Ever had an admiration for her, as you never knew where you were with her, her unpredictability meant that you also did. She was like the sea. Just be careful. Check the weather report. Or better still the shipping forecast.

Ever loved the shipping forecast.

Viking, Tyne, Dogger, Fisher, German Bight.

What were all those places?

But didn’t it sound importantly international?

Chapter Twelve