The look of pure pride on his face was unmistakeable. She wanted to punch him right in the mouth, but she remained calm. At least she presented a calm facade anyway. She asked what the hell had happened, and why Jake was talking about a gun. Nathan proceeded to tell her that the two of them were ambushed by Jimmy Dillon and the Carter twins, and ‘quick thinking’ Jake scared them off by pointing the gun in Jimmy’s face. Her heart almost stopped. She had so many questions. Why did Jake even have a gun in the first place? Why were they ambushed? Why had Nathan allowed their son to be in such a dangerous situation? All of which, Nathan failed to give her any credible explanation for.

As Grace understood it, from Nathan’s drunken ramblings and Jake’s incoherent babbling, Nathan wanted to give Jake the ‘experience’ of holding a gun. As he was doing this they were interrupted by Ste, who’d whisked them away on urgent business to see Jimmy. This is when they were set upon by Jimmy and the Carter twins and Jake had no choice but to defend himself, and Nathan of course. Afterwards they went back to the club and because Jake was in shock he drank himself into a stupor and then started demanding to shoot something. So, Ste drove them both into the middle of nowhere, so Jake could fulfil this ‘ambition’ and go through this ‘rite of passage’. Nathan wanted Jake to shoot a pigeon, but of course he wouldn’t do that, so he shot at an empty beer bottle instead.

‘He missed, like,’ Nathan said as though that made it all better.

‘Why?’ She just kept repeating the word, in her head and out loud. ‘Why would you give him a gun? Why would you let him fire a gun anywhere? Didn’t anyone hear it?’

‘It was only the once, Grace,’ he scoffed. ‘And we were in the middle of nowhere. I told you.’

She stood there shaking her head, because she was at a loss as to what else to do. She knew what she would like to do, but fortunately for Nathan, she would never resort to violence in front of Jake. She would give that boy of hers what for once he sobered up, though. The stupid little bastard! What on earth was he thinking? He could have ruined his whole life just to show off to his idiot dad. She couldn’t even bear to think of the many awful ways last night could have turned out. She was just glad he was going to university in two days’ time and would be as far away from his lunatic father as possible. She told Nathan to leave.

‘Good luck, son,’ he shouted to Jake on his way out the door. Grace could hear him laughing as he walked to the waiting car.