‘No, they only had the bars.’ He watches Maura retreat and feels a stab of envy.

‘Oh,’ Amanda says, turning her face away, ‘I won’t bother then.’

‘It’s the same stuff, Mother, just a different shape.’

Amanda blinks. She takes a sip of tea. He watches her throat rise and struggle a little in the swallowing.

‘Come and give me a kiss,’ she says.

He goes over and, kneeling beside her, presses his lips into her cheek. In turn she strokes his hair, a dreamy smile on her face.

‘My darling little boy. If only you hadn’t grown up.’

He closes his eyes and tries to think himself back to his early childhood without Llandudno or his uncle getting in the way. He wants the moment to last forever and knows that is impossible. How can it be that he still longs for his mother to be someone else, someone he once thought he knew.

‘I’m still your little boy,’ he says.

Instantly, he feels her stiffen, her hands cease their movements. ‘When did you last wash your hair?’

And there it is. He is Adam being expelled from the garden all over again. He pulls away and rises, brushing down his trousers.

‘I’ll be off then.’

Maura meets him in the hallway. ‘Before you go, management asked me to tell you that we’re still waiting for your payment for February.’

The phone in his pocket buzzes. He lets the call go to voicemail.

‘Of course. Just an oversight.’ This is not the truth. For a while he paid Wychall’s fees from what remained from the sale of Amanda’s home once her debts were cleared but that money has long since gone. He’s talked about moving her to a more affordable facility – more convenient was the way he’d put it to her – but she refused to countenance the move. There’s nothing he can do to force her. She has him exactly where she wants him. What she holds over him, what she knows.

He sits in the car in Wychall’s car park gripping the steering wheel and shouting, ‘Fucking fuckety fuck’ at the windscreen, before heading back to the house he can’t afford, most likely soon to be occupied by a child he has no idea how he’s going to support.

Chapter 7

Honor