Instinctively she knew that he was going to play the whole thing down. Of course she knew. That was exactly what she would do in his situation. Exactly. But she could not let him get away with it, and she wasn’t going to. It was time for William Lange to grow up. The strength of her feelings for him increased her sense of having been let down, made her angrier than she might otherwise have been.
In addition to that, she was afraid. Constance Lange was a woman who had lived a bit. But she knew nothing about drugs except that they frightened the life out of her. Even the suggestion that her only son might be a drug user, and the hard stuff at that, was enough to send her into totally uncharacteristic panic.
Just before William reached the kitchen door Constance saw him pause and drop the cigarette he was smoking on to the ground, stamp on it and then kick the remains into the edge of the flower bed. He knew that she hated smoking and at the last moment had decided not to antagonise her by smoking in the house, she realised. Grudgingly she judged that to be a fairly good sign. At least it indicated that he might not mean to totally disregard his parents’ wishes. She could still feel a nervous flutter in her heart, though, and an unfamiliar sense of foreboding.
As soon as he was inside the kitchen William called out for her. But she let him wait a minute or two before going downstairs.
He beamed at her and, as he always did, strode towards her and took her in a big bear hug. She did not respond. He stepped back, eyebrows raised quizzically, a small smile playing on his lips. She knew only too well that he was quite convinced he could always get around his mother.
‘It’s not going to work, William, not this time.’ She spoke firmly and she was not smiling.
‘Oh, come on mother, it’s not as bad as all that, everything’ll be all right, you’ll see.’
The small smile stretched into that big cheek-splitting grin which she already knew had set the hearts of half the girls in the neighbourhood fluttering. He was laying on all the charm, with which, with some justification, he thought he could overcome anything and certainly his poor besotted mother.
Indeed she could feel a part of her melting, as always. But she was not going to have it. No way. Her fear would not allow him to succeed in soft-soaping her. Not this time.
‘William, it isn’t going to be all right. Nothing is going to be all right until you start behaving like a man and not a child.’
Her voice was hard and cold. She had made it so. She knew that he had never heard her speak to him quite like that. It was, in fact, a long time since Constance had spoken to anyone like that. The words were not so awful, but the message she had managed to put into them was designed to be quite chilling — especially so when you considered the tremendous warmth there normally was between her and her son.
William flinched and coloured slightly.
She made her voice just a little gentler. Before going any further she must make sure she knew the truth.
‘You’d better tell me all about it, William,’ she said. ‘And I mean all.’
‘Just a few drinks, mum, honestly.’ He spoke quite casually, still trying to make light of things.
‘That’s not what we’ve been told,’ she said bluntly.
He shrugged. Lowered his eyes. His body language said believe what you like. Constance felt herself growing angrier and struggled to maintain control.
‘I want to know if you have been taking cocaine, or even something stronger, William.’
William raised his eyes to meet hers. His face was a picture of wounded astonishment. ‘I’d never touch hard drugs, mum, honest.’ He managed to sound quite hurt.
‘Honest?’
He nodded vigorously. ‘I promise you, mum.’
She so wanted to believe him. She eyed him up and down, wishing she could read his mind, hoping fervently that he was telling the truth.
‘OK,’ she said eventually. ‘OK. Let’s say I accept it’s nothing other than alcohol. It’s still a fact that the college is investigating the drug thing. You’re in big trouble. I love you very much, William, but I’m not putting up with this kind of behaviour. I won’t have you letting this family down. And I certainly won’t stand by and watch you destroy yourself. Your father sees you as his future. I will not allow you to break his heart.’
William tried one more time to smooth things over. ‘Oh, come on mum, you’re over-reacting, just like they did at college...’
‘I am what?’ She raised her voice this time, trying to make herself as cold as she could ever be with this son she idolised. She needed to shock him, to frighten him a bit, she reckoned. After all she was frightened enough. He had to be made to realise that this marvellous life of his really could disappear unless he played his part too. The world might be full of sons of the privileged who idled and wasted their lives away, who allowed themselves to become zombies, but she was not going to let that happen to her boy. And if that meant being hard and tough — well, she could do that. She knew how to. She had, after all, seen the other side of life.
She caught hold of him by the shoulders.
‘William, you’re a highly privileged young man. Don’t you understand that privilege brings responsibility too? I’ve always known you could be self-willed, but I didn’t realise you could also be stupid. You’ve no idea what it is like to fight for anything and I don’t wish you ever to have to. But I do know what it is like to have nothing, no family, no joy, no future...’
She paused, but not for long enough to give him a chance to respond. It was because she loved him so much that she was so hurt, because she was afraid that she was so furious. There was contempt in her voice when she continued. ‘God, you are a fool!’
He flinched again. She did not grasp for a moment quite the effect her attack was having on him. She should have known. After all, she knew that he loved her every bit as much as she did him. And she knew she had rarely spoken harshly to him in his life, and certainly never slammed into him like this.
His eyes narrowed. ‘You’ve not had any problems since you married dad though, have you,’ he remarked. His voice had a nasty edge to it, a peevishness she had never noticed before. ‘That was a pretty good move for you really, wasn’t it?’
She didn’t hesitate. She had, after all, been only barely in control of her emotions ever since William had arrived home. And that was a state of mind so rare for her that she had little concept of how dangerous it can be.
She slapped him hard on the cheek. He raised one hand to his face and took a step forward. For one awful moment she thought he was going to hit her back. Then he stopped and looked at her, the shock all too apparent in him.
She realised too late how badly she was handling the whole thing. But before she had time to say anything he spoke again.
‘Well, I’ll just go to the pub and get drunk then, shall I? Might as well behave the way you expect me to. Might as well finish the job.’
He slammed the kitchen door behind him when he left.
Constance sat down at the table, poured a large scotch, cursed herself roundly and gave up the fight against the tears which had been threatening to overwhelm her for some minutes. It was not like her to mishandle things like that. Then again, although she was quite used to dealing with other people’s crises, she had perhaps grown accustomed to her own family not having any worth mentioning, she thought wryly.
Freddie turned up just minutes later. For once she did not welcome even his arrival.
‘Seen his car, where’s the prodigal son then?’ he called from the hall.
‘Gone out,’ replied Constance in a flat tone.
Her husband came into the kitchen and looked at her questioningly. Her face was tear-stained. A pile of damp paper tissues was on the table before her. It was obvious that she had been crying.