A Cupboard Full of Coats by Yvvette Edwards Read Free Book Online

them. As though it was the funniest thing either had seen in some time. And they were oblivious to my presence. They noticed me twice; once when I swept the floor in front of the TV, and the second time when I mopped the same spot.
    Ben was in his element. Normally I never allowed him to watch stuff like that, but that day, everything was out of control. Berris was out. Lemon was here. The cinema had been a disaster and now my home was filled with a cacophony of screams from the TV and its audience of two, locked into each other’s arms like old mates. Finished, I sat down at the table pretending to read and, at some point, Ben stood up to go to the toilet. On his return he spoke to me for the first time since lunch.
    ‘Why’s my car in the passage?’
    ‘I’m throwing it out. It’s too small for you. That’s why.’
    ‘But that’s my favourite car.’
    ‘Really? When’s the last time you played with it?’
    ‘But it’s mine. I don’t want you to throw it away.’
    ‘Look, I don’t want to have a full-blown discussion about it. You don’t play with it any more and it’s too small for you even if you did want to. It’s pointless keeping it. It’s going in the bin.’
    He was silent for a moment. He glanced over at Lemon, probably hoping for some support from that quarter. When none was forthcoming he looked down at the floor. ‘I wish you was dead,’ he said, his voice so low I thought I had misheard.
    ‘What did you say?’
    He looked up at me, eyes full of tears. ‘I wish you was dead!’ he shouted. ‘I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you I hate you!’ and fell upon me, kicking and punching and biting and scratching and wailing at the top of his voice, deranged and hysterical.
    For a moment, I was completely immobilized. He could have said anything else in the world to me and it might have been okay. But those words were too terrible. What had I ever done to him that was bad enough for him to wish that? I pulled him away from me with one hand and with the other I slapped him hard across the face. There was a moment of shocked silence, a deep sucking in of breath on Ben’s part and then he let loose one mighty piece of screaming.
    Lemon jumped up from the settee and ran over to him, picking him up and cuddling him. Ben locked his arms around Lemon’s neck and his legs tight around his waist. He threw back his head and howled at the top of his lungs.
    I too was stunned. It could only have been a few seconds that I stood there, mouth open, to say what, I have no idea, but at some point I realized the phone was ringing. On automatic pilot I walked over and picked up the handset from on top of the TV.
    ‘Hello?’ I said. Over Ben’s screams it was impossible to hear what was being said. I put my free hand over the other ear, listening hard.
    ‘… see if he’s okay…Look, what the fuck is going on over there?’
    It was Red.
    Thirty minutes later he arrived and took Ben from Lemon without a word. The moment Ben saw Red the sniffs grew worse and as soon as he was in his dad’s arms he began to cry again, letting loose the proportion of distress he had deliberately held back for the moment of his grand finale.
    Cuddling and kissing Ben as though he too was close to breaking down, Red took him out to the car, where he mollified him for another five minutes before returning to collect his bag.
    He was as angry as I had ever seen him. An involuntary tick pulsed at the edge of his left eye. He picked up Ben’s bag, then turned to face Lemon, who stood beside me.
    ‘Do you mind?’ he asked.
    ‘Sorry,’ Lemon said, but instead of leaving the room, he went and sat down on the settee, as if he was suddenly fully engaged in watching the TV and by some miracle was giving us the privacy Red had been too subtle requesting.
    ‘I know how it looks,’ I said, ‘but Ben…’
    Red’s hand came up in a Stop sign. ‘Just don’t! Don’t you dare blame him.’
    ‘I wasn’t going to blame