Darling: The most shocking psychological thriller you will read this summer

Thomas had already yanked up the duvet.

‘What are you doing, Mum?’

‘Exercises, poppet. Physio.’ I gave Thomas my first cross look. ‘Door?’

‘It was locked, I swear!’

‘What did you want, baby? You can’t sleep?’

‘I dreamed of Lolly and she came.’

‘What?’ we said.

‘Lolly was here, she told me you wanted me.’

Neither of us spoke for a moment. Then:

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘We always want you, my lovely one.’

Stevie, free of his callipers but broken by bad dreams, clambered on to the bed so he could throw his insubstantial arms around me. I sat back on my haunches, the right one aching like hell, and I pressed my lips to his crown. He wormed into the bed, nestled down under the duvet.

Behind me, a swallowed sigh.

In the morning, Thomas was all smiles and ‘more coffee?’. As the first sure-bring-Stevie sleepover it had not been an unqualified success. Not knowing which child to blame, we yawned, gulped the breakfast blend faster than normal, and blamed neither. But I knew.

I watched as Lola, triumphant, made a show of cutting soldiers for Stevie’s dippy egg.

‘… and this is the soldier that guards the queen!’

She caught my eye; we smiled. Yet my faking lips fell when she said:

‘Next time, Stevie, you’ll have to top-to-toe with me!’

Thomas laughed, grateful. I said:

‘His legs, though, you see …’ and the laughter died.

Maybe I was being too harsh on her, on all of us. Thomas doted on Lola, and Lola might have been coming to dote on Stevie.

I never meant to panic, to make a big deal, to give the impression that he was totally helpless. But that was what thinking about Duchenne muscular dystrophy did to a mum. Thomas understood that; I ought never to forget that he was the man who got me. Thomas understood the sadness in my smiles when Lola petted and teased my boy. I always watched over him, it was my job, my joy. And Thomas understood, deep down, how glad I had to be that his girl wanted to reach out to my baby, even for a moment.

A few days later, we endured a lockjaw-inducing dinner. A meal sucked up through clenched teeth.

Lola needled and carped at everything I said. As I offered her potatoes:

‘You know I’m off carbs, right?’

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘Well, I am.’ A look. ‘I don’t want to get fat.’

And, as a nineties dance tune played on the radio:

‘Tune!’ I cried. ‘I used to love this.’

‘God, it’s really annoying.’

And, as I confirmed to Thomas that I was indeed wearing a new top:

‘Wow, you love shopping, don’t you?’

‘No more than most, I imagine,’ I said.

‘How do you afford it?’ A beat. ‘That top … yes, I think Lizzie HJ’s mum has the same one. You’ve met her, haven’t you, Dad? God, she’s so pretty it’s sickening.’

And, as Thomas reached out to touch my hand:

‘Don’t look, Stevie, old people alert!’

And, as Stevie pulled back one arm and pointed with the other, his favourite Lightning Bolt pose – aimed straight at my loving chest – I said:

‘The Olympics should be pretty incredible. And the Paralympics.’

‘Yeah, but they’re spending all that money on it and clearing out the favelas.’

‘I know, you’re right but—’

‘The games are just so the better countries can show off to—’

Thomas smiled. ‘It’s OK, Lolapoo, relax.’

If she were mine I would have made sure she did more than relax. So much sharpness, such spite; you could catch a nerve on it, trip up and gash your good intentions. Why did he not notice?

Later that night, I was no longer in a receptive mood. I wanted to get the hell away. I wanted a cigarette. But Thomas was ready to share his stories. He wanted to tell me more about what mattered to him. So: Dad George dead, Boise, Idaho, America. George could drink a bottle of vodka for breakfast and defend a rape case before lunchtime. (I popped a mint in, started listening.) This combination of talents gave Thomas the cold sweats to this day. He had died over thirty years before and Thomas still felt weird; cheated that it was a car accident that got him – he had been in a taxi – rather than the burst liver for which his Tommy had spent his whole childhood preparing. His mum, Sal, a Brit, was not much inclined to live in the land of pumpkin pie and prairies. She fled sniffily to England, only to return, in crumpled Chanel, to Idaho, because that was where George was buried. The pull of that car-crash love, beyond pride and maternity and oceans, was such a shock to that practical woman that she never recovered. Thomas still retained some pride in this familiar yet foreign half of him; the US was the sassy, stacked superpower the whole world secretly fancied so he flashed his generous half-Yank teeth as he said:

‘Imagine. Us in Boise, Idaho.’

‘Can’t.’

‘Big fishing country. The Rockies, Pioneer villages … fuck-all, really.’

‘Thomas! I do believe that’s the second time I’ve heard you cuss.’

‘Is that right? Ah, that’s not me, that’s American Thomas. Tom … Wassernacker. He swears like all—’

‘Oh, shut the fuck up and come here …’

‘Darling! I do believe—’