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it was easier, that’s all, but even the easy stuff gets difficult after a while. That’s why I’m here now.’
    ‘But you always seemed so happy together.’
    People always say this when a couple splits up even though it’s not what they mean. What they actually mean is that when they think of you they don’t think of a couple who hate each other, which isn’t exactly the same thing. Lauren and I never hated each other. That’s not what happened here, and frankly I sort of wish it was. No, what happened to Lauren and me was far more insidious: somewhere between her working all the time and me working all the time we fell out of love, but only one of us was prepared to say it.
    I look at Mum. She has tears in her eyes. ‘You’re right, Mum, we did seem happy together but it just wasn’t enough.’
    ‘You weren’t messing around with somebody else, were you?’
    ‘No of course not,’ I reply, sounding scandalised even though Mum is not the first person to have asked this question and I doubt she’ll be the last. Everyone I tell about the split seems to believe that I’m to blame for my marriage falling apart as though it would be too far-fetched to even consider laying the blame at Lauren’s door. To be fair, if I’d heard from me that my marriage was over I’d probably blame me too.
    I look over at Dad to see whether there’s any chance he might step in and reel Mum in a bit but he’s too busy staring at the tiled floor hoping that this situation will blow over without his involvement to acknowledge my need for assistance. ‘We split up because it just wasn’t working any more. It was working, then it stopped working and by the time we got round to taking a proper look at it, it was broken beyond all repair.’
    ‘But I don’t understand, why didn’t you tell us when it happened? Why did you have to leave it until now?’
    ‘So you could have done what, exactly? Whipped out a magic wand and made it all better? She wanted out, Mum, OK? She got sick and tired of putting up with my crap day in and day out so you’ll forgive me if I didn’t feel like broadcasting the news to the entire world!’
    Even before the words have left my lips I hate myself. How hard is it to let Mum say what’s on her mind without making her feel like she doesn’t count for anything? I’m dealing with a lot of stuff but now she is too. I’ve dropped my life and its problems in her lap and she’s responded in the only way she knows: by sifting through all the information she can find in the hope that a solution might lie somewhere within. It was pointless having a go at Mum for being herself and having given vent to my exasperation all I’d succeeded in doing was making us both feel worse.
    She turns her back and starts tidying away our mugs even though they’re still half full. Dad throws me a look that says: ‘You made the mess, now clean it up,’ and so I follow my mum to the sink. ‘I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that, I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.’
    She wipes her eyes and looks up at me. ‘You’ve obviously been in the wars and I should’ve given you time to adjust. I won’t keep on at you, I promise. I just worry, that’s all. All your dad and I ever wanted was for all of you to be happy and when things like this happen it feels like we’ve failed.’
    She gives me a hug and I hug her back to let her know that I have accepted the terms of our truce but I know that I’ll feel guilty for days to come. This will lead to me offering to run numerous errands for Mum which in turn will mean us spending more ‘quality’ time together which will (despite our newly signed accord) inevitably end in one or other of us losing our temper and saying something we’ll regret. Once again I consider getting the train back to London and begging Lauren to let me sleep in my shed until we’ve sold the house. Then I think about how cold it was the night before last and how nothing puts a potential buyer