‘Pass the roasts please.’ Paul held out his hand to his son sitting across from him. He was aware of the silence that had filled the fourteen minutes of their dinner so far. The cutlery had been making extra loud clangs on the plates this time and there was only so many times that you can shuffle around salt and pepper.
‘Did you finish at three today?’ Paul cleared his throat, eyeballing his son. Now was the time for him to come clean.
‘No, half four.’ Sam kept his eyes on his food.
‘I thought it was three.’
‘Why ask me if you want a different answer Dad?’ Sam looked up briefly. ‘It was half four. I came back here.’
‘I was here at five and you weren’t back. First time I’ve seen you all today has been this meal.’
Sam reached forward for the ketchup bottle. Shaking it vigorously he opened it, letting the red sauce spill out onto his food.
‘I was out around that time.’
‘What were you doing?’ Paul’s knife and fork hovered over his half eaten roast.
‘Nothing’
‘You sure?’
‘Yep’
‘Sam.’
‘Dad?’
‘What was it?’
‘Was what?’
Paul stared at his son.
‘Ah don’t even go there Dad. I wasn’t doing that.’
‘I just thought –
‘You don’t think, you assume.’
‘Well what do you expect me to think Sam, you say you’re home and then you aren’t, you keep coming in later and later –
‘Just because I want some time to myself doesn’t automatically confirm your fears Dad. I said I wasn’t doing that anymore. So I’m not.’
Sam pushed back his chair, taking his plate to the sink. Paul watched him fill the washing up bowl. He always used too much fairy liquid.
‘Well tell me what you were doing then, if it wasn’t that.’
His son kept his back to him.
‘Sam?’
‘Nothing, its fine.’
‘It’s not fine, if you’re back on that crap again –
Sam paused washing up.
‘What Dad, what?’
‘You can see yourself out of the door that’s what! We’re not going through all of that again I’m telling you now.’
Sam flicked down the knife he was washing up, turning to face his father as it plopped into the water.
‘Are you being serious?’
‘Yes I am Sam, if you’re under my roof, it’s my rules – you promised me and your Mother at the time they’d be no more.’
‘I wasn’t Dad.’
Paul raised his voice.
‘That’s what you used to say all the other times. And then we’d get a phone call in the middle of the night telling us -’
‘I was taking the dog Dad! For a walk!’
Sam turned back to the sink, ringing his hands of soap suds. Paul, clearing his throat, laid his knife down.
‘Righ- ah rig –
‘I don’t do things, you complain, I do things, you complain –make up your mind Dad.’
‘Sam, look I - where are you going now?’ Paul watched as Sam picked up his coat from the back of the chair and walked towards the kitchen door.
‘Out’
‘Sam it’s nearly Nine, I thought we were watching –
‘I’m going out.’ Sam shut the door behind him.
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