I waited until the van had turned the corner, then murmured, “Me, or the family, son?”

“Um… Just us two for now, please”

I raised my voice, dropping as big a hint as I could manage.

“Maz? We’re just having a walk down to the LGA. Have a look in the cupboards, and call us if we need anything”

“Er, okay…”

I grabbed a small rucksack before leading the way onto the road, and once out of earshot I gave Ish the raised eyebrow. In response, he looked down at his feet.

“Problems, son?”

“Sort of. Bit lost”

“Well, family, son. We pull together. If you’ve done something wrong, we will do our best to sort it, but we need to know what it is”

“Not me that’s done wrong… Dad?”

“Yes?”

“I never told you this, but I had a nickname when I was younger. Some of the others, at college, they remember what it was, but, well, nobody uses it now”

“What was it?”

“Er… Gook”

“Oh for fuck’s---sorry, son, but why?”

“Some of them, their granddads were in Vietnam, I think, and it caught on. One reason I never had a girlfriend, I suppose”

“Yes, but, well, that’s just not on! Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Ah, if I’d done that, it would have been all about me hiding behind you and Mum. Make it worse, ey?”

“You say it’s stopped now? At college?”

“Sort of, but that’s not the problem. It was that footy game”

“You played bloody well in that, son, but what do I know? How is that a problem?”

“It isn’t the problem, Dad. Big hero, I am, saved the goal at the end of the match, all that. Sort of Mr Popular now”

“So how is that a problem?”

“Girls, Dad. They all want to, you know, now. How do I tell them ‘no’ without seeming rude?”

“You’re not interested?”

“Clara, Dad”

Oh dear.

“When did you last speak with her, son?”

He blushed.

“We… It’s a bit awkward, cause we have to juggle times, but we do a video chat most days. It’s okay, it’s on my laptop, not my phone, and that means you, we, we’re not paying for international calls, cause it’s the same cost as an email”

“Son, I understand, but you realise we’re not likely to be going back to the UK for a long time? Tickets, especially for the whole family, are a bit steep”

“Would it have to be all of us? I mean, I’m old enough to travel on my own now”

I hated myself for the next words.

“You’d leave your sister behind?”

He was looking at his feet again, which just made me feel worse.

“Son?”

“Dad?”

“Would you be okay talking it through with Mum? She might have a different angle to me”

“I wasn’t sure, Dad. I mean… This is not good. It’s, well, I still find it easier talking to you, because Mum was away, and that’s not fair, is it?”

God, how much bloody guilt was he trying to shoulder? I stepped forward for the oh-so-necessary hug, whispering reassurance into his ear.

“They’d still have taken her if you had gone with her, son. And before you say it, they’d have separated you. Water under the bridge, now. She didn’t have you for six years, so how about we make sure she has you now? Want me to talk to her first?”

His fingers were digging into my back, but he made a clear effort to unclench his hands.

“Not used to feeling like this, Dad”

“Neither was I, son”

He pulled back to look me in the eyes, a hint of a smile, or perhaps a wince, on his lips.

“Yeah, and, well, you got it twice… That Audrey had a long talk with me. About Carolyn. She made me…”

He laughed, suddenly.

“She made me promise to look after you, yeah? Who’s supposed to be the kid here?”

“From what I’m hearing, not you son. Talk to Mum?”

“Talk to Mum, yeah, be good”

“Ice cream?”

He grinned.

“Ice cream, yeah. Be good. But we eat them before we get home, so Elsie doesn’t complain”

“Or we get a cheap eskie bag there and take a couple back for them?”

“Better still, Dad: we get a cheap eskie bag and take some home for all of us. Um, after we’ve had another one each”

“Cheeky, sneaky sod!”

“You taught me everything I know”

They did have a simple padded bag for chilled stuff, so we each had an ice cream sitting outside the shop, before going back in to gather four more and a couple of mixed salad boxes that looked interesting, then heading home. As I entered our front door, I called out for Maz.

“Boy needs a chat, love. I’m just going out back with little’un to eat our ices”

I sat down on the patio chairs with girl, passing her the choc-mint treat I had spotted, and all was silence for a while as cold dairy products did their job, and not long after we had finished, and I had wiped LC’s chin, the other two appeared, arms around waists.

“We have a suggestion, man of mine, but I don’t know if you’ll like it”

“Why wouldn’t I, light of my life?”

“Keep talking like that and you’ll get in my, er, good books. Um. Right: because it would involve a barbie. And beer”

Ish was smiling properly now.

“Like we did for that engagement do, Dad, but backwards, sort of? Clara can be around all day on a Saturday, so if we have an evening do here, or late afternoon, it’s still a reasonable time over there”

Maz squeezed him.

“We have it as a sort of class do, and they all see Clara has dibs on our boy. That should put off the chancers. He needs to talk to Clara first, of course”

“Mum?”

“Ish, darling: if what you told me about how you feel is straight up, then she deserves---no. She needs to know what you are doing, when it impacts on her. Only fair. Now, off and see what dates might work”

“Thanks, Mum”

“Not at all, my darling. Family, always”

He was off, LC at his heels, and Maz turned to me with pretty much the same smile/wince our son had given me.

“Mike? This is a mess. Hear me out, though, because I had a few more thoughts I didn’t share with him”

“Ah. Such as?”

“Well, I don’t think things would be best served by mentioning Clara’s little, you know, issue. If we’ve got racists there, then sure as eggs are eggs there will be transphobic people. You know what Debbie says?”

“Touch my girls and die?”

“Apart from that. It’s ‘scratch a transphobe, find a racist’. Same mindset, usually the same people. If they’re coming out with the yellow peril crap, and they find out about her history, then they’ll just add to their abuse. I suspect that footie game has helped, though”

“You think that’s changed their minds about him?”

“No. I suspect they just lost a lot of their sense of entitlement, of being safe to abuse. Anyway, there’s another aspect to it. He’s had other digs, mostly about being queer. No girlfriend, must be gay, and so on. It’s always the same”

“He didn’t mention that one to me”

“Well, I’m his mother. Has to work some bloody time. This is the bit we don’t tell him, darling: that this is a way of telling the girls that aren’t hate-filled pieces of shit, if the Clara thing falls apart, that he’s definitely straight. Might make picking up the pieces easier for him, when, you know”

I stared at her for a few seconds, getting another smile/wince.

“No, darling; I am not hoping it all falls apart. I am simply recognising how hard it would be to keep things going, given the distance”

I shook my head, sighing, and she put both hands to my shoulders, before settling against me for a cuddle, her voice softer.

“Yes, darling; I became an utter realist while I was, you know, but that’s not it. Carolyn loves her like a sister, and she is a lovely girl, but I am struggling to see a way to make things work. First love’s always messy, but this is on steroids. All I can suggest is that we look for something like you did for Alys, or maybe in reverse”

“You mean Ish going over there to study?”

“Don’t rule it out, darling, but let’s go with the flow for now. You---WE--- have more than enough friends over there, friends we can rely on. We still have time before that decision is to be made, if it is still one we need to consider”