'What's happening next week, then?' he said after Valerie left. ‘Where will we be?'
'Here ... I don't know.' Dad wasn't looking at him. 'Well, perhaps I won't be here next weekend.'
'But I want to see Valerie next weekend.'
'Why don't you go there, then? I'll ask her, if you like. Perhaps she's bored with coming here every week.'
'No, she isn't.'
'Look,' Dad said, 'Valerie's done a lot for us, she's a good friend, but, well, she's only a friend.'
'Only a friend? But I thought you - and her...'
'No.'
*********
Later Greg told his friend, Toby, about it.
'Well, your Dad's free now,' Toby said. 'He's come alive again after your Mum's death, and he wants to start again. And Valerie's too old for him.'
'They're the same age. I asked her.'
'Yes, but she looks older than him. I've seen her. He doesn't want people to see him with someone like that. He can get someone better.'
The someone that Dad got was twenty-four and she looked eighteen.
'Oh, you are clever,' she said to Greg when he cooked the dinner that Friday evening. 'I can't cook anything.'
'Why don't you learn?' Greg said coldly. 'I won't always be here.' And neither will you, he said silently to himself.