by Jay Howard
~~~
The next two months passed with both mother and son preoccupied. Martha had expected Jack to be spending a lot of time revising for his exams. She supposed that he had done so as he appeared nervous about the results coming out but quietly confident that he’d done the best he was capable of. Now, though, when he wasn’t conferring with her over their latest job applications, or doing his part-time bar job, he spent every moment in his bedroom. There’d be sudden bursts of music, excited one-sided chatter (she assumed Skype or mobile to his friends) and long, long periods of silence. Normally it was a series of requests to turn his music down, so what was with the silence? And when they were together why did it feel like his mind was on another planet most of the time?
What really puzzled her, though, was why she hadn’t yet had a letter requesting return of all that money. Good grief, she thought, for that big an overpayment of redundancy money I’d expect panic phone calls, even a visit from the Finance Manager; something, surely?
But day after day she worked in the supermarket, worrying about the bills that couldn’t be pared down any more, while the money sat there in her account, waiting for the repayment instructions that never came. Should I contact them? she wondered for the zillionth time, only to tell herself again that she should let it ride as long as possible, gain her some interest while it was possible.
Her reverie was broken by a loud whooping from Jack’s bedroom, quickly followed by a sound like lumber falling down the stairs. She looked up, bemused, as he rushed into the room.
“We’ve done it, Mum!” Jack said and lifted her into a bear hug, her feet dangling while he whirled her round the kitchen.
“Done what?” she finally managed to ask once she was back on the ground and able to breathe again.
“Argot has just run without a glitch for a solid week. We’ve finally debugged it!”
“What?”
He grabbed her handbag and keys and thrust them into her hands. “Come on, we’re going to celebrate tonight.” He pulled her towards the door. “We’re meeting Harry and Dave down The Crown - we’ll tell you all about it there.”
It was obvious she’d get no sense from him until then so she pulled the light shawl she favoured for summer evenings off the back of a chair and allowed herself to be chivvied out the door.