Junk Mail

Chapter Eighteen: Talks, Traps and Tricks

The car came to a halt in the middle of the motorway and the people behind Ben honked at him until Ben's entire face went red with embarrassment.

"What do you mean I'm going to be seeing her?" Ben demanded, starting the car again. "What exactly have you planned?"

"Well, it's our company's twentieth anniversary," Larry said quietly, trying to justify his actions for Ben. "And it's a celebratory thing, isn't it? Ara and Helena are all coming to the celebratory dinner in the evening, as are most of our employees' families. It would look a bit weird if only you and I turned up from our side wouldn't it? So I invited your mother, Hen and Wren along as well-"

"What?"

"And I paid for train tickets," Larry continued, ignoring Ben's shocked expression. "They caught the train from Berkton to London this morning and they should be here for the dinner this evening. They'll meet us at the house I think, or I'll collect them from the train station."

Ben stopped the car again, once he'd gotten off the motorway. Then he unlocked all the car doors and asked Larry to get out of the vehicle. Larry was flabbergasted and Ben was angry, and Larry did not stop out of the car which made Ben even angrier. Ben felt betrayed for the second time that week by the two people he thought had had his back the entire time.

"Do you have a knife on you?" Ben asked, when Larry did not step out of the vehicle.

"No," Larry said cautiously. "Why?"

"Because you might as well just go and stab me in the back," Ben told his father dramatically. "I mean you've done it already, but you might as well do it physically too. Then I can show people the knife lodged in my back if they don't believe me when I tell them you're a traitor to fatherkind."

"That's not a word," Larry said calmly. "And I haven't stabbed you in the back, young man. I'm trying to help you. I haven't been around very much for the last couple of months to keep you in order and I can already see you've changed. Before I left, you were ambitious and determined, and not completely fixated on trying to prove to everyone how successful you are. And I use that word for a reason, because you're obsessed with it. Ara said you've been staying up half the night to work your way out of existence, and now you're not even talking to Pepe el who is probably the only person you ever go out and have fun with and you're ruining yourself... you're ruining your state of mind. And I can't exactly carry on and watch it all happen, can I? If reconciling with your mother and your siblings means you can once and for all get rid of this idea that you're not successful or capable enough for them, then I'll make sure it happens. Because otherwise you're going to carry on pretending that you're okay and then pull all nighters and not talk to your idiot best friend and everything else. And I won't let you do that Ben. Do you understand?"

Ben felt like a little child again being told off by his parents, and Ben did not like it. He remembered feeling guilty and always fighting the urge to cry and desperately trying to get rid of the lump in his throat whenever his parents had seriously scolded him as a young child. But this time the guilt was mixed with anger and frustration - two emotions that Ben almost seemed to feel on default these days - and Ben fought the urge to cry not because he was sorry for not getting into contact with his mother before, but because his father had deserted him. Ben didn't need his siblings and his mother to feel happy or free; sure, he was angry at them and sure he had kept being angry at them for five years but he needed to be angry if he didn't want to be taken advantage of. Letting down his walls and reconciling with those that had betrayed him would be naive and it would just be opening himself up to more disappointment in the future. And Ben definitely didn't want any more of that.

Ben turned to look at his father. "Is that it or do you have any more surprises up your sleeve?"

"Well, actually, Pepe el is probably coming to the dinner as well," Larry said thoughtfully. "But that one's not my fault. You and Ara gave tickets out to everyone. I'm assuming you gave one to the guy you're not talking to anymore as well, so I suspect we'll see him there."