‘Where’s Mum?’ the kid griped. Once more Dov was overcome by the stupidity of the situation – how much Josh both hated his mother and yet needed to know where she was every minute of the day. It was almost like a marriage.
‘Out at the Gordon Pool, probably, guzzling codeine and gin with her Zionist cronies. Don’t hold your breathe.’
The kid sighed deeply and looked at his phone. ‘But it’s nearly five and she’s been gone since before I woke up!’
‘Like I said, she’s having fun. Fun’s your mum’s religion – trying to stop her would be like, I dunno, dragging a nun out of church. What you want her for – money? I can give you fifty shekel.’
‘Big deal. That’s like a tenner!’ He continued to mope around, his dreadlocks leaving a trail behind him like some deadbeat Johnny Appleseed. Then he looked Dov square in the face, unusually. ‘Why don’t we ever do anything together? As a family?’
‘A) because we aren’t one – I’m merely married to your mother. And b) because the stuff your mother and I do for fun, if you did it with us, would automatically mean we were breaking the law after, say, fifteen minutes.’
Josh sneered. ‘You think you’re big!’
‘I know I’m big. But with reference to my previous point, I am merely reminding you that the incest laws in this country are very Biblical.’ Dov opened the fridge, took out a Bazelet and then, surprising himself, took out a second and offered it to the kid. Josh looked at him as if he’d handed him a rotting skull with a drinking straw in it, then smiled. For a split second, Dov could see what Jackie saw in her
son. ‘What about the other night at LaLa Land? We did that as a family.’
‘You fucking what? That freak-show!’
‘You liked her, eh?’
‘That fat slag? You’re kidding me, right? Wouldn’t touch her with yours.’ He smirked. ‘Still, don’t ‘spose there’s much chance of that, either. She had a bit of Mum yet?’
‘The only piece of your mother that Miss Katz has had hold of, to my knowledge, is her hair, when your mother is heaving over a latrine, as is her wont after imbibing an excessive amount of alcohol.’
‘But you’re really scared that she’s gonna get a bigger piece of Mum, right? And leave you out, and not join in your pervy threesome stuff?’
Dov snatched the beer back off of him. ‘I am not in the habit of being scared of pamby-namby little English girls who think conflict is when they can’t decide to eat another piece of cake or not.’