A Home in the Sun

by Sue Moorcroft

  Then the doorbell shrilled. They raised their eyebrows at each other. Judith pushed her chair back from the computer workstation. ‘Half-past seven? Strange hour for visitors.’

  Adam turned, then winced and lifted a hand to his head. It was the right hand so he must be feeling rough. ‘Do you want me to answer it?’

  ‘No, I’ll do it.’ When she reached the front door Judith opened it on the chain and squinted out into the light, pain lancing across her eyes as they were attacked by the cruel morning sun.

  The small figure on the doorstep snapped, ‘It’s me,’ and resolved itself into the shape of her sister.

  ‘Molly?’ Hastily, Judith unchained the door. ‘What are you …? I mean, come in.’

  Molly’s Lexus was pulled up at the kerb, glinting gold in the early sunlight. Judith frowned as she made out solid shapes stacked on the back seat. Suitcases?

  ‘Can I stay for a bit?’ asked Molly, calmly, taking off her cardigan and smoothing her hair. ‘I’ve left Frankie.’ Without even waiting for Judith’s jaw to drop, she slipped past into the sitting room then halted, spinning to look between Judith in her robe and bare feet, and Adam with his slept-in clothes. ‘Who’s he?’

  The morning grew hazy with heat. Judith opened the back door to let the soft summer scents of grass and honeysuckle float in from the garden as she filled the kettle.

  Molly was upstairs, unpacking her things into the spare wardrobe while Judith occupied herself with small chores, wondering what was going on with her sister at the same time as feeling nauseous and headachy. It was a long time since she’d been drunk enough to have a hangover but the whole unpleasant process had not improved.

  From the alcove in the dining room the computer hummed gently, the 3D design on the screensaver rolling slowly through its contortions. She didn’t need to click the mouse and let Giorgio’s obituary beam again from the screen and jolt her with fresh pain. It lurked behind the screensaver because she hadn’t quite brought herself to close the page. She felt more like lighting candles around it, like a shrine.

  The sounds of Molly’s purposeful movements in the spare room above filtered through the house; the wardrobe door opening, shutting, opening, shutting, the drawers of the chest groaning in and out.

  It was a kind of inverted déjà vu. A few short weeks ago she’d shut herself in Molly’s spare room to unpack her life methodically from her suitcases. And now here was Molly, returning the favour. She hadn’t told her about Giorgio yet. It had felt wrong, even aggressive. You’ve left your husband? I can trump that because my lover’s dead …

  Shading her eyes against the sun, Judith sniffed back fresh tears and stepped out onto the patio, the flagstones warm beneath her bare feet, and looked up the long narrow garden at the lawn and Adam beyond it, cutting back a shrub that grew in an enormous spray of cerise flowers against the ochre tones of the back wall. He had far too much alcohol in his system to drive straight home. She was so incredibly touched that he’d kept her company last night when she hadn’t even realised how much she needed someone. She’d refused to let him wait outside on the pavement for Caleb to fetch him just because her sister was taking her turn to have a crisis. Diplomatically, though, Adam had elected to ‘make himself useful’, which she’d translated as, ‘I no longer have a garden of my own and really miss it.’

  ‘Drink, Adam? Something cold?’ she called.

  He screwed up his eyes to look down the garden at her. ‘Tea would be nectar.’

  ‘OK,’ she called back. Borrowing his pragmatic approach of the evening before and to show him she hadn’t been too drunk to remember, she made two mugs and took him them both. She’d wait for Molly to come down to have her own.

  He grinned appreciatively. ‘The only thing better than a cup of tea is two cups.’

  They chatted for a few moments before she headed back to the kitchen. She jumped to find Molly waiting for her, composed and neat in black trousers and a cherry-red short-sleeved jumper, hair brushed loose and shiny over her shoulders. Her smile looked forced. ‘Sorry that I didn’t feel like talking straight away,’ she said.

  Judith slid her arm around her sister, looking down at the pale face. ‘I’m the last person to complain about that. How are you doing?’

  ‘OK.’ Molly didn’t look OK. She looked drained and miserable. ‘I’ll get the kettle on, shall I?’

  She was going to take over the kitchen, Judith could see; Molly putting herself in charge of the kettle was the first step. However, realising that Molly probably needed something to do and refusals to let her perform simple tasks was exactly the behaviour that had prevented Judith from feeling at home at Molly’s place, she just said, ‘It’s just boiled,’ and watched her sister search in vain for a teapot before giving up and dropping teabags in mugs and then pouring in the steaming water.

  As she felt slightly less hungover in fresh air, Judith carried both out to the bench so that Molly had to follow. Adam being at the far end of the narrow garden, she knew they wouldn’t be overheard. ‘So.’ She looked into Molly’s eyes. ‘Do I have to go round and smash Frankie’s face in?’

  Molly didn’t raise a smile at this unlikely image. ‘As long as I don’t have to stay with him any more, I don’t care what happens.’ Her entire body was loose and still.

  In the hush following this flat declaration, bees buzzed around the honeysuckle and children’s voices came from a garden nearby. Judith linked her sister’s soft arm and drew her closer. ‘I don’t want to poke my nose in but I think you’re going to have to give me a few hints. He hasn’t been knocking you about, has he?’

  Molly shook her head.

  ‘Having an affair?’

  She shrugged. ‘Not that I know of.’ Then Molly sighed, her shoulders drooping. ‘I just can’t bear him any more, ruling the roost like a Victorian and trying to treat me like a skivvy. It’s four years into the twenty-first century but he acts as if women are yet to get the vote. He never shows me affection but he thinks it’s OK to ogle other women. When he told me that I bored him and he wouldn’t …’ She blinked fiercely. ‘He wouldn’t be able to do it if we tried because I don’t arouse him, I packed my bags.’

  Judith gave Molly’s arm a sympathetic squeeze. ‘Good for you. If he can’t perform in bed then he shouldn’t blame you.’ She didn’t directly comment on the rest. Frankie had always ruled the roost and always treated Molly like a skivvy. Equality at work had come thirty-odd years ago without Frankie ever taking out his subscription but saying that he couldn’t get an erection for her, well, that was just nasty.

  Given recent history, when Molly had unquestioningly taken Judith in with only a days’ notice, Judith felt she had to hide the fact that it wasn’t a good time for Molly to land herself in Judith’s newly acquired space. She was sympathetic – of course she was sympathetic, she loved Moll to death – but it was tough to ‘be there’ for her just at this exact moment, when all she wanted to do was sit in the sunshine and think of Giorgio. She blinked away an ominous prickling behind her eyes. It was hard to listen sympathetically to Molly describing how empty and disorientated she felt without saying, ‘Me, too!’ and pouring out the horrible, terrible news about Giorgio.

  With a quavering sigh, Molly put her hand over her eyes. ‘Honestly, Judith, you can’t know what Frankie’s like! He’s so grumpy all the time …’

  To try and prevent her tears from spilling, Judith stared at Adam, who was squinting against the bright light.

  Molly went on. ‘… dictatorial, criticising and carping …’

  Adam had his back to them as if trying to preserve their privacy, his wiry legs planted firm against the earth as he worked his way methodically over the shrub, snipping off a leggy branch and snip, snip, snipping it into smaller pieces into a garden refuse sack. He seemed to be able to work the secateurs OK with his right hand – he’d slipped on his ‘gizmo’ from the car that he used for driving – leaving his thumb and finger free to lever against a projection where his fing
ers used to be.

  He’d been so kind last night. Judith would be forever grateful at the way he’d seemed to understand the depth and futility of Judith’s pain, and how it was amplified because her grief would forever go unacknowledged by Giorgio’s family.

  Judith’s heart gave such a squeeze she thought she might pass out. Oh, Giorgio! Will it always hurt this much?

  ‘… and he should’ve found someone else years ago if he’s found me unexciting for such a long time. Shouldn’t he? Judith?’ Molly concluded.

  Stricken that she’d obviously zoned out while her sister was trying to have a heart-to-heart, Judith turned. ‘I’m sorry, Moll, I didn’t—’

  Molly’s face flooded dull crimson and her eyes blazed. She made a theatrical show of following the direction Judith’s gaze had been taking. ‘I’m sorry if I interrupted something with my obviously inopportune appearance, but is it too much to ask that you stop lusting after the gardener just long enough to attend to my woes? Honestly, it’s different when it’s you, isn’t it?’ Molly’s voice was tight and hurt. ‘It’s not like you to be as self-orientated as you’ve seemed since you got back from Malta.’

  Misery closed in so hard Judith felt crushed. She had to swallow hard before she could speak. ‘I’m sorry. But I’m not “lusting after” Adam. He stayed last night because …’ She sucked in a big wavering breath but still her voice dwindled. ‘Because Giorgio died yesterday.’

  ‘Died?’ Shock dragged down Molly’s jaw. ‘Don’t be silly,’ she denied uncertainly. ‘How could he?’

  Wearily, Judith let her head tip back. Her voice emerged thick with tears. ‘He had an accident, he was in a coma, which is why I came home. And now he’s been released.’

  Molly burst into tears and threw herself into Judith’s arms. ‘I’m sorry,’ she wept. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know. You should have told me! I knew there was something wrong but not that it was so terrible. Why do you keep everything hidden?’

  Judith clutched at Molly’s shaking shoulders. She could have said, ‘Because I tell you my lover has died and you’re the one crying and seeking comfort,’ but she held it back. Kieran and Wilma had told her she kept everything inside so she obviously did … and it obviously hurt people’s feelings. People she loved. She was just too dazed, grieving and hungover right now to resolve to strengthen her relationships by being more sharing and therefore caring.

  Molly continued to cry. ‘But please can I stay for a bit, Judith? It’s been horrible, hardly speaking to Frankie and sleeping in the spare room.’

  That explained the underwear Judith had seen there. ‘Of course you can.’ Hopelessly, Judith closed her eyes as her sister cried in great soaking gulps.

  Maybe she shouldn’t have come home. Her family skills were rusty from living in a different country.

  Tomorrow, she should be standing on the rock of Malta as Giorgio Zammit became part of it forever. How, from green, leafy Brinham, could she feel close to him? Sense him in the golden stone and blue sea of the place he’d lived, the place they’d loved, and gain comfort that he’d existed? That she’d meant something to him. In Malta she would have been able to talk to his friends about him, Charlie, even Anton and Gordon, and bring his sense of humour and his boyishness back to life in their stories. Perhaps that would have overlain the inner vision that haunted her, of Giorgio, helpless and empty, like a big baby in a white gown, on a white hospital bed with a dressing on his forehead and his life lived for him by tubes and machines. Perhaps she’d be able to forgive him the fecklessness or recklessness that had left Judith in a financial hole.

  Even as she patted Molly’s heaving back and framed soothing sentences about Molly staying with Judith as long as she needed, other words were forming in her head, despite her earlier decision to stay away.

  I must go back.

  Chapter Fifteen

  It was the day of Giorgio’s funeral. Judith sat on the clifftop at Ghar Lapsi and stared at the glittering sea where Giorgio had been hit by a jet ski more than three months before. The cliff here formed a broad shelf before rising again behind her. She’d seated herself on a sun-heated slab of rock amongst the scrub, well away from the restaurant and green-painted tables on the terrace, concrete pathways and the steps to the sea. Here it was quiet. She could gaze down into the bay sheltered by its arm of rock and not be bothered by tourists or fishermen.

  She’d hired a car and driven to Ghar Lapsi straight from Malta’s airport, making no attempt to see the funeral cortege set out from the imposing buildings of St Luke’s Hospital. Nor had she tried to slip into the church to hear the mass said for the repose of Giorgio’s soul or skulked between the mourners among the imposing marble monuments of Santa Maria Addolorata cemetery.

  Instead, she mourned here, privately, watching the delicate movements of the sea where she and Giorgio had dived together and been happy, hugging to her the memories of loving a man who’d had a joyful heart, even if he’d proved to be a bit of a butterfingers with insurance premiums and her money.

  Out of the respect for the power of Malta’s summer sun, she’d brought a big bottle of water in her bag and she wore a big-brimmed black straw hat. Sunglasses guarded her eyes against the sight of blue waves shattering the sun’s reflection into smithereens of blinding light. The sea was calm, rippling and sighing against the dark craggy rocks below. It was when there was a swell that the currents became treacherous and divers could be dragged out past the reef or trapped, slapped about somewhere in Ghar Lapsi’s underwater cavern system.

  Today was a beautiful day for a dive. The light would filter through the turquoise sea and into the mouths of underwater caves; rainbow wrasse, rays and morays would flit through weed that swayed with the motion of the sea. Divers would fin through the near-silent world in pairs, communicating with hand signals and instrument checks.

  Out to sea, looking closer than it actually was, stood the dark shape of the tiny island of Filfla, a nature reserve and possibly, depending on what you believed, the home of two-tailed lizards. Beyond it, a couple of blue, red and green fishing boats surged across the waves. The rest of the sea within eyeshot was empty.

  This was probably how Ghar Lapsi had looked the day Giorgio was injured, the squatting presence of Filfla and one or two boats. One, at least. One that carried jet skis.

  It was almost evening by the time she roused herself from her private mourning and rose stiffly from the heated rock, her skin tight and burning from the sun and the salty breeze. She could have stayed all night, watching the sun set and the sky turn shrimp pink, purple, then black but her water was finished and she had something she must do.

  Stiff from her long vigil, she retrieved the hire car from the car park and drove towards Tarxien and the Santa Maria Addolorata Cemetery, the many flat-roofed buildings she passed turning tawny as the sun angled low, a forest of television aerials glinting above.

  Tiredness began to steal over her. The day had begun early – she’d only just made her flight because the southbound M1 was closed owing to a chemical spillage. Tense with anxiety she’d had to find a way onto the M11 and then M25 and pass London to the east.

  She’d left without telling anybody but her uncle Richard, as she’d be staying with him and Erminia tonight.

  No doubt she’d catch hell from Molly. Molly didn’t understand that Judith had to do things her own way. And if that way included booking a flight and leaving for Malta before Molly was awake … She could almost hear her elder sister’s scandalised complaints. ‘Fancy just going off like that without telling a soul! Leaving me a note to say make myself at home and that there’s plenty of food. What a way to treat a guest. That’s just like you, Judith …’

  What was surprising was that Molly should expect anything else. Who else would she be like? Molly had had Judith for a sister for forty-four years.

  Once outside the black wrought-iron cemetery gates that were patterned to echo the Gothic stone arches beyond, she parked the car. It would be dusk soo
n and the flower stalls in the car park were closing up, the stallholders calling to one another as they worked. Judith stopped at the nearest and was just in time to buy a single white orchid.

  The ornate gates to the hilly cemetery would be closing soon but the man who stood at the gates allowed her to slip inside. All was still except for the grumble of nearby traffic and the rushing of the wind. Funerals were over for the day and the dust had settled. There was no rolling grass here as in an English cemetery, just clumps of trees among the broad paved walks. Mausoleums and graves marked by sculpted figures terraced the hillside. Having only been to Addolorata once before, she’d forgotten how vast it was, stretching away in all directions as far as she could see.

  She knew where the recent graves were and followed a succession of pathways towards them but she found nothing to indicate any connection with Giorgio. Elaborate wreaths, yes, but the names were wrong – Borg, Debono, Gatt. Her heart began to thud in panic as she hurried up and down.

  Where was he?

  And then she remembered the words ‘family grave’ in the newspaper, and relief seeped in. She returned to the older area, eyes skinned for the multitude of recent floral tributes that would indicate a recent burial, up and down the paths. It was quite an area to cover, her nails digging into her palms and her legs feeling as if they belonged to someone else. She passed between the ranks of marble, the occasional black to punctuate the pale grey, plots arranged close together like terraced houses and some edged with wrought iron or with posts and chains. Too many of the graves were graced with sprays or candles burning in glass lanterns for her to make the rapid progress she desired because she had to check every one. Already the sky was turning lavender, the precursor to the brief Mediterranean dusk.

  She was just thinking that she’d have to return tomorrow or be shut in for the night when a burst of colour caught her eye. She dashed between the stone crosses and exquisitely carved saints to a blaze of fresh flowers that spilled onto the graves on either side.