A Home in the Sun

by Sue Moorcroft

It wasn’t a textbook counselling session – but it got Bethan and Kieran into her car.

  Bethan’s family lived in a nice new part of town in a detached house, overlarge for its plot but not actually big. The bricks were yellow, the roof tiles red, the window frames had been stained with a too-red mahogany and would soon need doing again.

  Her parents, Hannah and Nick Sutherland, looked bewildered and suspicious when their daughter arrived home with two strangers in tow. Hannah was small and mousy with blonde streaks that might have once brightened her up a bit but had now almost grown out. Nick was chunky with thinning brown hair. They stared from Bethan to Kieran to Judith. Nick demanded, ‘What’s going on, Bethan?’

  Silence. Judith wondered with alarm whether the youngsters expected her to do the breaking of the news and wished she’d established earlier that it was their job. But then, with a noise like an elephant’s sneeze, Bethan burst into tears and threw herself into her mother’s arms. ‘Mum, I’m so sorry. You’re going to be so sad and angry!’

  Judith would have loved Bethan’s parents prove Bethan wrong about their reaction to her pregnancy … but Nick and Hannah Sutherland turned out to be both sad and angry. Very angry. Also:

  ‘… horrified!’ spluttered Nick.

  ‘… hurt,’ cried Hannah.

  ‘… gutted—’

  ‘… disappointed—’

  The list of their emotions was long.

  Judith did what she could to keep everyone calm and focused on the problem rather than on parental shock and anger. She tried to reassure them. ‘You probably can’t see it now, but Kieran is a lovely boy. Immature, of course.’

  ‘Am I?’ Kieran demanded, looking hurt.

  She smiled at her stepson. ‘You allowed yourself to be kept a secret and somehow you didn’t protect Bethan from pregnancy. And,’ as an afterthought, ‘you haven’t confided in your father.’

  Kieran paled at her words.

  After a long conversation in which Judith tried hard to be the voice of reason and support she realised that they were talking to her over Kieran’s head, as if he were a child. Gathering her resolve, she gave Hannah and Nick, stunned and flabbergasted, poor souls, her telephone number – ‘In case I can be of any help to you’ – and prepared to take herself off home after giving Kieran a hug. ‘If you want me to see your father with you, ring me. But I think you need to stay and talk to Bethan’s parents, tonight. There are a lot of decisions to make.’ Exhaustion was beginning to bow her down. She’d been up about twenty hours, hadn’t slept much prior to that and had to deal with grief over Giorgio as well as the evening’s emotional maelstrom.

  Kieran looked shocked to be left to face the music. ‘Can’t you stay a bit?’

  Judith turned back to press three kisses on his forehead. ‘I could,’ she admitted. ‘But I think that this is where you begin to prove yourself by talking to Bethan and her parents about how you’re going to support Beth through this. You know I’ll always be on your side, darling, but I think you have to take charge now.’

  Nick cleared his throat. ‘Your mum’s got a point, young man.’

  He sounded so forbidding that Judith almost changed her mind and sat down again. Leaving Kieran to take charge of his own life was one of the hardest things she’d done, but she still said goodnight.

  In her car, she suddenly became aware of Giorgio’s crucifix touching the skin below her throat. She held it, kissed it and closed her eyes very tightly. Anyone watching might think she was engaged in private prayer but she just wanted it against her lips because it had lain so long against Giorgio’s flesh. ‘I hope I’ve done the right thing,’ she murmured, then she started the car. She needed alone time. If only Moll would be in bed when she got home, then she could get back to that bottle of wine.

  But it wasn’t to be. Though it was midnight, Molly was waiting up for her, buttoned up in a pink candlewick dressing gown that didn’t suit her and looked as if it should have been cut up for dusters years ago. Not that Judith ever cut things up for dusters, but Moll did.

  ‘Hot chocolate?’ offered Molly. The drinking chocolate powder waited in the cups, ready.

  Judith retrieved the huge glass of wine she’d abandoned earlier and drank half of it quickly so that no one could expect her to do anything else responsible for a few hours. ‘Not for me, thanks,’ she said and headed for an armchair. Molly followed, perching herself on the sofa.

  Because Moll knew something was up, and even though she was aware that Tom ought to be told first, Judith broke the news of Kieran’s impending fatherhood.

  Molly curled up tightly in a corner of the sofa. Her voice was small when, instead of commenting on Kieran’s situation, she asked, ‘You’ve got a lot on your plate, haven’t you?’

  Judith quelled the desire to thank her for noticing. ‘Quite, yes.’

  ‘I ought not stay.’ Molly looked forlorn. For a big sister, Molly took some surprising detours into the territory of little sister, looking for help and comfort and, chiefly, support.

  Judith felt her heart melt. ‘Of course you must stay. You need to decide what to do next.’ She reached out and took her sister’s cold little hand. ‘But it won’t work long term, darling. You won’t like it when I want to read for hours or stay on the computer all day. Or invite Adam round to get drunk.’ His face flashed into her mind, his half-smile, the concern in his eyes. Adam was the one person who’d offered her unselfish support during her intense grief.

  Judith caught the grimace on Molly’s face and felt a flash of impatience. ‘You see! You don’t like my attitudes. You’ll warn me about Kieran not being my birth son and grumble about Adam or Melanie and you’ll expect me to consider you, your likes and tastes. Well, you’ll think that’s OK for a while, but it’ll soon get old for you. You need to sort out your life.’

  Molly sniffed. ‘Me? If anyone needs a life sorting it’s you—’

  ‘Molly,’ Judith interrupted, firmly. ‘My life is sorted. I live alone in this house from choice. There’s no mortgage, so a small amount of income is enough to get me by and I’m perfectly capable of earning that.’

  She let her voice soften. ‘I accept that I need time to recover. To grieve. To adjust. But it’s you who needs to decide either to attempt to save your marriage or to abandon it. You who needs discussions with Frankie and to see solicitors if necessary.’

  She slurped up the rest of her wine, conscious that Molly, for once, wasn’t arguing. She added, ‘All that’s wrong with my life is that Giorgio’s gone. And I’ve been left behind.’

  Part Two

  The Road Gets Steep

  Chapter Seventeen

  January 2005

  ‘Why have you got the hump with me?’ Judith demanded.

  She watched Adam’s profile as he steered his car through the centre of Ashby-de-la-Zouch in Leicestershire, his eyes on the road, face giving nothing away. Although only mid-afternoon, winter’s early dusk was turning the world purple and making brighter the Christmas lights that surely should be taken down now that it was the end of January.

  ‘I haven’t got the hump with you. I just asked why you see Tom’s happiness as your concern,’ Adam said.

  Judith snorted. ‘Same reason you see Shelley’s as yours, I suppose.’

  He shook his head, his mouth quirking up at one side, as it did when something wasn’t actually amusing him. ‘Shelley and I are still friendly but that’s as far as it goes. She runs her own life. Just as Tom’s capable of running his.’

  Judith turned away to gaze through the steamy car window into the bow window of a shop full of intriguing glass decanters.

  In the last six months – could it really be six months since Giorgio, as she’d begun to think of his passing? – she’d become used to zipping all over Northamptonshire and the surrounding counties with Adam. It was now second nature for her to take responsibility for a host of details on a shoot, especially the fiddly stuff that was easier for her hands than his, leaving him free to talk to
his subjects or prowl around considering light and angles.

  Judith had never got around to getting another job and nor had Adam got around to advertising for someone to replace her. The work had turned out to suit her; sporadic, varied enough to harness some of her energy and intelligence but not so much as to tie her down to a full week of regular hours.

  She’d become attuned to his quiet directions. ‘Jude, gold umbrella, please. We need warmer skin tones.’ He even referred to her, teasingly as his umbrella girl. She was au fait with his admin – OK, she’d reorganised it – and had taken over the phone calls that made him cross, like wheedling accurate addresses from magazines’ picture desks or chasing up late payments from accounts departments. People skills, she thought, yawning as the car picked up speed again and the display of pretty glass slid out of her view, Adam had loads. He just didn’t always bother to harness them when it came to editorial assistants who sent him incomplete briefs or didn’t put his invoices through for payment. The subjects of his photographs, on the other hand – ‘victims’ as he jokingly termed them – got the full benefit of his charm. That’s how they were persuaded to change clothes and jewellery for the fourth time or shunt enormous amounts of furniture in and out of their rooms to suit his shots.

  Adam was so easy to get on with that he was now firmly a part of Judith’s life. As well as their working relationship, they’d created a mutual aid society, from which Judith was certain she profited most.

  Oh, the relief, for instance, that he’d taken over her rampaging garden. She considered it a more than fair exchange for her undertaking his household correspondence and bill payment – tasks that she could perform in minutes but irritated Adam like an attack of scabies. Adam painted Judith’s front door; Judith ironed Adam’s dress shirt, tied his bow tie and fastened his cuff links when he had to go – scowling – to some magazine’s awards evening with a pocketful of business cards because it was a networking opportunity that couldn’t be missed. The list of exchanged favours was long and complicated. When she’d brought Wilma to Lavender Row for lunch one day and found Adam there taming the garden, he’d ended up servicing Wilma’s wheelchair. His smile and warm manner had wowed Wilma so much she’d allowed him to do her little favours ever since.

  Judith considered Adam her best friend and whether their discussions were bantering or serious, few subjects were off-limits so she finally answered his question.

  ‘I feel bad for Tom,’ she explained. ‘He’s lonely, and he realises that his relationship with Kieran is poor. I feel guilty that Kieran came to me when they found out Bethan was pregnant, putting me in the position of colluding with Tom’s son against him.’ Then, because she could seldom resist winding him up, ‘You don’t mind if I care about Kieran, do you, if I’m not allowed to feel bad about Tom?’

  He flicked her a wry glance. ‘I completely understand you caring for Kieran. You and he weren’t the ones who got divorced. He’s your stepson and it’s natural you should still love him.’ His attention returned to the jammed traffic, the red brake lights in front of them blurred by the rain. ‘But hasn’t Tom got a more recent wife to feel bad for him?’

  She grinned. ‘Liza? No good, though, is she? She ran off and got her own life.’

  Suddenly they were clear of the last traffic light in Ashby town centre, and Adam put his foot down. ‘Haven’t you got your own life?’

  She turned to study him as she swayed with the rhythm of the car, curious at the irritation he was displaying. ‘Look, I’m sorry Tom rang my mobile during the photoshoot – I forgot to turn it off, and I can see why that annoys you. I tried to get rid of him but he didn’t want to be got rid of. The fastest way was to agree to meet him tonight.’

  Adam took the road for the motorway and shrugged. But he still frowned.

  After her usual stint in front of Adam’s computer then calling in at home for a shower and a meal, Judith met Tom in a pub called The Child and Queen. She’d rather that than visit the home where they used to sleep together and where Tom later slept with Liza, or for Tom to call at Lavender Row. She liked to have the option of leaving if Tom got tricky.

  Tom hadn’t liked her decision. To him, pubs were for guffawing over dodgy jokes with his mates, pint in hand. So far as heart-to-hearts were concerned, they lacked privacy. Still, he waited at a corner table for her to step into the welcome warmth of the pub and then bought the drinks.

  ‘I’ve had poor old Frankie bending my ear over your sister,’ he said as he set the drinks on the table and sat down. Over the past few months, he’d taken every opportunity to coax Judith to petition Molly to return to ‘poor old’ Frankie, who was, by Tom’s account, utterly miserable since he’d failed to persuade Molly to give their marriage another go.

  Judith gave Tom short shrift, if in an amiable way. ‘Better Frankie be miserable separated than Molly be miserable married, so far as I’m concerned.’ Molly was living in her own place now, working in the café of a garden centre and the most content Judith had seen her for years.

  Tom harrumphed. ‘OK, let’s leave the subject of Molly and Frankie alone. I’m worried about Kieran.’

  ‘Oh?’ Judith felt a chill wash through her veins. She was still keeping Kieran’s secret, though Kieran continued to stay with Tom and a heavily pregnant Bethan had been prevailed upon to remain with her parents, to Kieran’s dismay. The baby was overdue now and yet Tom didn’t know he was about to be a grandfather. Judith was generally straight with people and Tom’s unease over his son only increased her sense of guilt.

  From a wine-red velvet banquette, she faced him across the smoky atmosphere of The Child and Queen; he’d taken a stool and was crouching like a bullfrog over his first pint. She knew he’d drink a pint and a half of John Smiths because he insisted he could drink that and be safe from the breathalyser. He regarded her from beneath whitening eyebrows that seemed to beetle more busily each time she saw him. ‘I don’t know what to do with my boy, I really don’t.’

  Judith sipped her grapefruit juice. It had a gin in it. She didn’t trust the breathalyser to concur with human judgement on safe limits so it would be her only alcoholic drink of the evening. ‘Do you have to “do” anything with him? He’s nearly twenty-three.’

  Tom snorted. ‘But he’s my son, living in my house. I ask why he’s so damned miserable and he gets all defensive.’

  ‘Perhaps he doesn’t wish to be asked?’ she tried.

  ‘But he’s living in my house.’

  Judith smothered a sigh. ‘That doesn’t mean he can’t run his own life.’

  Tom, as always, simply ignored opinions that didn’t chime with his. ‘Do you know what’s the matter with him?’

  Judith dropped her eyes. Yes, said her inner desire to confess. He’s got his young girlfriend pregnant. You know nothing about her but she’s Bethan Sutherland, not even eighteen till March. I reluctantly said they could move in with me but Bethan’s parents browbeat her into staying with them. They hate Kieran for spoiling her life, but when they try to keep him away from her, Bethan threatens to run away with him. Neither Kieran nor Bethan want to be parents, they’re screwing up their courage to have the baby adopted, but feel wretched and guilty. Kieran’s hushing it all up because he’s never really stopped being scared of you. He’d like to move to his own place but he knows he’s not good with money and has trouble running a car and a mobile phone, let alone a flat. So he’s stuck with you. I’m resisting the temptation to invite him to live with me. That would cause you pain – but Kieran believes in your bluff exterior and thinks you have no feelings …

  ‘Well?’ Tom prodded.

  Judith shrugged. ‘Why would I know?’

  ‘He’s always confided in you.’ He drank the last of his pint of bitter and glared at the glass as if it had betrayed him by being empty, his frown lines deepening to furrows. ‘You were the one who did the lion’s share of bringing him up. Pity you didn’t stay and see the job through.’ As he so often did, Tom introduced anger in
to what had been a perfectly amicable situation. His eyes lifted accusingly. ‘You act so goodie-goodie, with your cross and chain and your sincere expression. But you gave up on us too easily.’

  Judith pushed aside her empty glass. The trick in dealing with Tom when he turned unreasonable was to remain calm. His irascibility was getting markedly worse as he aged, though. ‘I know you long ago excused yourself from blame over our marriage ending and that having your cake and eating it was a little mistake rather than a divorcing offence, in your opinion. But it’s not the case, Tom, not for this cake.’ She indicated herself.

  He glared. ‘No one made you go – I didn’t want it, Kieran didn’t want it – it was your choice. Sometimes things go wrong in a marriage and you have to be strong and—’

  She rose and stretched unhurriedly, refusing to get embroiled in this same-old, same-old. He’d had an affair with Liza and married her once Judith was out of the way. He always conveniently forgot that bit. ‘Goodnight, Tom.’

  He did a big, exaggerated tut-and-sigh, throwing his thick, rough hands into the air. ‘Don’t be so sensitive! I was only saying.’

  He watched as she felt for her car keys, then sighed again like a gust of wind, his shoulders dropping. ‘Judith … People keep telling me they see Kieran out around town. With a girl. And she’s pregnant.’

  Her heart accelerated and she paused, casting around for an answer.

  The face he turned to her bore pain and anxiety in every furrow. ‘Why don’t I know what’s going on?’

  ‘Ask him,’ she suggested, gently. Despite her irritation of a few seconds ago, her heart went out to this angry man who found it so difficult to get close to his son.

  His eyes narrowed. ‘You know, don’t you?’

  ‘Ask him,’ she repeated. But she felt her cheeks heat up.

  His face sagged. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ he asked sadly.

  She sank back into her seat and covered his big, rough hand with both of hers. ‘Ask him, Tom.’ She hesitated before adding, ‘Ask him as if you want to help. Try not to shout.’