A Home in the Sun

by Sue Moorcroft

  After dressing in new black trousers and a cream jumper ready to pick up Molly so that they could take Wilma out for a meal, as was already arranged, she made up her mind to make a phone call. She glanced at her watch. The person she wanted to talk to needed time to get home from work so Judith awarded herself a soothing hour with the latest Harlan Coben thriller.

  The thump of the book sliding off the sofa forty minutes later woke her, crick-necked and left foot burning with pins and needles. Easing her head upright and the foot painfully into motion, she glared at the baroque silver clock on the mantelpiece, a rare extravagance from a jeweller in Valletta. ‘Blast.’

  She definitely hadn’t intended to sleep. Naps seemed so middle-aged. Pins and needles so unwomanly.

  Maybe because she wasn’t a woman at all … She thought of again Adam’s surprise when he’d seen her in a skirt and his inference that she didn’t care about her hair or nails. She glanced down at her neat, unpainted nails.

  Oh, for goodness’ sake! It was madness to take any notice of Adam’s teasing. Didn’t she know how he loved to wind her up?

  What was more important right now was that she’d soon have to leave to get to Molly’s. Wilma thought the sky would fall in if she weren’t home by nine o’clock and would therefore be in a fluster if they hadn’t collected her from The Cottage by seven.

  Judith had two minutes to get the phone call over with. Decisively, she found the number, reached for the phone and dialled.

  Click. Click. Silence. Then the single ringing tone, sounding far away. In contrast, the voice that answered unnerved her with its clarity. ‘Hallo?’

  She caught her breath at the sudden realisation that she was breaching the citadel of Giorgio’s till-now-unseen family and had to concentrate to make her voice work. ‘May I speak to Alexia?’

  The voice became guarded. ‘I am Alexia.’

  ‘This is Judith McAllister.’

  A pause. ‘Yes?’

  Judith swallowed and moistened her lips. ‘I’d like to speak to you about your father’s crucifix.’

  Alexia’s English was excellent, no doubt she practised it every day in her job in the pharmacy where, Judith knew, she’d gone to work straight from school at sixteen. She must be eighteen, now. ‘You have it,’ Alexia said, with steady satisfaction. ‘Please send it to me. My address is on my letter.’ And the line went dead.

  Swearing, Judith redialled, speaking the instant Alexia answered. ‘I don’t know whether I can do that. I need information.’

  The voice that came across the miles was just as controlled and dispassionate as before. ‘Please send back my father’s cross. Thank you.’

  Gritting her teeth and thinking of Giorgio, Judith dialled a third time, trying not to think of her phone bill. She made her tone gentle and reasonable. ‘The crucifix was given to me by a member of the family, I accepted it in good faith. I—’

  For the third time, the dialling tone cut her off.

  ‘Bugger you,’ she snapped, then fetched her cocoon of a coat – this English winter was killing her – and slammed her way out to the car, wishing Molly was picking her up for once so she’d have time to ring a fourth time. Taking her mood out on the absent, she fulminated at her sister, shoving the grape-coloured car into first gear, checking over her shoulder for traffic and peeling out. Molly always expected to be picked up. Molly never drove if she could get someone else to, never attempted to move furniture or take something apart to see if she could mend it. She cooked casseroles. She’d made all the floral curtains for her new Frankie-less house.

  The estate was off Fairbank Street and Molly’s cul-de-sac was named Fairbank Close. Bloody close, Judith thought as she whipped into Molly’s narrow, shared drive a few minutes later. Without Judith having to toot, the door opened and Molly stepped out, coat fastened, handbag on her shoulder as she locked the door after her. As she slid into the car, she looked pointedly at her watch.

  ‘Evening.’ Equally pointedly, Judith made no apology for her tardiness.

  In five minutes, they were at The Cottage, a glaringly inappropriate name for a three-storey brick townhouse of some magnitude. Judith zipped into a parking space and yanked on the handbrake.

  Indoors, they found Wilma waiting on one of the rose-pink vinyl chairs beside the reception counter and pigeonholes covered in chipped, off-white Formica that was the staff station. ‘You’re late,’ she observed politely, accepting simultaneous kisses, left cheek Molly, right Judith, and moving a boiled sweet around her mouth.

  ‘Nothing to speak of,’ breezed Judith. ‘I’ll get your chair.’

  Wilma pulled her hairy maroon coat more tightly around her. ‘So we’re still going?’

  ‘It’s only seven minutes past seven, Mum – we can easily get you back for nine.’ Judith suppressed her impatience. She didn’t want her mum to end her days institutionalised and unwilling to go out into the world, crying off from outings at the least excuse.

  Wilma pulled herself up onto her walking frame with a little grunt at the effort. ‘I don’t want to be any trouble.’

  ‘You won’t be. We’re going to drive you to a new café by the embankment where you can see the river.’ Trying to sound encouraging, Judith hooked the wheelchair with one hand and with the other made an entry in the book that recorded taking out a resident after six p.m., signing it, J McA-wiggle-wiggle. She didn’t feel like waiting for Molly to sign it clearly M R O’Malley, with the capitals, the apostrophe, a loop on the Y, a curly flourish below, and a careful full stop at the end.

  Once she’d gained her balance, Wilma hitched her way down the hall that was carpeted in a funny shade of honey, pushing the walking frame out in front of her and shuffling to catch up to it, her handbag swinging from a hook at the front. ‘Isn’t it too dark to see the river?’

  ‘They have lights shining on it. It’s pretty.’

  Wilma chuckled creakily and rattled her sweet against her dentures. ‘Pretty wet. Is it raining outside?’

  ‘No, not at the moment.’ It was Molly who offered the reassurance, this time. She took up station beside Wilma, ready to catch her arm if she wobbled. This was the way they usually divided the responsibilities: driving and wheelchair, Judith; giving an arm, Molly.

  ‘Is it going to?’ Wilma persisted.

  Judith wheeled the folded chair. ‘Perhaps later.’

  Her mother halted, and Judith almost ran her over. Wilma sucked vigorously. ‘Do we want to go if it’s going to rain?’

  Judith patted her back to gently encourage her on. ‘It’s not raining yet. The car’s right outside – I’ll put your chair in the boot while you hang on here with Molly, then I’ll open the car door. You wouldn’t feel more than two drops, even if it poured.’

  Wilma didn’t budge. ‘Only, I’ve just had my hair set. It was a new girl came round, and she’s done it lovely, hasn’t she?’

  ‘Lovely.’ Judith joined Molly in chorus. Making their mother happy was getting increasingly difficult. Wilma was losing her confidence about being taken out of The Cottage but didn’t always want to be left in it. She worried if her daughters phoned instead of visiting but she admitted that their visits tired her.

  ‘Do they do scones at this new place of yours?’ she queried.

  ‘Yes.’ Judith paused for effect. ‘With oodles of jam.’

  ‘One oodle will be enough, dear.’ Spurred on by the promise of jam, Wilma set off again. Then, hovering in the doorway with Molly, she observed Judith’s struggles to fit the wheelchair in her boot. ‘Pity you didn’t bring Adam – he’s good at lifting the chair.’

  And better at charming her mum out of capriciousness, Judith thought, exchanging a look with Molly. Molly, having long ago conquered any antipathy towards Adam, often teased him that Wilma had a crush on him. Wilma never seemed as tired when Adam was there to make her laugh and never checked her watch and wondered if she’d be back in time for cocoa.

  ‘There,’ Wilma said, when she was settled in the front p
assenger seat of the car. ‘Now, Judith, how’s Kieran? He hasn’t been to see me for weeks.’

  It sounded as if Wilma had forgotten for the moment about the pregnancy and stillbirth. It would distress her to be reminded, so Judith just said, ‘He’s doing OK, Mum,’ and drove off to the café by the river where Wilma ate heartily and said at the end of it, ‘Lovely. I wish I could get out more often.’

  The sisters exchanged glances, unified by exasperated amusement. Judith offered, ‘Then we’ll take you more often.’

  Wilma looked pleased. ‘We can celebrate New Year.’

  Molly patted her mum’s hand. ‘OK, but it was nearly two months ago. It’s February 2005.’

  ‘Yes, I know dear.’ Wilma cast her daughter a puzzled look as if Molly were the one who got muddled.

  A couple of hours later, Judith pulled up once again outside Molly’s house at Fairbank Close. Molly rubbed her forehead as if easing tension. ‘Gosh, Mum’s exhausting these days. Not her fault, of course, bless her. Coming in for a cuppa?’

  Although she’d planned to go straight home for a couple of hours with her book, Judith found herself wanting to accept the invitation. Home meant not only the seat-edge thrills of author Harlan Coben but a lot of time to think about Alexia, the crucifix and who it actually belonged to. About today’s tiny funeral. About Kieran, his face floating in her imagination, eyes empty and shattered. Earlier, she’d texted him a simple, Hugs. You know where I am if you need anything, but otherwise Judith had left him in peace to mourn.

  She followed Molly into the dead neat, dead plain home that was decorated in beige and peach. She could certainly do with a cosy sisterly chat – and Molly could occasionally be cosy, as well as being convinced of her duty to volunteer opinions on Judith and her life. They made for the kitchen – beige units, peach walls – Molly fussing over her long wool coat as she slid it on a hanger and hung it in the coats cupboard.

  Judith tossed her emerald cocoon over the newel post. ‘Do you think I’m blokeish, Moll?’

  ‘“Blokeish”?’ Pausing in the act of washing her hands, Molly’s eyes grew round. ‘What, butch do you mean?’

  Judith considered as she hopped up onto a stool. ‘Not butch, exactly. But … unfeminine?’

  Molly shrugged. ‘Depends which definition of unfeminine.’

  Judith felt her eyebrows fly up in horror that Molly hadn’t shrieked in protest at ‘unfeminine’ and ‘Judith’ arising in the same sentence. ‘Using any definition!’

  Molly whipped a broderie-anglaise apron around her waist and fastened it in a bow. ‘You’re very independent, of course, and you’re often – almost always – natural.’

  Judith’s voice sharpened. ‘What do you mean, “natural”?’

  Molly looked surprised at Judith’s tone. ‘Without make-up. Also, perhaps because you’re quite tall, you stride everywhere.’

  ‘Being tall gives a naturally long step,’ Judith protested.

  Molly crossed to the mug tree. ‘You hardly ever wear heels.’

  ‘They’d make me taller.’

  ‘You overtake a lot when you’re driving—’

  Judith gave up. ‘And overtaking makes me blokeish?’

  Molly dropped two teabags into a pretty white-and-peach china teapot. ‘I never said blokeish – you did. But I always queue behind any traffic but men rush by, even when they can’t really see what’s tearing up to meet them.’

  Judith sighed. If Molly considered it a male trait to overtake, this conversation was never going to evolve as she’d like. ‘I don’t think I meant the way I drive or walk. Go back to “independent”.’

  ‘Overly independent,’ said Molly folding her arms and regarding Judith thoughtfully as the kettle made its first grumbles and hisses. ‘Fiercely independent. Not requiring advice. Some people call it being bloody-minded.’

  Judith ignored the bloody-minded bit. ‘But it’s good, isn’t it, not to cling?’

  Her sister shrugged shoulders that had grown plumper since she’d left Frankie – although Frankie, conversely, looked thinner the few times Judith had caught a glimpse of him around town, undoubtedly because he had no one to cook him dinners and puddings each evening.

  Molly began clattering in drawers and cupboards, finding a small pair of scissors to slit open a packet of shortbread – the expensive, thick and delicious kind – and set out the fingers on a plate like the hands of a clock. ‘Depends. When I left Frankie, there was no one I’d rather have had in my corner than you. You were encouraging and supportive, you have a built-in scanner to detect lies and nonsense and you’re overawed by no one and nothing.’

  ‘So? I still don’t see a problem.’ Judith watched her sister, reflecting that she would probably have just opened the shortbread packet and slapped it on the table.

  Molly adjusted the space between her pieces of shortbread with military precision. ‘I didn’t say there was a problem. I lean on you, Mum leans on you, Kieran does, even Tom still would if you’d let him.’

  ‘But?’

  Molly sighed and rinsed crumbs from her fingertips at the tap, instead of licking them off as Judith would have. ‘But if I was a man who liked women to be frilly and girly, I suppose I wouldn’t be yearning after a Judith. I’d be after something more malleable, someone who’d demand my attention and look to me to solve things for her.’

  Judith’s stomach clenched in shock. ‘You’d be looking for a Liza?’

  ‘Oh gosh.’ Molly’s hands froze in mid-air and she sent Judith a stricken look over her shoulder. ‘Sorry. That was a bit close to home, wasn’t it? I didn’t mean to go there.’

  Judith pursed her lips. ‘Anything else?’

  Molly dried her hands, joined Judith at the table and passed her the shortbread. She smiled wickedly. ‘You could do with tidying up. But that’s just you, Judith. Your hair needs cutting, you stride about in your jeans and boots, efficient and practical. But men’s eyes still follow you.’

  ‘Except men who like feminine women?’ Judith groused, taking the biggest piece of shortbread to punish Molly for telling her things she didn’t really want to hear.

  Molly took the second-biggest piece of shortbread. She patted Judith’s hand. ‘Well, you can’t expect to attract all of them.’

  Chapter Twenty

  ‘There – first exit from this roundabout … don’t miss it, dummy,’ Judith cried, waving the roadmap in her hand.

  By cutting up the car behind, Adam just managed to steer his car into the turn in time, muttering darkly about late instructions and ‘dummy’ and lifting an apologetic hand at an angry honk from a Toyota almost on his bumper. On the other side of the roundabout, the traffic braked once more to a halt. Adam muttered some more and glanced at his watch.

  ‘Yes, we’re going to be late,’ Judith confirmed. She took his mobile phone from the centre console and made an apologetic call to the day’s photoshoot ‘victims’, the Donlyns, a family in a mag feature about childhood sweethearts. When the call connected she identified herself into the phone and said, ‘I’m so sorry we’re late. The traffic’s a nightmare.’

  Nigel Donlyn, the father in the family, snorted into the phone. ‘I took a half-day off work for this, you know.’

  ‘I know.’ Judith was gravely sympathetic. ‘We do appreciate your co-operation. But the M1 is closed and we’re having to navigate the A-roads along with all the rest of the motorway traffic. We won’t be a moment longer than we need, I promise. I can only ask you to hang on just another half-hour for me.’

  Sounding mollified, Nigel Donlyn agreed. ‘Well, all right.’

  ‘You’re an ace crawler,’ Adam observed as she shut the phone, the traffic actually allowing the car up to thirty miles per hour for a short stretch. ‘That bloke didn’t stand a chance against your “for me” and “promise” in that soft, sexy voice you put on.’

  ‘It’s a talent,’ she owned complacently. ‘When I was in project management on construction sites I used to leave all the yelling to
the men. I won more arguments with my syrupy voice than I lost.’

  Adam launched the car into a gap on yet another roundabout. ‘I’ve had no problems with picture desks since you took over my queries. You just sugar them into submission.’

  ‘More like saccharin,’ she observed, cheerfully. ‘Artificial.’

  Finally, they arrived at a 1970s chalet bungalow, liberally clad with overlapping semi-circular tiles the colour of wet bark. ‘Ugly,’ Adam remarked under his breath, jumping out to grab his photography case from the boot. Judith followed him and loaded her arms with tripod, stands and umbrellas.

  A middle-aged man flung open the door as they knocked. Judging by his clothes, the only concession he’d made to having his photograph taken was a recent visit to the barber’s. ‘Nigel Donlyn. You only just caught me. I was going to give you up and go to work,’ he growled, tugging down a too-short top.

  Judith summoned her best smile. ‘We can’t thank you enough – we’re so grateful. We would’ve flown if we could.’

  Grudgingly, Nigel Donlyn stepped back to admit them to the house. ‘Is it you what’s been ringing me, then? You don’t look how I thought.’

  ‘Sorry, were you expecting a twenty-five-year-old dolly?’ Judith made a comically dismayed face.

  Mr Donlyn looked discomfited. ‘I didn’t mean … Anyway, the others are in here.’ He showed them to the sitting room where the other Donlyns waited: his wife, Hayley, generous of figure and dark of hair, and two teenage kids, Samuel, a loud show-off, and Jemma with a practised line in rolling eyes and petulant tuts. Both teenagers gazed open-mouthed at Adam’s right hand as he opened his silver equipment case. Judith gauged by the deepening of his frown lines that he was uncomfortable with their stares.

  As he needed both hands and therefore couldn’t jam the right one in a pocket, he ignored their fixed gazes and got down to work, moving a Christmas tree out of sight as it was now February, shoving chairs around, murmuring, ‘Jude, see if you can get Hayley’s blouse and lipstick changed or her skin tone’s going to look horrible.’