Uphill All The Way

by Sue Moorcroft

  Judith did what she could to keep everyone calm and focused on the problem rather than on their anger. And, eventually, to reassure them. 'You probably can't see it now, but Kieran is a lovely boy. Immature, of course.'

  'I'm not!'

  She smiled at her stepson. Ex-stepson. 'You are! Or you would've wanted a girlfriend your own age, you wouldn't have allowed yourself to be kept a secret, and you would've made damned sure that you didn't impregnate her! And,' as an afterthought, 'you wouldn't be scared to tell your father.'

  Then 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 with a parting, 'If you want me to see your father with you, Kieran, ring me. But I think I may have done all I can do to help, tonight.' She was very tired. She'd been up about twenty hours, and hadn't slept much prior to that.

  Kieran sent furiously after her, 'It's nothing to do with you!' And then, contradicting himself, 'Don't go!'

  Judith turned back to press three kisses on his forehead. 'You know I'll always be on your side, darling. But I think you and Bethan need to talk to Bethan's parents, now. And I think you ought to tell your father.'

  In her car, she suddenly became aware of the crucifix touching the skin below her throat. She fished it out of her shirt, held it, kissed it, 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.

  How she needed to be alone! 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. Although 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 was in the cups, ready.

  Judith retrieved her huge glass of wine 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.'

  Because she knew something was up, and even though she was aware that Tom ought to know first, Judith told her sister about the impending fatherhood of Kieran.

  Molly curled up tightly in the chair, her voice small. 'You've got a lot on your plate, haven't you?'

  She quelled the desire to thank her for noticing. 'Quite, yes.'

  'I ought not stay.'

  Molly looked so forlorn that Judith felt her heart melt. For a big sister, Molly took some surprising detours into the territory of little sister, looking for help and comfort and, chiefly, support. 'Of course you must stay, as a temporary measure.' She took her sister's cold little hand in hers. 'But it won't work, darling, not long-term. You can't slide into my life. 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.

  She caught a grimace flashing over Molly's face. 'You see! You don't like my friends. You'll warn me about Kieran and grumble about Adam or Melanie, you'll expect me to consider you, your likes and tastes. Well, that's OK for a fortnight or so, but it'll soon get old. You need to sort out your life.'

  Molly sniffed. 'Me? If anyone needs a life sorting it's you - '

  'No!' Judith interrupted, firmly. 'You've got no basis for that remark. I think your disapproval of me must be habitual. If you examine the situation, you'll see that, actually, my life is sorted. I live alone in this house from choice. There's no mortgage, so my income is enough to get me by.'

  She let her voice soften. 'I don't need to sort out my life, Molly. I need to recover. To grieve. To adjust.

  'But you're in a different place. You need either to attempt to save your marriage, or to make the decision to abandon it. You need discussions with Frankie so that you can make those decisions, see solicitors if necessary. Limbo isn't the place for you - it's my province. Because Giorgio's gone. And I've been left behind.'

  Part Two

  The Road Gets Steep

  Chapter Eighteen

  'Why have you got the hump with me?'

  Judith watched Adam as he drove through the centre of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, 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. 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.'

  '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 really amusing him. 'We're still friendly, but that's as far as it goes. She's no longer my concern; she's able to run her own life. As Tom is.'

  Judith turned away to look through the steamy glass into the bow window of a shop full of intriguing glass decanters. She would have liked to mooch around the centre of Ashby, but it seemed that Adam wasn't in the mood for one of their impromptu stops after a photo shoot.

  In the last seven months - could it really be seven months since Giorgio, as she'd begun to think of it? - 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 certain things on a shoot, especially the fiddly stuff, leaving him free to talk to his subjects or prowl around considering light and angles.

  The work suited her, sporadic, varied, enough to harness some of her energy and intelligence but not so much as to tie her down to routines and regular hours. After Giorgio's death, a shock she hadn't quite been prepared for, Adam had offered her more hours and a permanent job, as if sensing her desperate need to be occupied, to have a structure to her life.

  Somehow she'd never moved on. Adam was so easy to get on with he was now a firm part of her life.

  She'd become attuned to his quiet directions. 'Jude, gold umbrella, please. We need warmer skin tones.' He'd refer to her, jokingly as his umbrella girl. She was au fait with his admin - OK, she'd reorganised it - and took over the phone calls that made him cross, typically wheedling usable addresses from picture desks or chasing up late payments from accounts departments.

  People skills, she thought, yawning. Adam had loads, but didn't always bother to harness them. Especially when it came to editorial assistants. The subjects of his photographs, on the other hand - victims, as he termed them - got the full benefit of his charm, and 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.

  As well as their working relationship, she and Adam had 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! 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 serviced Wilma's wheelchair, 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, a networking opportunity that couldn't be missed. The list of exchanged favours was long and complicated.

  And she didn't want to jeopardise friendship, working relationship, or mutual aid society, with a falling out over nothing.

  'I feel bad for Tom,' she temporised. 'He's lonely, and he realises that his relationship with Kieran is bad. I feel guilty that Kieran came to me, 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 under
stand you caring for Kieran.' His attention returned to the jammed traffic, the red brake lights blurred by the rain. 'But hasn't Tom got a more recent wife to feel bad for him?'

  She grinned. 'No good, though, is she? She ran off with a toy boy and got her own life.'

  Suddenly they were clear of the centre, and Adam put his foot down. 'Haven't you got your own life?'

  She studied him as she swayed with the rhythm of the car, curious at his irritation. 'Look, I'm sorry Tom rang my mobile during the photo shoot. I forgot to turn it off, and I know that annoys you. I tried to get rid of him, but he didn't want to be got rid of. That's why I agreed to meet him tonight'

  Adam took the road for the motorway, and shrugged.

  After her usual stint in front of Adam's computer, swapping his mouse from left to right, then home for a shower and a meal, Judith met Tom in a pub. It was too odd to visit the home where they used to sleep together and where Tom later slept with Liza. Nor did she wish Tom to call at Lavender Row, because then she wouldn't have the option of leaving if things got tricky.

  Tom hadn't liked this decision. He had old-fashioned views of pubs: they were for guffawing over dodgy jokes, pint in hand. So far as heart-to-hearts were concerned, they lacked privacy.

  Over the past few months Tom had taken each and every opportunity to coax Judith to petition Molly to return to his poor old mate Frankie who was, by Tom’s account, utterly miserable since he'd failed to persuade Molly to give their marriage another go. Better Frankie be miserable separated than Molly be miserable married, in Judith's opinion, and she invariably gave Tom short shrift on the subject. But today Tom had agreed to leave the subject of Molly and Frankie alone - because he wished to confide his worries over Kieran.

  Which was uncomfortable for Judith, who was deliberately keeping Kieran's secrets.

  She was no saint, but she was generally straight with people, and Tom's unease only increased her sense of duplicity.

  From a wine-red velvet banquette, she faced him across the smoky atmosphere of The Holly Tree, he on a stool, crouching like a bullfrog. He drank the three halves of John Smiths that he believed was the limit to keep him safe from the breathalyser, and 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 son, 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 twenty-two.'

  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?'

  'But he's living in my house.'

  Judith sighed. '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 inward desire to confess. He's got his girlfriend pregnant, a young girlfriend you know nothing about. Her name's Bethan Sutherland and she's a seventeen-year-old schoolgirl. Her parents hate him for spoiling her life, but when they try to keep Kieran away from her, Bethan threatens to run away. Neither Kieran nor Bethan want to be parents, they're screwing up their courage to have the baby adopted, but feel wretched at the idea. Kieran's hushing this up, 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 his hints to let him live with me. That would cause you pain - but Kieran believes in your bluff exterior and thinks you have no feelings...

  'Why would I know?' she parried, instead.

  'He's always confided in you.'

  He drank the last of his final half of bitter, and glared at the glass as if it had betrayed him by being empty, frown lines deepening to furrows. 'You were the one who did the lion's share of bringing him up. Pity you couldn't have stayed and seen the job through.' As so often, he brought anger 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. 'I know you long ago excused yourself. Having your cake and eating it was a mistake rather than a divorcing offence, in your opinion. But it's not the case, Tom, not for this cake.'

  He glared, persisting, '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. 'Night, 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 her as she felt for her car keys. And he sighed 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.

  He turned his face to her, pain and anxiety in every furrow. 'Why don't I know what's going on?'

  'You need to ask him,' she suggested, gently, her heart going out to a man who found it difficult to express any emotion but anger.

  His eyes narrowed. 'You know, don't you?'

  'Ask him.'

  A great sadness swept over his face. 'Why didn't you tell me?'

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

  He snatched his hand from under hers with a growl, and Judith thought, with despair, that a mushroom cloud was going to appear over Brinham now that Tom knew about the baby.

  A funny day, she mused, striding back to the market square where she'd parked the car. Adam being difficult, then Tom being... Tom. She thought longingly of the peace and quiet of Lavender Row. Molly was out so she could have a long, hot bath and read her book in peace...

  Except, when she drew up outside her house, she found Caleb and Matthias Leblond waiting on her garden wall, hunched into a thick army parka (Caleb) and a red Marmot Alpinist jacket (Matthias). They slid from the red brick and onto their feet with matching grins as she climbed from her little car.

  'Seen Dad?' Caleb, the last person she'd associate with peace or quiet, huffed into the chilly air and watched his breath turn white.

  'I was hoping for a last chat about the wedding photos,' added Matthias, 'but we can't find him.' Matthias was completely calm about his wedding, even now when the great day was less than two weeks away. Not for him half-meant jokes about only having one woman for the rest of his life, or not wanting to hear another word about bouquets, bridesmaids and black cars. Judith had never met a bridegroom so willing.

  Caleb, as usual, looked crumpled and bemused as if he'd come from a heavy weekend at a rock festival. The upper section of his dark hair was pulled into a tail at the top of his head and his jeans were slashed. In contrast, Matthias, with his sharply short tawny hair and ironed denims, looked as if he'd just stepped from a Next catalogue.

  She locked the car with the remote. 'I saw him at a shoot today, and left him at his flat after I downloaded the pix.'

  Caleb's forehead furrowed gently. 'Wonder where he's gone?'

  Huddling further into her coat against a wind that felt as if it were slicing her to shreds, Judith frowned. 'Is his mobile off?'

  Matthias nodded. He really was a terribly good-looking man; he had Adam's cheekbones. 'Mobile off, answering machine picking up at his flat.'

  'Maybe he's with a woman?' Caleb grinned, lewdly.

  Matthias shrugged. 'Possible, I suppose.'

  'He's such a gent he's bound to turn the phone off during - '

  'Have you tried your mothe
r's house?' Judith interrupted, making for the front door. The street was too chilly for her. No fan of cold weather at any time, this first winter back in England was proving particularly unbearable, even after the purchase of an enormous duvet-thickness coat in emerald green that Adam laughed at and called her cocoon.

  Caleb allowed himself to be distracted from prurient speculation. 'He's not there.'

  Both young men hovered as Judith wriggled the key into the lock. She grinned at their transparently hopeful expressions. 'Coffee?'

  'Brilliant!'

  'Cool!'

  They jumped up the two steps and crowded into the warmth behind her, full of young man energy. 'Tot in the coffee?' suggested Caleb, extracting a half-bottle of whisky from one of the many pockets of his parka.

  Judith tutted in mock disapproval as she slid it from his hand. 'You're a lot like your father.'

  Once coffee mugs were steaming fragrantly on the low table, Judith pressed play on the answering machine as she dropped into a chair.

  You have two messages. First message, 'Oh, Mum! Aren't you there?'

  She rolled her eyes. 'I can't be here all the time, Kieran.'

  The second began with a lot of clicking and beeping. And then Adam's voice, measured and deep. 'Jude, I tried your mobile, but it went straight to voicemail. I'm at the hospital. Bethan's in labour and panicking like mad. Kieran's gone to bits and has asked me to try and locate you. Bethan's parents are being hostile. I'll hang around till you get here.'

  She snatched her mobile phone from her pocket. A blank screen. She must have forgotten to put it back on after the shoot.

  'So that's where Dad is!' Caleb sounded pleased to have the mystery solved.

  Matthias looked interested. 'Who's Bethan? Does Dad mean your Kieran, Judith?'

  But Judith, a sudden victim to the shakes, was handing back the whisky and hunting down the emerald green cocoon.

  She whizzed through the frosty evening to where the blocky grey shapes of the hospital buildings huddled at the edge of town. At least there were parking spaces available at this time of night, she thought, reversing raggedly into one. Parking was murder during the day, and if you ever found a space it cost you three quid.