Just for the Holidays

by Sue Moorcroft

  Natasha and Jordan looked bewildered; Michele frozen; Alister as if his worst fears were about to be realised.

  ‘Why?’ breathed Michele, at last. Leah knew what her sister was asking. Not why had Bailey turned up when Michele had ended things, but why had he barged into the spotlight when her children and her ex-husband were in the audience?

  Bailey’s pleading eyes were fixed on her. ‘I turned back. You didn’t answer my texts. I didn’t know if you were OK. If the baby’s OK.’

  Michele’s hand dropped to her stomach as Jordan, almost in slow motion, turned on her with an incredulous stare.

  Natasha, slower at joining the dots, frowned. ‘Jordan, what’s your footie coach doing here?’

  Still in slow motion, Michele opened her arms, as if to draw the kids into a safe harbour. Or to plead for forgiveness. ‘Bailey’s the baby’s dad,’ she whispered. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t told you yet. I wanted to, but–’ She swallowed. ‘I didn’t know how.’

  Jordan jerked back as if she’d raked him with her nails. ‘You have to be kidding! Bailey?’ He turned to his father. ‘Did you know?’

  Alister leaned against the side of the car looking grey and defeated. ‘I suspected, but I’d hoped to be wrong.’

  Jordan turned to Bailey with a snarl. ‘You dick.’

  Bailey looked hurt. ‘Jordan, man. Me and your mum couldn’t help it. We love each other.’

  ‘Bullshit.’ Jordan turned on his mother with such an expression of loathing that she flinched. ‘You … cougar.’ Shoving past Scott he stumbled blindly down the side of the house. Natasha, freckles standing out like paint on her poor white little face, scampered in his wake. Settling his crutches, Alister started slowly and painfully after them.

  Leah, deciding that she was de trop in a conversation that was obviously overdue between Bailey and Michele, ran to catch up as Alister steered the kids towards the annexe. Once inside, she swiftly pulled up two chairs for a pallid Alister to heave himself and his leg into.

  Brushing away angry tears, Jordan propped his back against the wall. ‘Did you know, Leah?’

  Alister’s and Natasha’s heads snapped her way.

  Leah’s stomach disappeared down a lift shaft. She straightened up to face a row of accusing eyes. ‘I found out the day before Michele went off,’ she admitted. She paused to lick her lips, feeling suddenly the worst kind of worm. ‘I honestly didn’t feel it was my secret to tell and she said she’d explain everything when she came back.’

  ‘But she didn’t,’ Natasha whispered. ‘You still didn’t tell us.’

  Miserably, Leah shook her head. ‘No, I asked her again to do it but …’ She’d been too taken up with slithering out from her Deputy Mum role and into bed with Ronan to persist.

  Jordan slid down the wall and covered his eyes. Natasha stared at Leah, looking as stricken as if her aunt had punched her in the face.

  Alister gazed blankly at the floor. ‘You were in a difficult situation and we shouldn’t blame you for your loyalty to your sister. It’s the foundation of everything you’ve done for us this summer.’ When he did look at Leah, his eyes were blank with pain. ‘But perhaps now you could leave me alone with my children?’

  Leah made it up the garden on legs that felt made of wool. Scott waited near the door, for once unsmiling.

  ‘Shit hit the fan,’ he observed economically, following her into the deserted kitchen.

  Leah tried to agree but, instead, began to cry. ‘The kids are gutted because I knew and didn’t tell them.’

  He slid his arms around her. ‘You were between the proverbial rock and hard place. They’ll see that in a while.’

  Feeling her phone vibrate in her pocket, Leah dragged it out to read its text message with a sudden hope that one of the occupants of the annexe was reaching out to forgive her. But instead:

  Ronan: I still want to talk. Please?

  ‘Oh, no,’ she hiccupped, showing Scott the message. ‘Like I’m going to have Curtis on my conscience, too. Today’s a shining example of why I’m neither married nor a mother.’

  ‘Just delete it.’ Scott snatched the phone and did exactly that. ‘Make him gone.’

  If it wasn’t for the human need for food and drink, Leah reflected, there was no telling how long the family might have remained in fragments. As it was, all she had to do was remain in the kitchen and, over the hours, everybody came to her.

  First, Michele, eyes red and swollen, uttering a tragic ‘My children hate me,’ and flinging herself into Leah’s arms. ‘Should I go to them?’

  Automatically, Leah held her tight. ‘They don’t hate you. But they feel betrayed and I think you need to wait till they’re ready to talk.’

  Judging by Michele’s renewed sobbing, she didn’t find that advice particularly comforting, but Leah, exhausted by her own sorrow, had limited capacity to be Michele’s emotional trampoline. She doled out what sisterly comfort she found herself capable of, sat Michele at the table with a cup of camomile tea, then continued her task of transferring food from the fridge to a huge saucepan. Her eyes burned as she wiped the shiitake mushrooms. The hysterical laughter they’d caused seemed part of a different world. ‘You’ve been a while. Where’s Bailey?’

  ‘I had to convince him to go.’ Michele blew her nose. ‘It really is over.’

  Twenty minutes later, as if smelling the red wine sauce spiked with rosemary, Alister and the children edged in through the door.

  Michele leaped up, hands clutched together so hard the knuckles whitened. ‘I’m so sorry! There just seemed no good time to tell you. I was scared. But letting you find out the way you did made everything ten times worse.’

  Leah put down the knife and the tomato she’d been about to slice. ‘Maybe you guys ought to be on your own.’

  ‘No.’ Alister made his crutch-hop way to the table. ‘You’re part of this. We need to do some air-clearing.’ He dropped down into the chair furthest from Michele.

  The children stationed themselves in the chairs either side of him. ‘We’re sorry we were angry at you, Leah,’ offered Natasha. ‘You’ve been fantastic all holiday.’

  Jordan nodded. ‘Yeah. We get you were stuck in the middle.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Leah whispered, no more than marginally comforted. The words were delivered as if rehearsed and almost without expression.

  ‘So.’ Alister winced as he settled his leg, not meeting Michele’s eyes. ‘We need to talk about next steps.’

  Leah didn’t hesitate. ‘Let’s go home.’

  Light crept into Michele’s expression. ‘Yes, let’s.’

  Jordan and Natasha nodded.

  ‘I was thinking longer term than that but I have to confess that it sounds a wonderful idea.’ Alister rubbed his hand over his eyes. ‘Hopefully I can manage the stairs at my flat. I’m getting stronger every day and maybe I can get by if I order ready meals from Tesco.’

  ‘I’ll stay with you to help,’ Jordan offered. His eyes slid to Leah. ‘If Scott’s driving your car home, can I go with him?’

  ‘But you will come home when Dad’s better, Jordan?’ Michele’s face was furrowed with grief.

  Jordan just shrugged without looking at her.

  ‘What about you?’ Alister took his daughter’s hand.

  Natasha shrugged, face woebegone. ‘You’ve only got one spare room. I suppose I’ll be OK with Mum.’

  Alister nodded understandingly. ‘I’ll be buying somewhere bigger when Mum and me get the finances straight.’

  While Michele sat, dumb with misery, watching her children turning her a cold shoulder, Alister took refuge in business-like efficiency. ‘That’s agreed, then. If we pack this evening we can get off early tomorrow. I’ll change the ferry bookings online. I can telephone my nurse from the car in the morning to explain that I’m going home and email M. Simon to say we’re vacating early. We can fuel the cars in Muntsheim en route to joining the Autoroute de l’Est and, traffic allowing, have a late lunch on the ferry. If th
e drivers aren’t too tired to go on we’ll be in Bettsbrough tomorrow evening.’ He smiled at the children. ‘Do you want to go next door and say bye to Curtis?’

  Jordan and Natasha exchanged glances. Natasha shrugged. ‘We’ll text him when we’re home.’

  Alister turned an enquiring gaze on Leah.

  Silently, she shook her head. She wouldn’t be going next door to say her farewells, either.

  ‘Then,’ he said, ‘there doesn’t seem to be much keeping us here.’

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Although he’d checked his phone every few minutes since sending last night’s text, Ronan jumped when his phone rang at 9 a.m.

  It wasn’t Leah. Damn.

  But it was a call he had to take. ‘Henry! Mr Elusive.’

  Henry was all business. ‘Sorry not to get back to you. It’s not an easy time for me.’

  ‘Nor me, owing to my injury and the consequent lack of company sick pay,’ Ronan replied grimly, equally direct.

  ‘OK, well, the good news is that you’re entitled to claim expenses, losses and compensation for pain and suffering. Your losses can include both basic and flight pay.’

  Ronan felt a stirring of optimism. ‘That’s great!’

  ‘No skin off my nose. The insurance company pays under the employer’s liability,’ returned Henry, bluntly. ‘The rest is bad news. I’m afraid you’ve written Buzzair Two off.’

  The optimism, appropriately, took a nosedive. ‘I did the best that could be done with a sick engine.’

  Henry snorted. ‘Reducing my fleet from four to three, involving me in untold work and stress – and all the time my supposed chief pilot is sunning himself abroad.’

  Between his eyes, Ronan could feel rage fermenting. He quashed it ruthlessly. Letting rip would only cloud his thinking.

  ‘It’s a nightmare,’ Henry went on. ‘The broker has taken weeks and now the insurance company’s seeking to subrogate the claim via the maintenance company. The maintenance company is not happy. I have a deductible of 2.5% on the hull insurance, and what about betterment charges? My premiums are set to rocket–’

  ‘That’s all bullshit.’ Ronan spoke quietly but it did halt Henry’s tirade. ‘Claims will take a long time if you use cheap companies. If the aircraft’s written off there can be no betterment charges. The maintenance company is at fault and you can reclaim your deductible from them. Your premiums cannot be affected.’

  He listened for several seconds to Henry breathing, a feeling growing that there was more wrong with this conversation than he’d yet grasped.

  Abruptly, Henry changed tack. ‘Look, Ronan, you’ve been a good employee till now, so I’m going to give you the opportunity to resign. Then, when you find another job, I’ll be able to provide a reference. Wouldn’t that be best for us all?’

  Ronan’s rage erupted. ‘No, it fucking wouldn’t! Why should I resign, as if my airmanship was at fault? And what’s going to happen if I don’t?’

  Another silence. Then, ‘I think you’ll find resignation’s the best course.’ Henry ended the call.

  Gripping the now silent phone as if he’d like to grind it to dust, Ronan stared out of the window, noting low altitude cumulonimbus cloud and thinking, absently, that it wouldn’t be the best day to fly a helicopter. The ranking of the formation suggested a cold front or a squall. Maybe lightning.

  When would he be up among the clouds again? He was beginning to feel a vast emptiness where his career used to be.

  Still staring out of the window, he discarded his phone and began his physio, arms above his head, to the side, up his back. The flexion behind his back was still the weakest function. As he worked on it he realised that he was no longer studying the clouds. Maybe lightning had already struck him because he was watching the garden next door in the hope of catching a glimpse of Leah, the woman who’d turned the walls around his heart to dust. But no washing danced on the line, no lounger supported her curvy figure.

  He checked his phone again. No reply to his text.

  From behind him came Curtis’s voice. ‘I’m hungry.’

  ‘We’ll get breakfast.’ Turning away from his sad and fruitless vigil, he managed a smile for his son.

  Down in the kitchen Ronan cast a jaundiced eye over the cabinet doors that still needed refinishing. He’d have plenty of time for them if Leah kept up her policy of non-communication. ‘What date do you need to be back at school?’

  Curtis, who’d taken the juice carton from the fridge and was drinking directly from it, managed a shrug.

  ‘Fifth of September.’ Selina was hovering in the doorway, as if unsure of her welcome.

  Ronan felt a sudden twinge of conscience. She was no longer his wife and he hadn’t invited her to land herself on him but it was wrong to make her feel so unwelcome that she didn’t want to venture into the room. He took down a mug and plate for her. ‘Coffee? Toast? Cereal?’

  ‘Fry up?’ suggested Curtis hopefully.

  ‘OK, we’ll call it brunch.’ He began collecting eggs and sausages from the fridge.

  Selina opened the bread bin. ‘I’ll make toast.’

  It was weird for Ronan to find himself sharing a kitchen with Selina again, reaching for the cutlery drawer together – ‘Sorry, you first’ – or turning to warm the plates and finding her already doing it.

  At the end of the meal, Curtis laid down his cutlery and burped. ‘I might go round and see if Natasha and Jordan want to hang.’

  ‘Not literally, I hope.’ Ronan decided not to suggest that Curtis might like to help load the dishwasher first. Curtis ‘hanging’ with Natasha might somehow prise open the door to Ronan making contact with Leah.

  Selina sipped her coffee. ‘The people from the gîte? They left early this morning.’

  ‘Oh. Must’ve gone out for the day.’ Curtis looked disappointed, took out his phone and glanced at it as if hoping to see a message. Ronan had to restrain himself from doing the same.

  But Selina was shaking her head. ‘I think they’ve gone home. They woke me up, clattering around, and I watched them loading cases and everything into the cars. Then they went.’

  Curtis gazed open-mouthed at his mother. Ronan, afraid that the same almost comical expression of consternation was mirrored on his own face, clapped a hand to his son’s shoulder. ‘You could text Natasha and find out.’

  Ungraciously, Curtis shrugged him off. ‘I know, right.’

  Upstairs, Curtis fell onto his bed. His mum must be talking crap. She must be. He checked his WhatsApp and Snap Chat in case he’d missed anything, then, thumbs flashing over his phone screen, texted Natasha.

  Curtis: Where u at?

  He checked to see if Natasha or Jordan were playing online. Nothing. He took out his laptop and messed around with Moviemaker, because he was supposed to have begun a project before he joined Year 9 IT.

  An hour crawled by while he waited for a reply, importing video clips from his phone of Natasha making faces and Jordan pigging an ice cream. He reversed the second segment so Jordan seemed to spit the ice cream back into the cone, which was gross but proper funny.

  He frowned at his phone. Remembering the Find Friends app, he opened it and typed in N-a-t. A flicker, then a map jumped onto the screen, an orange icon flashing. He frowned harder.

  Curtis clomped downstairs and homed in on his dad working in the kitchen. ‘Look.’ He thrust out the phone.

  His dad glanced up from the cabinet door he had laid out on newspaper on the floor. ‘Map of France.’

  ‘See the orange head? That’s where Natasha’s phone’s at.’

  His dad began to turn his sandpaper to a fresh spot. ‘Oh?’ Then he dropped the sanding block. ‘Natasha’s in Calais?’

  Curtis searched for J-o-r. He tilted the phone to show his dad. ‘And so’s Jordan.’

  ‘Shit.’ His dad must have been annoyed because he almost never swore in Curtis’s hearing.

  ‘Mum was right. They’re on their way home. Do you know wher
e they live?’

  ‘In Cambridgeshire. It’s a couple of hours from Orpington, by road.’

  Curtis felt lead settle in his belly. They’d probably never see one another again.

  His dad sighed, then, grabbing a can of Coke and a bottle of beer from the fridge, beckoned Curtis out in the garden. It was beginning to spit with rain but they sat down at the table as if it was a sunny day.

  Curtis yanked his ring pull and sucked the froth from the top of the can.

  His dad smiled but it didn’t make him look happy. ‘Henry called, acting oddly, trying to make me responsible for something that I’m not. I think we ought to go back to England so I can sort it out. How would you feel about that?’

  ‘Would we all go? All three of us?’

  His dad didn’t quite answer the question. ‘It’s a tricky situation because Mum hasn’t got a house right now. I’ve been trying to help her sort out her rights and that will be easier to do in England, too.’

  Curtis wanted harder facts than that. ‘If we go back to England, where’s Mum going to live? And what about me?’

  His dad gave a reassuring smile. ‘You’ll live with me full time, at least until Mum gets sorted.’

  Curtis waited. Finally, his dad said something that was more what Curtis wanted to hear. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t toss your mum out on the street.’

  ‘Cool. I don’t mind if we go home.’ Curtis found himself beaming. Wow. They really were all living together again.

  His dad looked serious. He spoke very slowly, as if picking his words. ‘Curtis, this is difficult but it would be wrong to let you think that me and Mum are getting back together.’

  ‘Oh.’ The wave of happiness subsided a bit. ‘So you don’t love her back, then?’

  ‘I’m sure we’ll always have affection for each other but when she said she loved me she was emotional, frightened at what had happened with her house.’ His dad’s voice became gentler with every bit of bad news he gave out. ‘Even if she lives at my house for a bit, we’ll have separate bedrooms.’

  ‘I get it.’ Curtis still smiled on the inside. His parents were going to live together. With him. He didn’t care about them sharing a bedroom. Gross or what?