Uphill All the Way (28 page)

Hey Mum. Me and Beth are fine. We live in a house we rent from a bloke. I got a job and Beth's doing her A2s at a college next year, so she can go to uni. She's temping till then.
' Impatiently, she used her sleeve against her eyes again.
'
Sorry I haven't been in touch, I could've e-mailed u earlier, but we needed 2 get our heads round things. You know how it is.
U
know how it is! Clearing off and coping on your own is sometimes the only way. I know all the things u r going 2 ask, so I'll save you the bother. 1) Yes, Bethan sent a letter to her parents, so they know she's ok. But she posted it when we went away on a coach for a day so they won't know where she is. 2) Leaving was her plan, but I wanted the same. 3) No, I haven't contacted Dad. If you want to tell him I'm ok, that's up 2 u. He'll be completely peed at me, anyway. C u again, luv luv luv, Kieran.

Judith wiped her cheeks with the backs her hands, and then dried her hands on her jeans.
C u again!
It didn't matter so much when. Just so long as it happened. So long as she knew he was safe, and one day she'd see his brown hair sticking up at the front and his lip creasing when he smiled.

Shaking, she began to type a reply, careful to let him know how much she loved him, how much it meant to hear from him and know him to be out of harm's way. Not giving even a hint that her cheeks were wet and her fingers rubbery with emotion, as she ended:
I shall certainly let Dad know that you're OK, darling. He was distraught when you left. I'm glad Bethan wrote to her parents, they must've been so relieved... any chance of you doing the same for Dad? Please? Tons of love forever, Mum xxxxxxxxxxx

And then Adam was beside her, sliding his arms around her and pulling her head onto his shoulder, not asking any questions, just stating, gruff with dismay, 'I don't like it when you cry.'

But she only sobbed harder. 'He's OK! Adam, he's OK! He's living in a rented house and he's got a job...'

He rocked her while relief shook through her, stroking her hair and letting her tears soak his shirt while the curry stuck and burnt, and the rice he'd been watching like a mother with a baby, boiled dry.

They ordered a takeaway while the pans containing the ruins of Adam's green curry steeped in hot soapy water.

Adam watched as she ladled rice from
The Oriental Garden
- never as fluffy as his - and creamy yellow korma out of the foil cartons and onto hot plates. 'Are you going to ring him?'

'Him' meant Tom. She blew on a steaming, fragrant spoonful of curry that she was suddenly ravenous for, but which scorched her lip when she approached it. 'He'll hang up on me.'

Adam nodded, annoyingly managing a spoonful of succulent chicken and plump sultanas as if it wasn't hot at all. 'And if you knock on his door?'

Judith sucked air into her mouth in inelegant whoops as she put the curry sauce in anyway, and it stung her tongue. 'Big risk of having door slammed in my face. I'll have to write the stupid man a letter.'

'Perhaps he'll thaw. He'll realise that you didn't have to put yourself out to give him information about Kieran.'

Blowing gustily on her second spoonful, she shook her head. 'Not Tom. He bears a grudge. But at least if he doesn't want anything to do with me I won't have to worry about him any more. It'll be a relief in a way.'

'You haven't
had
to worry about him since you separated.'

'True. Maybe I should've accepted that sooner.' Then she added, honestly. 'I hope Kieran does write to him, though, and that they make up at some time in the future. Tom's later years ought to be happier than they are.'

He cracked open a cold can of Strongbow, and shared it between their two glasses, his eyes exasperated. 'I hope you still worry about me when I'm as old and grouchy as Tom.'

'Of course.' She took the glass up and toasted him. 'To the coming of your grouchy old age.'

He clinked his glass with hers. 'But not too soon.'

Old age that was occasionally grouchy had already come to Judith's mother.

Judith was glad Adam was with her, because Wilma wasn't in one of her sunnier moods. She was waiting for them in her pink-and-white room, rather than in the lounge, her walking frame before her chair like a barrier.

Her first words were, 'Did you get them purses?'

Judith was ready for the question. Experience told her that Wilma wouldn't want the shine being taken off her lovely - cheap - new purse by her companions getting newer ones the same. Petty jealousies and one-upmanship seemed to feature large in communal living. 'Well, I have, but they're not as nice as yours.' She displayed five purses without the section for cards or the stitchery design on the front that Wilma's boasted. 'Do you think the ladies will mind?'

Wilma took a purse in swollen hands, turning it over and unzipping compartments with stiff fingers. 'I'm sure they won't have to! Goodness me, if they send you out for their shopping they'll have to put up with what you bring them, won't they, duck?' And then, 'Smaller than mine, aren't they? Same price?'

Judith agreed that they were, feeling that one more lie in the Great Purse Deceit was scarcely important.

Wilma looked sharply at Adam. 'You haven't put a pound coin in all of these, have you?'

Looking slightly surprised but forbearing to enquire why the devil he should, Adam confirmed that he hadn't.

'Ten pee in each, that's all.' Judith dropped the purses back in the carrier. 'Shall I hand these out, or will you?'

Wilma looked suddenly much mollified. 'I will, duck, to save you the bother.'

Hiding her grin, Judith handed the carrier over, knowing Wilma wouldn't be able to resist reminding all her friends that they must remember to thank Judith.

'So,' Wilma turned to Adam. 'You're letting her go off back to Malta, then?'

Adam raised a rueful eyebrow. 'I'm afraid I have no power to
let her
or prevent her.'

Rattling her dentures around her mouth, Wilma looked thoughtful. 'I thought you might have. Will you try?'

He raised both eyebrows this time, and seemed to consider carefully. 'I don't think there would be much point.'

Wilma sighed. 'No, there never was.' She shook her head dolefully, folding her hands. 'But you're going with her, aren't you?'

'For a couple of weeks.'

'You're a good man. I hope she'll let you look after her.'

'Shouldn't think so.'

As there was only one chair apart from Wilma's, Judith perched on the corner of Wilma's bed, listening with rising irritation to this discussion of her behaviour. 'I have lived in Malta before, it's a safer environment than Brinham,' she pointed out.

Wilma lifted her stick and used it to push her Zimmer aside. 'Do you miss Kieran?' she demanded.

Taken by surprise at Wilma's swerve to another subject, Judith hesitated. She hadn't told her mother that Kieran and Beth had run off, wishing to be in possession of a happy ending in the form of hard information of Kieran's whereabouts first. Kieran's visits had always been sporadic, so Wilma hadn't complained about not seeing him lately. 'Yes,' she agreed, cautiously.

'I know about him and his young lady doing a moonlight.' Wilma ruminated over her dentures again. 'He came to say goodbye.'

Distantly, the rattling of the cocoa trolley beginning its evening circuit could be heard, and the loud and clear voices of the carers talking to other residents. But in Wilma's room the hush swelled until Judith's ears buzzed with the pressure. 'I see.' Her voice somehow sounded as if she were under water.

She minded, she realised, with a rush of hot anger. She minded that Wilma had seen Kieran to say goodbye, when Judith hadn't. Dimly, she was aware of Adam leaving the room, of the murmur of his voice, of him returning with cocoa for three. Automatically, she let him pass her a cup and saucer. The crockery used by The Cottage had a matte feel to it that she disliked, and now it positively set her teeth on edge as she sipped to ease her rigid throat.

Wilma took saucer in one hand and cup in the other. 'He told me about the baby. Poor little dot, wasn't he? Poor, poor little dot.'

Judith's voice seemed to be coming from someone else. 'And what did you say to him?'

The light reflected off Wilma's glasses. 'I told him how much you'd miss him, duck. Have you heard from him?'

'Yes.' Judith swallowed more of the milky cocoa. 'Did he tell you where he was going?'

'Back to Sheffield.' Wilma said it as if there should be an 'of course' at the end of the sentence.

The cocoa was gone and Judith felt sick. It had been too milky, too sweet. Kieran hadn't trusted her enough to tell her where he was going to live. Of course, Sheffield, where he'd been at university and knew the area, had friends, was an obvious choice. Easy for him to organise accommodation and a job. Why had she never thought of it? And what possible use was the information now that she had it?

In the darkness of the car Adam delayed starting the engine, and took her hand instead. 'He may have been trying to protect you. He knew his father's temper, he probably felt that you'd be more comfortable facing Tom if you genuinely didn't know where he'd gone.'

'You're probably right,' she agreed, dully.

'I don't think Wilma realised she might hurt your feelings.'

'Probably not.' It was raining now, the droplets on the windscreen shattering the car park lights into fragments in the navy blue evening.

His thumb stroked her knuckles. 'I think she was just hinting that she'll miss you in the same way that you miss Kieran.'

'I expect so,' she muttered, by way of variation. She knew the leaden emptiness of missing someone. The way you got used to it, learnt to live around an absence.

'She's bound to miss you. So will Molly. And so will I.'

'I'm only going for a recce, that's all. If I decide to live there again it'll take time to organise.'

His breath came out in a heavy sigh, steaming up the windscreen. 'I suppose...' He considered his words, then began again. 'I suppose none of us can see quite what would keep you here. We feel the "recce" is just a formality. You're humouring us.'

Chapter Twenty-five

Adam pulled up outside Judith's house, where the windows were dark, as usual.

She screwed up her eyes and stared across the street. 'Hell's blood, is that Tom waiting in his truck?'

He followed her gaze. 'Looks like it. Shame. I quite liked it when he wasn't speaking to you.' His tone of voice told her that he wasn't entirely joking.

They listened to the hiss of the rain, the warmth generated by the heaters quickly seeping away. The rain increased, until the hiss became a grumble. Grudgingly, Adam offered, 'I can stay out of earshot while you talk to him.' The inference being that he intended to remain within eyesight.

Judith unfastened the seat belt and let it slither over her shoulder. 'Let's make a run for the door. If he spots us, I suppose we'll have to let him in.'

'Run quickly, then.'

But he did spot them.

By the time Judith had jiggled the key in the lock and Adam had hit the door to make it open, Tom was on the garden path behind them, huddled against the sting of the rain.

Switching on the hall light and hanging her wet coat over the newel post, Judith faced Tom in the hall while Adam went down the passage to the kitchen, discreet but not out of sight. 'Not cutting me dead, tonight?' Judith challenged.

Rain dripped from the peak of Tom's navy baseball cap with the name of a builders' merchant embroidered on the front. He ignored her question. 'Do you know where he is?'

'He didn't tell me.'

In the kitchen, Adam coughed.

Tom scowled. 'I suppose it's too much to ask that we do this privately?'

Judith folded her arms. 'Yes, actually.'

He stepped closer to loom over her. 'Did he phone, or write? Where's the letter?'

She felt her temper rising. 'Get out of my face! You really are lacking in all manners and grace!' she challenged. 'Leave my house, or allow me to breathe.'

Another glower, but Tom stepped back.

She let enough silence elapse to annoy him. Then, 'I can't tell you more than I have. He contacted me. He gave me permission to let you know he's all right. That's it.'

In the kitchen, the kettle bubbled to the boil, and clicked off. Adam turned the pages of a newspaper as loudly as it was possible to turn them, lounging against the kitchen worktop. Tom removed his sullen stare from Judith and narrowed his eyes in Adam's direction. 'Do I have to worry about him?'

'In what way?' Judith hadn't quite meant to inject the astonishment that coloured her voice.

He turned his angry eyes back to her. 'Are you
together
? A
couple
? An
item
?'