Like One of the Family

by Nesta Tuomey

  ‘I can’t wait to get back and make it right with her,’ Terry was saying. ‘But she’s not the kind to hold a grudge. That’s what I like so much about her, Mum. She’s great to talk to. I mean she listens and makes intelligent remarks. Not like some girls with nothing between their shoulders.’

  He sounds over the moon about this girl, thought Jane uneasily. She forced herself to listen.

  ‘I think I always liked her. Even before she came away with us on holidays,’ Terry admitted with a sheepish laugh.

  ‘Give me my sunglasses, Mum,’ he said suddenly. ‘This sun is getting me right in the eyes. On the back seat,’ he directed her. ‘Under the map.’

  Jane unfastened her seat-belt and reached into the back. It was Claire he was talking about. Terry was in love with Claire. Distractedly she handed him the sunglasses, as she tried to grasp the significance of what he was telling her. When had it all started? Jane wondered in dismay. And how far had it gone? She wanted, yet didn’t want to know.

  As her son chatted on, Jane told herself it was incredible and yet not so incredible. She was amazed that she hadn’t cottoned on to it earlier. Right there in front of her eyes if only she had seen it. She felt a strong compulsion to let Terry know something about Claire’s past. Perhaps warn him that all wasn’t as uncomplicated as it seemed. But what could she say?

  Your father made her pregnant when she was thirteen years old and I destroyed the child in her womb.

  Jane shuddered. Who should be warned against whom? Her handsome headstrong son or the girl who had already suffered enough at their hands? Only one thing was clear. Terry should be made fully aware of the situation before he committed himself further. Otherwise, Jane believed there might be even greater difficulties to face in the future. But how to do this without seeming to discredit Claire?

  ‘Terry,’ Jane began, ‘There is something I feel I must tell you, but I don’t quite know how to say it.’

  ‘What about, Mum?’ Terry frowned in concentration as he carefully rounded the corner. He had hardly time to straighten out when he was faced with another steep bend. ‘Bloody awful road,’ he muttered, as the lorry in front braked and skidded out of sight on dusty wheels, loose pieces of sugar cane working free of the slackened ropes and littering the road.

  Jane began, choosing her words carefully. ‘Claire is a lovely girl - please don’t take amiss what I am about to say - but certain events took place in the past which make it unwise...’

  ‘Mum!’ Terry interrupted, taking his eyes off the road to glance at her. ‘‘I know all that! Dad fancied Claire’s mother, is that it?’ He shot her a glance that was both pained and defiant. ‘I know all that!’

  Jane was taken aback but carried on. ‘I think not,’ she said quietly. ‘There was rather more to it than you imagine.’ She broke off, recollecting where they were, negotiating torturous bends in the shimmering heat. Involuntarily she glanced out the window. The least little distraction, she thought with a shiver.

  ‘You can’t just leave it like that,’ Terry protested, two bright spots burning in his cheeks. He drove faster, his hands painfully gripping the steering wheel. ‘Come on out with it, Mum. Whatever you have to say won’t make me feel any less for Claire.’ He caught his breath painfully. ‘I can’t believe you’re doing this. I always thought you liked her.’ He was almost panting in his distress. ‘I really did. Now you’re trying to make me think badly of her.’ He choked, unable to go on.

  ‘No, no that’s the very last thing I want,’ Jane cried, distressed beyond words herself. Hardly aware what she was doing she put out her hand to reassure him that he was wrong. Terry jumped nervily at her touch and swung fast round the narrow bend without slackening speed. As he did so, a huge bale of sugar cane broke free from the lorry in front and somersaulted into his path. Instinctively, Terry swerved to avoid it and his tyres skidded out of control on the loose, sappy canes, sending him speeding into the path of an oncoming car.

  ‘We’re going to die,’ was Jane’s last horrified thought before the two cars slammed together. She felt agonising pain in her head and chest, then everything was blotted out as she lost consciousness.

  The ambulance arrived within a half-hour. Terry heard the wailing siren as he slumped in the seat beside his mother and listened in anguish to her shallow breathing. A highway patrol man stood in his green uniform directing traffic past the two crashed vehicles. The other driver had been wearing a seat-belt like Terry, and was dazed but unharmed.

  Why wasn’t Mum wearing hers? Terry wondered, then remembered her reaching into the back for his sunglasses. Damn! She must have forgotten to fasten it again. He averted his eyes from the angry red gash on her forehead, where she had been thrown forward into the windscreen.

  Terry felt a deep sense of guilt. Fine fighter pilot he would make if every time the going got rough he allowed himself to be distracted.

  He got out of the car, dazed and shocked, but apart from an aching hip and shoulder where the seat-belt had cut into his flesh, he didn’t think he was injured. The ambulance had halted a little way off and the paramedics came with a stretcher. They checked Jane’s pulse and made a quick preliminary examination before carefully lifting her on to the stretcher.

  She stirred and moaned softly as the doors slammed shut and the ambulance moved forward.

  Terry bent over her. ‘You’re all right, Mum,’ he told her. ‘We’re on our way to the hospital.’

  She opened her eyes. They were dazed and unfocused. She rolled her head on the pillow from side to side and muttered his name.

  ‘Don’t try to speak,’ Terry begged her.

  Her lids fluttered closed. As the ambulance swayed and bumped its way over the narrow twisty roads into Motril Terry sat tensed beside her, his eyes trained anxiously on her face.

  At about the same time that the ambulance was speeding into Motril, Claire was standing in front of the stove, poking bubbling spaghetti with a fork. Sheena came noisily into the kitchen and flung down her satchel.

  ‘I’m starving,’ Sheena cried. ‘When will tea be ready?’

  ‘About ten minutes.’

  As Sheena sat down at the table and began pinching pieces out of a loaf and stuffing them into her mouth, as Claire turned back to the stove.

  Terry would be home in another few hours, she thought, but he’d be so late she wouldn’t see him. And by the time he got up in the morning she would have already left for college. With Jane due home this was her last night. All too soon she would be back in her own house.

  Back to Annette and her endless drinking.

  Claire sighed. ‘Sheena!’ she called behind her. ‘Will there be enough in this for three of us?’ holding up the family-size jar of pasta sauce. . ‘Loads,’ Sheena said absently. She had already made herself a cup of tea and was munching her way through cheese and crackers. ‘Bung it in and let’s get started. I’ll die if I don’t eat soon.’

  Claire heated the sauce and drained the spaghetti. Another four hours and they’ll be leaving for the airport, she thought. It occurred to her that even if she missed her nine-thirty lecture in the morning and hung about the house she still mightn’t see Terry. Miss a lecture and her exams in less than two months! She must be mad where Terry was concerned.

  She hadn’t done much studying over the last few days and rationalised her idleness with the excuse that Ruthie and Sheena needed her. Now she heaped spaghetti on to plates and generously ladled tomato sauce on top.

  ‘Tea’s ready,’ she called. ‘Come and get it!’

  Terry strolled restlessly up and down the hospital corridor, acutely aware that in a matter of hours their flight would be departing from Malaga.

  He sighed and rubbed his bruised shoulder, regretting that he had made light of his own injuries when the doctor wished to examine him. His hip too was throbbing just as painfully.

  ‘Señor McArdle!’ He heard someone calling and swung round. He saw a nurse beckoning to him and followed her eagerly into the cu
rtained cubicle. His mother lay propped up in bed and, to Terry’s relief, her eyes were open.

  Jane smiled wanly at him, her face pale under the huge sticking plaster on her forehead, and put out her hand to him. Terry moved close and gently took it.

  ‘Mum! Thank God.’ He gave a shaky little laugh. ‘You gave me a real fright, you know.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Jane whispered. ‘I suppose we are lucky to be alive.’ She was in a hospital gown and he saw that under the white material her chest was bulkily bandaged. Terry swallowed hard. He found himself trembling and sank down on the chair beside the bed.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Jane asked in weak anxiety. ‘You look very pale.’

  ‘I’m fine, Mum. Just a few bruises, that’s all.’

  She nodded in relief and her eye-lids began to droop.

  ‘The doctor has given her a sedative,’ the nurse told him quietly. ‘She will be very uncomfortable for a while.’

  ‘But we are flying home in another few hours,’ his voice tailed away. Now what was going to happen?

  The nurse suggested that he might like to speak to the doctor and Terry nodded and followed her out of the cubicle.

  ‘Your mother has suffered three broken ribs and is concussed,’ he told Terry. ‘It will be some time before she will be well enough to leave the hospital.’ He glanced into the young man’s anxious face and decided not to tell him that one rib had pierced a lung.

  ‘But we are due to fly home tonight.’ Somehow he had been hoping for a miracle to get them to the airport. He saw now that this was out of the question.

  The doctor looked at him sympathetically. ‘Your mother needs rest and care,’ he said gently. ‘She will be in good hands here.’

  Terry did not doubt it, but how could he go off and leave her on her own like this in a strange country. Yet go he must, Terry realised. He was due back on duty at Baldonnel next day. Then he had an idea. He would ring Antonio Gonzalez. The Spaniard would advise him what to do.

  Terry searched in his mother’s bag and found the property developer’s business card. His residence was listed.

  Señor Gonzalez responded at once to Terry’s plea for help.

  He was really decent, Terry thought as he replaced the receiver, thinking of the Spaniard’s offer drive him to Malaga Airport. He had been very concerned about Jane and was making plans to visit her. As Terry hurried back to where his mother lay, he felt immensely relieved having someone so reliable to take care of her..

  An hour later, Terry sat in the front seat of the Mercedes beside Fernando, as the powerful car sped along by the darkened coast. He had been a bit taken aback when he came out of the hospital to find not Antonio but his son waiting at the entrance. The young Spaniard had regarded him unsmiling and clicked open the passenger door, without getting out of the car.

  ‘Ah, so San Fernando isn’t the paragon Mum thinks,’ Terry told himself, amused He grinned and relaxed back in the seat.

  They had less than ninety minutes to get to the airport.

  ‘Think we’ll make it?’ Terry glanced at the Spaniard’s aloof profile.

  ‘Naturally,’ Fernando replied haughtily. He rested his hands lightly on the wheel, exerting no more pressure than was needed to keep the powerful car speeding through the night. He drove exceedingly well, Terry grudgingly admitted. The car was a beauty, of course. He would love to drive it himself.

  As though tuned into his thoughts Fernando asked, ‘Your mother was driving at the time of the accident?’

  ‘No... I was,’ Terry admitted reluctantly.

  ‘Aah, you were.’

  Terry felt the blood warm his cheeks. ‘A cargo of sugar cane dropped its load right in our path,’ he said.

  ‘You swerved to avoid it, eh?’

  ‘Something like that,’ Terry agreed.

  ‘You were going too fast?’

  Terry frowned. ‘Not really.’

  ‘Perhaps you are not used to driving?’

  ‘Yes I am,’ Terry answered shortly, resentful of this interrogation. Who the hell did he think he was!

  ‘It must have been a great shock,’ Fernando said, suddenly becoming more human. ‘I am sure you are very concerned about your mother.’

  ‘Naturally!’ Terry sounded every bit as haughty as the Spaniard.

  They stopped by the apartment to pick up Terry’s bag and drove swiftly on. No words passed between them on this final lap of the journey, but when Fernando stopped the car before the airport terminal building he turned to Terry and said gently, ‘Please believe we will do everything in our power to ensure that your mother makes a good recovery.’ He smiled warmly and held out his hand. ‘Hasta luego.’

  ‘So long!’ Terry shook it briefly and smiled in return. ‘Thanks for the lift.’

  ‘De nada,’ Fernando said graciously.

  When he was gone, Terry glanced at his watch and saw that they had made the airport with eight minutes to spare. Naturally! Despite himself he had to grin. He took the remaining few yards at a painful run and arrived panting in front of the check-in desk. As he passed his ticket over the counter his jauntiness left him and he was suddenly hit by a wave of loneliness. How happily he and his mother had arrived into Spain only a few short days ago. He swallowed past the obstruction in his throat, unable to rid himself of the feeling that he had deserted her.

  Claire was late going to bed. She wanted everything to look just right when Jane returned and, as soon as the other two had gone yawning up the stairs, began cleaning the kitchen, doing a thorough job of tidying presses and mopping out the floor. One thing seemed to lead to another. The cooker hadn’t been cleaned in weeks and detracted from the overall effect. When at last she turned off the kitchen light and wearily climbed the stairs to bed, it was after one o’clock.

  The bath beckoned invitingly and she gave into the temptation to run the hot water and have a long soak. There was never enough hot water at home to do more than just shallow-bathe. She mingled in some of Sheena’s lavender bath essence and lowered herself into the scented water.

  She lay there letting the hot water wash over her, drawing the ache from her tired muscles. Her hair spread out like a pale, silken fan, dark gold where it dipped the water. The occasional lazy stirring of her limbs was the only sound to break the silence.

  Gradually she became aware of sounds below: a car stopping, doors slamming, footsteps in the hall. Surely they weren’t home already!

  She stepped on to the floor, wrung out her wet hair, and wrapped the towel about her damp body. She opened the bathroom door and was about to go quickly to her room when she heard footsteps on the stairs. Claire turned her head and saw Terry step on to the landing.

  For a moment she froze, the sight of him seeming to deprive her of all movement.

  Terry checked, tiredly, and his bag dropped on the carpet. Framed in the open doorway he saw a slim girl, the snowy whiteness of her cotton towel and the dark gold of her long, wet hair accentuated by the light falling on them. Then the haze of tiredness cleared from his eyes and it was Claire.

  They stared at each other for a long moment, and then Terry moved forward as Claire came to meet him. He put out both his arms to her and she felt them going about her and he held her close to him in a desperate grip.

  ‘Mum’s not with me,’ he spoke against her wet hair, ‘We... she... had an accident.’ His voice shook. ‘She’s back in Spain in a hospital in Motril. I had to come home on my own. Oh Clairey.’ He looked down into her face with such a look of misery that her heart caught in her throat.

  Forgetful of her towel, she raised her hand and gently stroked his face. How pale and exhausted he was. His eyes in the dim light had an odd, blind look. She drew him with her through the open door of the nearest bedroom – Jane’s – and his arms lifted her and pushed her down on the bed. He pulled aside the thick cotton towel, and laid his tired face between her small firm breasts. Her skin was fresh from the bath, cool and sweet, and he kissed it lingeringly, moving his tired fa
ce and aching neck against it, holding her closer. Then he raised himself up and his mouth burned kisses on hers and his arms about her drove the breath from her body.

  ‘Oh Clairey,’ he told her softly, his voice breaking huskily in his throat, ‘I’ve missed and wanted you so much.’ When his hands moved again Claire felt a fleeting fear which she quickly banished. But this was not Eddie. This was Terry... Terry...

  There was a great physical hunger in Terry’s touches and kisses, as though he were trying to lose himself in her firm, smooth body, to recover from the tremendous strain of the past hours. She was glad to be able to give him that.

  Jane was injured - maybe badly. Tomorrow enquiries would have to be made and the others told. But now in the quiet, sleeping house there was only herself and Terry, his hands and his mouth, kissing and caressing her, and needing her. To think he might have been injured. Killed! But he was alive and in her arms. Nothing else mattered.

  At last he shuddered and was still, his arm thrown possessively across her body, in a deep sleep. Claire eased the duvet out from under him and drew it snugly about the pair of them. There was a faint light under the bedroom door and the usual shifting, creaking night sounds of the McArdle’s house. Once an ambulance wailed past in the distance and once, close to the house, some feline prowler noisily overturned a refuse bin, but Terry did not stir. Claire held him closer, her cheek against his hair, and was not fearful of anything any more. Presently she grew drowsy herself, lulled by his breathing into a sleep as sound as his own.

  Towards morning Claire awoke and felt Terry stir and pull away from her. After a moment she opened her eyes sleepily and turned her head to look at him. He was gazing at her and he smiled and pulled her into his arms. Then he winced and Claire saw his eyes darken with pain.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she whispered.

  ‘My... shoulder... it hurts like hell.’

  ‘Let me see.’ He was wearing only a shirt and she gently eased it across his chest and bared his shoulder. She drew in her breath sharply. A livid bruise ran from his collar bone down along the left side of his chest and across his right hip bone. With gentle fingers she stroked the bruised area and then stooped her head to brush it with her lips.