Uphill All The Way

by Sue Moorcroft

  Gathering her bag, she fumbled to lock up. How strung up Kieran would be with excitement and nerves! Amazing to think of him as a father. Her son! What would that make her? A step-grandma. An ex-step-grandma? She'd never hankered to be any such thing, but it was difficult not to be moved at the thought of Kieran's baby.

  Adam was waiting in the lobby of the maternity building. He met her as she dashed into the serene, cloying warmth and antiseptic smell of hospital. 'He rang my flat, trying to find you - '

  'My phone was still off from the shoot - '

  They stopped. Judith laughed, dragging off her coat, far too warm for the powerful central heating. Adam looked as if he was dealing with things with his usual calm, but she felt like a fizzy drink that had just been shaken, ready to explode in a fountain of bubbles. 'You're a saint, Adam, thanks for being with him. Is he in the delivery room?'

  'Bethan's parents have been doing their best to exclude him, but he's hanging in there. I expect he'll be out looking for you any time now.' His eyes looked dark in the night-time lighting. 'He rang my place, trying to find you, Jude. Both he and Bethan were in a state, so I offered to drive them to the hospital, as I was only a few minutes away.'

  She clenched her hands. 'You are kind. Crikey, this is exciting, isn't it? Although I still feel for poor Tom... Anyway, I hope the baby will bring joy, and perhaps the tension between Kieran and the Sutherlands will fade as they realise they all have the same baby to love. I think Bethan and Kieran will keep it once they've had it in their arms, don't you? How could they not? And maybe Nick and Hannah Sutherland will realise that Kieran's not such a bad lad.'

  Adam picked up his jacket. He looked tired, strained, she thought, noticing the deep lines beside his eyes and mouth. Maybe he was feeling under the weather? It would explain his crankiness this afternoon, and the sudden hug he gave her. He was not a casual embracer, they didn't kiss cheeks when they met or link arms if they were walking. She wasn't certain whether he'd always been reserved, or whether it was Shelley's disgust for his maimed hand that made him so unsure how welcome was his touch.

  'Matthias and Caleb were looking for you,' she called after him. 'Matthias wants to talk about the wedding photos.'

  He raised a hand to show that he'd heard.

  It was very still, after he'd gone. Still and almost silent. She caught a bustling midwife who promised to tell Kieran that she was there, then settled herself on a blue plastic chair to examine the lobby. Dim lighting. A broad green line leading from the front door to guide labouring women to the sanctuary of the delivery suites, a silent understanding that brains sometimes turn to custard under the onslaught of childbirth and following a floor plan might be too difficult.

  Twelve blue chairs, the hard kind that bit into the buttocks until they found bone.

  Periods of silence punctuated by doors swishing open, the faint groan of a woman. Another, crying jaggedly. The drinks machine gurgling. The glad sound of the wail of a newborn.

  A half-hour passed slowly.

  And another.

  Where was Kieran? He'd asked for her, why didn't he come? And, now she had time to think about it, why had he asked for her? Surely the place for her was at home, on tenterhooks for news? If Bethan had only just gone into labour it might be twenty-four hours before the baby arrived.

  She looked up at the sound of voices. The Sutherlands! Nick's arms around Hannah. Her heart leapt with anticipatory joy as she hopped up. 'Any news?' She was appalled to hear herself adopt un-Judith-like hushed-but-soppily-thrilled tones.

  The couple sank into seats. They didn't look as if they were coping well with the strain.

  Nick glanced up at Judith. The only colour in his face was the blue of his eyes and the purple shadows below. He hesitated. 'I'm afraid the news is bad. You'd better sit down.'

  Bad. Bad? Dread formed in her chest, ice cold and solid.

  Her knees weakened and she sat, heavily, suddenly, her voice drying to a croak. 'What?'

  'They can't find the baby's heartbeat,' Nick admitted, baldly. He licked his lips and ran his palm over his thinning hair. 'They went for a quiet drink, Bethan and your lad.' That would be Kieran. 'Her waters broke. Me and Hannah were out for the evening, near Cambridge, Bethan rang in a flap and I told her it would take us about forty minutes to get to her, so to phone an ambulance and we'd meet her at the hospital.' He glanced at his wife.

  'But Kieran rang your friend, trying to find you,' Hannah put in.

  'Adam.' Judith nodded.

  'Bethan was in a state, so your friend kindly drove them to the hospital.' She cleared her throat. Her face was chalky, her eyes bright with dread. 'Bethan, apparently, was fretful and crying, she said she hadn't felt the baby move all day.' She wound her hair around her finger. 'She was distressed. Said she had a bad feeling.'

  'Oh, no.' Judith felt as if her own heart was trying to flutter to a halt in sympathy.

  Nick blew out a broken sigh. 'There's no heartbeat on the monitor or the portable scanner. They've gone in for a full scan.'

  'Kieran's with her?' Judith clarified.

  'Yes.' Nick's expression suggested he'd rather Kieran wasn't.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The full scan only confirmed the worst possible fears.

  There was no foetal heartbeat. No foetal movement.

  Nick and Hannah disappeared further into the delivery suite. Judith felt she couldn't follow without a summons. She sat on in the lobby, drinking machine-made coffee as the maternity wing awoke. Cars or ambulances brought in women in the throes. Some were serene, some were frightened, some were joyful. Their partner's anxious arms hovered or a friend trotted alongside, bright and heartening, and all followed the green line as if it were The Yellow Brick Road.

  Later, visitors made a track up the open-tread stairs out of the lobby to the wards, clutching bouquets in pastel colours for new mums, and cuddly toys for new babies.

  But there would be no celebration teddy for Kieran's baby.

  No ceramic clown for Bethan, his hat stuffed with glossy yellow freesias.

  An excited new grandma chattered by, clattering her court shoes, clutching a white wire stork. 'Isn't it beautiful? I told the florist to fill the basket with pink rosebuds and white Baby's Breath. Baby's Breath makes all the difference...'

  Judith flinched, and her fingers found their way to Giorgio's crucifix. It was unbearable to be a spectator to the joy of others this way. But when a sympathetic auxiliary offered her the chance of joining the Sutherlands in a little waiting room she found them clasping hands and muttering, 'She shouldn't have to go through this!' and wasn't certain she hadn't been better in the foyer.

  For Bethan's parents, Kieran was the black villain, the utter bastard, the cavalier rogue. Judith didn't point out that he couldn't have made a baby alone, because she sympathised. Kieran should have taken responsibility.

  At nearly midnight, Bethan gave birth to a statue baby, white, but perfect apart from his eternal silence.

  Back in the private waiting room while Bethan was attended to, Hannah wept for her daughter's sorrow in great gulping sobs that threatened to wrench her slight frame apart.

  Then suddenly Kieran was there, bursting in through scarred blue doors, red blotches and swollen eyes of endless crying marring his pallor. 'Mum?'

  'Oh darling, I'm so sorry!' Judith pulled him fiercely to her, his chest heaving as he gave in to hopeless, roaring sobs, her son, no matter what the lawful status, who needed her.

  'He was already dead!'

  'I know. I've been waiting here.'

  'I kept hoping they were somehow wrong!'

  'So did I, darling. So did I.'

  Kieran went back to his poor Bethan, and presently a midwife came, very grave and sympathetic, to ask the grandparents if they'd like to see the baby now that he was dressed. The parents had chosen a name - Aaron. Judith watched Nick and Hannah follow the blue uniform away without a glance of invitation for her, and her heart contracted painfully.

/>   Kieran was shut into that nightmare of a room with his young girlfriend and his dead son! She imagined the Sutherlands giving him the silent treatment, or spitting agonised accusations at his young, bewildered head.

  She clenched her fists, pacing in frustration as she tried to decide what to do.

  If they couldn't acknowledge her right to be there for the baby, couldn't they find it in their hearts to let her be there for Kieran?

  But her parenthood was ex-.

  And step-.

  And she didn't know where that left her.

  But then a familiar figure was shown through the door and came to an abrupt halt before her. His furious eyes seemed to have shrunk into his puce face, his hands made big fists at his side. 'What are you doing here?'

  She rubbed her eyes, weary of his resentment. 'Kieran asked for me. Oh, Tom!'

  Suffering her sympathetic hand upon his arm, his voice was hoarse with grief. 'They've just told me. About the baby. I was away, I didn't get Kieran's message until now. And it's all over?'

  She nodded. 'Beth's parents have gone to see the baby.'

  Tom charged out immediately, of course, to demand that he be allowed to see the baby, too. Minutes later, a midwife at his side, he thrust open the door to the waiting room. 'Come on,' he ordered. 'I expect Kieran will want to see you.'

  And she and Tom comforted their son, who'd just lost a son of his own, together, all acrimony and emotional baggage pushed aside.

  When she finally emerged from the hush of the delivery room and the beautiful, soundless baby, she was dazed by grief, by the unfairness of life that petered out for no apparent reason.

  'Thank you.' She stood beside Tom on the edge of the car park that stretched away from them. 'For letting me see Kieran. And Aaron.' She felt now the daze that comes with missed sleep and the unreal sensation after being wrung by emotion. Every inch of her ached, and she suspected the base of her spine wouldn't be the same for weeks after so many hours on moulded plastic seats. Probably none of her would.

  He thrust his hands into his pockets, and stared over her shoulder at the silver clouds heralding a cold dawn. 'It's always you. Always you he wants.'

  The Sutherlands drifted past like ghosts, without speaking. A harsh light pierced the silver clouds on the horizon over the distant houses on the main road.

  She wiped her eyes and blew her nose 'You're exhausted.'

  'I'll live. Shall I see you to your car?'

  'No need.'

  'Awkward mare.' He hunched his meaty shoulders, and shambled off like a bear.

  Chapter Twenty

  The letter trembled in Judith's hand.

  She'd been thinking about Tom, about the catastrophic thing that had happened to Kieran and whether it would push father and son together or further apart, when the letter dropped onto the mat with the others. And, somehow, worries about Tom faded away.

  Produced on a computer, the letter had the kind of heading designed on a computer wizard, white paper, plain, an economy buy for printers and photocopiers.

  Dear Mrs. McAllister, it read, in a font that looked like copperplate, and navy ink.

  My father was Giorgio Zammit. Judith's heart gave a great kick inside her.

  After his death, it was discovered that my father's gold cross and chain had gone missing, causing great distress to the family.

  And then, ingenuously: Should you know the whereabouts of this valuable treasure, please send it to me without delay.

  Alexia Zammit

  And, at the foot of the page, Giorgio Zammit RIP

  Her fingertips twitched upwards to Giorgio's crucifix. She wore it all the time, touching it occasionally through her clothes, reassured by its weight, as if in the way it warmed against her skin it still held some tiny glimmer of Giorgio.

  All she had of him, all that she'd been allowed to keep.

  But this letter was designed to cause her to feel like a thief, a grave robber, to make her snatch it off immediately and send it to Giorgio's daughter.

  She felt awful. Did she have good cause?

  She thought of Cass, standing on the hillside beside Giorgio's fresh grave in her black lace dress and pressing the crucifix into Judith's hand. 'Only his body is here. You have his heart. Take it with you.' It had given her such comfort by acknowledging and validating her status as someone important in Giorgio's life. But, for the first time, she wondered by what right Cass acted. She couldn't imagine Johanna or Maria authorising the giving of such a keepsake. Probably it was just Cass's soft heart that had urged her to do something for Judith.

  It had a value beyond that indicated by the hallmark imprinted on the back in the dusky gleam of Maltese gold as yellow as the sun.

  The muted chime of the clock in the sitting room jerked her out of her thoughts, reminding her that there was something else that needed her full concentration right now.

  Shakily stuffing the letter inside her bag, she swept on a mac that belted at the waist, the only black coat she owned and nowhere near as warm as the unsuitably vivid emerald cocoon, and let herself out into the chilly day on her way to pick Molly up.

  Molly had dressed as suitably as Judith. 'We look like a couple of waitresses,' Judith observed as they drew up at the crematorium.

  'The car park's nearly empty.' Molly tucked her long hair inside her coat to keep it from the wind that swirled leaves across the tarmac.

  'I don't think there will be many of us.'

  Inside the modern building, the tile marked Aaron McAllister Sutherland hung on the glass of a door. It was the smallest, most intimate room, but still their footsteps echoed as they entered.

  The others were already there. Bethan's parents flanked her as if concerned someone might contaminate her with their presence in the same wooden pew. Kieran stood across the aisle in the dark grey suit he'd bought for his new job. Tom stood beside him, eyes front, as if on parade.

  Judith and Molly slid in beside them.

  Seven mourners for baby Aaron. Just seven. It couldn't have been sadder.

  There were no hymns. In fact, no one but the vicar made a sound at all. He took the service in a hushed voice from a spot just in front of the two occupied pews, and it seemed to be over in minutes.

  When he'd finished, and shaken everybody's hands with expressions of concern and offers of comforting chats, Hannah made a frigid announcement. 'We're taking Bethan home, she's not fit to stand about.' And in seconds they were gone, leaving Judith, Molly and Tom with Kieran, who looked speakingly at Bethan, then turned his gaze to the blue velvet curtains that had shut between them and the small scale coffin.

  One long, quiet sigh, then he allowed himself to be herded out, his face set with misery.

  'What was it all about?' He hunched his shoulders against the chill as they held the door for his slow, gangling figure to pass.

  Judith misunderstood. 'She's very pale, she's just given birth. They just wanted to get her home, I expect.'

  He grimaced. 'I know that. She needs looking after and I knew they'd clear off the instant the ceremony was over. No, I mean the whole thing. The pregnancy. All the pain and hate it created! For months it felt like we were part of some major disaster, a train crash or a bomb. Like things couldn't get any worse.

  'But then, when... when he died, we realised how bad things actually can get.'

  Kieran stared around the crematorium grounds, the formal gardens impressive even in winter with cushions of pansies and polyanthus between the shrubs and conifers, the memorial garden for stillborn babies a quarter circle in a sunny corner. 'It feels as if we're being punished, taught a lesson. You weren't fit to look after a baby! You didn't deserve a son! But I would've loved him. Even when we considered adoption it was because we thought it might've been, like, best for him. We'd just about decided we couldn't let him go to someone else, and he died. As if we didn't make up our minds in time.'

  'Of course you would've loved him.' Judith squeezed the words out past the lump in her throat, although Kie
ran was completely dry-eyed. She blew her nose.

  Tom's voice came suddenly, deep and gruff, making Judith jump. 'Will they try and keep the girl away from you, now?'

  Kieran's response was bitter. 'Of course. Protect her from me because I've ruined her life, given her a dead baby, mucked up her A Level year. Their idea is to move away, taking Beth with them.' He shivered suddenly, thrusting his hands into his trouser pockets. And he looked older, hopeless but angry, as he turned up his collar against the onset of chilly drizzle. Judith wondered how - if - he'd ever be Kieran again.

  She linked his arm. 'Come with us, we'll eat together.'

  'I'm not hungry, thanks Mum. And I don't want company.' He managed a smile, and squeezed her hand with his arm, quick to pre-empt the argument she meant to put forward. 'Yes, I really do think that's best. But thanks for coming. Thanks, Dad. Thanks Aunt Molly. I'm glad you were all here.'

  Judith waited, heart aching, hair blowing in a spiteful wind, as he folded himself into his car, and drove away.

  About to say her goodbyes to Tom, also, she looked up into his face, and her conscience smote her at the bleak loss in the gaze he sent after his son. On impulse, she tucked her hand through his arm. 'I bet you were just going to offer us a cuppa at your place, weren't you Tom?'

  'If you like.' But he turned with such alacrity for the car park that Judith knew, despite the daggers Molly's eyes launched in her direction, that she'd done the right thing.

  'What did you say that for?' Molly demanded, as they strapped themselves in to Judith's car and followed Tom's navy Volvo out through the gates.

  Judith indicated, and pulled into the traffic. 'Because he's sad.' Her tone was mild. 'And when you were sad, you appreciated a bit of company. He's no different.'

  Molly sniffed, and looked out of the window.

  In Tom's kitchen that once had been Judith's, Judith sat herself down on a beech stool at the kitchen table, and watched Tom shambling about, managing to assemble boiling water, tea bags, sugar and milk into the correct combinations.