Uphill All the Way (16 page)

He took it back, and pushed it into his pocket. 'I didn't realise how badly hurt I was, at first. I was all gashed to buggery and I could see the fingers weren't exactly intact. So off we went to Northampton General, Shelley driving and me with my hand held up in the air and towels soaking up the blood.'

He finished the first coffee and poured whisky into the second. It seemed to Judith that some object was being defeated, but she'd always enjoyed coffee with a tot in, so followed suit.

'What I noticed immediately was that I'd lost a lot of movement, and what I did have sent sort of electric shocks searing up my arm. It was nerve damage causing the awful pain, but it turned out I had
everything
-damage - tendon, muscle, tissue, artery. I had microsurgery, nerve repair, tendon grafts. But the whole thing was just slashed from my fingers down to the heel of my hand. Chopped up. Then I got deep infection that resisted antibiotics. The fingers never worked and pretty soon began to wither - that's from the nerve damage. Looked really strange, as if they belonged to a corpse, sort of pale blue.' He smiled thinly.

'Quite quickly I realised that it was about as good as it was going to get. I'd have greater use of the hand without the useless, immobile fingers getting in my way.'

'That's horrific.'

Looking down at his coffee, he shrugged. 'Much worse things happen to people. Being in and out of hospital brings that firmly home to you. For everyone who loses a finger there are others who lose an arm. There's even amputee humour: the patient says, "Doctor, doctor, I can't feel my legs!" And the doctor, "That's because I've cut off your arms!" ' He snorted.

Judith wiped her face with the back of her hand, not knowing if she were shedding tears for Adam or tears for Giorgio. They just seemed to well up endlessly of their own accord. 'So Shelley couldn't cope with the amputation?'

He shook his head. 'She'd turn white at the very word. Couldn't cope with any of it, gave up completely once she realised the fingers were never going to
be better
. The disfigurement made her skin crawl. That was pretty painful, too.'

Judith tried to imagine if it had been Giorgio who'd suffered like Adam. Put herself in the place of a woman who loved beauty and couldn't bear mutilation near her. Failed. Surely love should have transcended the loss of a few fingers? 'When you compare it to what happened to Giorgio - '

'Yes!' His eyes were bleak. 'In comparison with death it's pretty minor. And that kind of illuminates the quality of her feelings.' He jettisoned his mug roughly onto the table, and it rattled around in a circle, almost spilling the remaining contents. 'Finishing the marriage was a similar process to deciding on the amputation. A clean end. Cut away the rotting stuff. No point hanging onto something that's never going to work again. Shelley cares for me a lot, but there's a gulf between
a lot
and
enough
, and you can't bridge it artificially.'

'So that's why you always hide your hand away,' she thought aloud.

His head whipped around as he fastened a scorching glare on her. 'I don't do any such thing! My occupational therapist says people who don't hide their damage feel better about themselves.' Then he immediately contradicted himself. 'It's emotionally quite difficult to have it on display. Some people like to have a good stare and some people avert their eyes. I don't know which is worse.'

'What about prosthesis?'

'I didn't like the idea. There are quite a few of us who'd rather put up with the loss of limb than wear artificial replacements. I do exercises to assist with strength and symmetry, I have one or two gadgets and aids, and I apply the problem-solving strategies I've been taught by the occupational therapist. I make the best of things.'

Judith remembered observing him. 'Like using your left hand for everything?'

'Not everything. I can write with my right hand - untidily. I can drive - although it's better if the car's modified - and I can play the violin, with a bit of adapting to my bowing. I tend not to wear too many buttons, but use my left hand for those I do. I use my left hand for the computer mouse, to hold a spoon, and clean my teeth. And one or two other things you won't want to discuss.'

She managed a watery smile. 'Yet you've done all the decorating here since you lost your fingers?'

'I have this gizmo to help hold things like paintbrushes.' His response was short, as if he'd had enough of the subject. He was probably only allowing it to give her something to focus on other than Giorgio. It would be fairer to let him go to sleep. But something inside her quailed at the thought of being completely alone with her grief. It might swallow her up.

He yawned again, and turned the subject. 'Kieran's a step, isn't he? Have you got kids of your own?'

'The time was never right. Your Caleb seems such a lovely lad. I know I was furious at him about the party, but it was bad judgement rather than malice. He's very pleasant and personable. A live wire.'

'Live wire,' he repeated dryly. 'Polite-speak for Caleb ricocheting from one disaster to another. As you say, there's no malice in him, but from the moment he could crawl he's been getting into strife. A big shock for us after his brother, Matthias, who was a golden child, bright but with common sense.'

Judith smiled. 'I didn't realise you had another. Tell me about Matthias - fabulous names your kids have, by the way.'

Hunkering down more comfortably on the sofa, Adam folded his arms. 'Shelley's choices; I wanted Patrick and Mark. But what can you do against a woman who gets up out of her hospital bed and visits the registrar herself?'

'Did she do that?'

'Yes, she did.' His smile was caustic. 'Patrick and Mark are their middle names.'

She absorbed the idea of someone who didn't view the names bestowed upon shared children as joint decisions.

He let his head tilt back. His jaw-line was a firm sweep. 'I indulged her too much. Laughed at the more outrageous pieces of selfishness and quite admired her for doing what it took to get her own way. She got used to it.'

It was deep into the night, now. Judith would have ended the conversation, found Adam a quilt and crept away upstairs so he could sleep. But Adam, now he'd begun, seemed in the mood to talk and talk.

'My mother mutters darkly that Caleb takes after Shelley. Does that mean Matthias takes after me? I'd like to think so, but Matthias is impressive. He's intelligent, motivated, good-looking, and engaged to the most amazing girl. Davina. The Divine Davina.'

Because he'd shut his eyes as he talked, Judith could study him properly. The tightness of the skin across his cheekbones under the fans of his lashes, the burst of deep laugh lines at the corners of his eyes, the cleft in his chin. Where many men, like Tom, sagged and slackened with age, somehow Adam seemed to have tautened and become wirier. 'How is she amazing?'

'Apart from being frighteningly clever and hard working, she's as gorgeous as Lara Croft.' One of Adam's eyes opened slightly to look at her. 'Honestly, she's a goddess.'

'Personality?'

'Definitely personality-plus; cheerful, interesting, caring. They're going to have the most phenomenal children.'

'But is Caleb more fun?'

The eye shut again. 'Certainly less predictable.' He gave several huge yawns. 'My boys are like the tale about the chap with two really good friends. The chap gets drunk and ends up in jail, and one friend gets him a solicitor and hides the escapade from his wife. But the other friend is beside him in the cell, saying, "
Damn
that was fun!" ' He yawned again.

A little like Adam getting drunk with her tonight. 'I ought to go up and let you sleep.'

'Will you be able to sleep, if you go to bed?'

She shook her head.

He smiled. He had a really nice smile. It could be gentle or sympathetic, and, sometimes, wicked. 'Sleep's overrated. I can sleep any time. I'll stay with you a little longer.' He pulled himself more upright. 'You and I went to the same school, didn't we?'

It took her by surprise that he realised. Maybe Melanie had told him. 'I believe we did.'

'I recognised you the instant I walked into the kitchen when you first called. Judith Morgan. We had a conversation once outside the school gates about Polos and if they'd rot your teeth.'

He remembered all that! She would never have admitted it herself, in case it led him to suspect the gigantic crush she'd had on him. Weakly, she offered, 'I still like Polos.'

'Me, too, the mint ones are my favourite. And the fruit, of course. I'm not keen on the butterscotch or the citrus.'

'New fangled inventions.'

'Absolutely. And the spearmint, with those flecks, they look as if they're made of washing powder.'

His eyes drooped again. 'You always insisted on being called Judith; the guys from your year used to sing out, "Hey Jude!" after you, and you'd get sniffy.'

Her own eyelids were feeling heavy. Maybe she ought to go up to bed after all and leave him to what was left of the night. 'Paul McCartney sang it so much better.'

And despite everything, despite the heavy, gluey despair in her heart, despite the gallons of scalding tears waiting behind her eyes for the moment when she stopped thinking about other things and thought again about Giorgio, she couldn't help feeling pleased that someone had noticed and remembered these things about her.

'I always thought it was kind of a shame,' he murmured, drowsily. 'I thought it would be nice to call you Jude. The name conjures up someone who dares to be different, fun. Interesting.'

She wasn't altogether sure what to say to that.

Chapter Fifteen

Morning. Early. Judith opened her eyes to the sun-filled sitting room and discovered that eventually, last night, she'd fallen asleep, her legs curled and cramped and her head on the sofa arm.

Her face felt creased, her mouth and eyes dry.

Adam was asleep at the other end of the sofa, feet still on the table, arms folded, head propped against the upholstered wing of the sofa as if he'd just dropped off for five minutes during Grandstand.

He'd stayed, she remembered, because of Giorgio.

Giorgio
.

Sickness clutched her, but her eyes were too dry for tears.

Her mind had held the knowledge of his death cradled complete while she slept, ready to give it back to her now with sickening clarity. Giorgio was dead, and very soon would be committed to the ground of the island he'd loved.

The floor heaving like the deck of a boat beneath her feet, she went to the computer in the alcove and left it to start up while she visited the bathroom, brushed her teeth and showered. Sliding into an enveloping cotton robe, she returned quietly to the computer. Adam slept on.

The World Wide Web was a wonderful thing, she acknowledged, contemplating the elegant web-site of
The Times of Malta. The Times
could be accessed as easily in Brinham as in Sliema.

Clicking on the correct link, she watched the social and personal page flicking onto her screen. She scrolled down and, even though she was expecting it, Giorgio's name leapt out and stopped her breath.

ZAMMIT. On July 27, at St. Luke's Hospital, GIORGIO, aged 42, passed away suddenly, comforted by the rites of Holy Church. He leaves to mourn his irreparable loss his wife Johanna née Grech, his daughters Alexia and Lydia, his parents Agnello and Maria, sister Josephine and her husband Paul Gauci, his uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces and friends. - R.I.P. The funeral leaves St. Luke's Hospital on Tuesday July 29 at 1.30 p.m. for Stella Maris parish church, Sliema, where Mass praesente cadavere will be said at 2.30 p.m., followed by interment in the family grave at the Santa Maria Addolorata Cemetery. Family flowers only.

She'd guessed that Maria and Agnello would place the obituary in
The Times
as well as in the Maltese papers,
In-Nazzjon
or
L-Orizzont
. Giorgio had been a businessman, his death would need declaiming in both of the island's languages. She stared at the formal words.

Adam stirred, and she realised he was awake.

She had to clear her throat, concentrate to make herself speak. 'Obituary.' She nodded at the screen. 'I must go.'

He frowned for a moment. 'To the funeral?'

'I have to be with him.'

He didn't precisely try to dissuade her, but he rubbed his unshaven chin, making it rasp. 'Somebody ought to go with you. I volunteer, if you can't scare up anyone better. You'll need an ally. The family will shut you out. Feelings will be running high. A mother and father have lost their son, children have lost their father. The wife will act with wounded dignity and ignore you.'

It was an uncomfortable picture. 'You're right,' she said, mechanically, 'what was I thinking? But thank you. You've been really kind, Adam, especially considering that I threw you out of your home.'

'You're having a rough time.'