Uphill All the Way (18 page)

The hilly cemetery was still except for the grumble of nearby traffic and the rushing of the wind. Funerals were over for the day and the dust had settled. There was no rolling grass here as in an English cemetery, just clumps of trees among the broad paved walks between the mausoleums and graves with sculpted figures that terraced the hillside. Having only been to Addolorata once before, she'd forgotten how big it was.

She followed a couple up a succession of pathways that led, eventually, to recent graves.

There was nothing there to indicate any connection with Giorgio. Elaborate wreaths, yes, but the names were wrong - Borg, Debono, Gatt. Her heart began to thud in panic as she walked up and down.

Where was he?

And then she remembered the words 'family grave' in the newspaper, and relief seeped in. Methodically, she returned to the older area, and continued to walk the paths. It was quite a place to cover and it took her some time, her nails digging into her palms and her legs feeling as if they belonged to someone else. She passed between the ranks of marble, the occasional black to punctuate the pale grey, plots arranged close together like terraced houses and some edged with wrought iron or with posts and chains. She'd thought that fresh flowers would give her the clue to a recent burial, but many of the graves were graced with sprays, along with candles burning in glass lanterns.

The gates would close at dusk and she began to fear that she'd have to leave or be shut in. But then a significant burst of colour caught her eye, and she made her way between the stone crosses and exquisitely carved saints to a blaze of fresh flowers that spilled onto the graves on either side.

And on the head of the plot, beside a mourning angel carved from marble, were the words she was looking for.
Zammit Familja
.

The grave had been closed, gravediggers obviously prompt in hot countries. The floral tributes arranged before a series of marble plaques angled and ranked like pictures on a shelf, with the names of the Zammit family already passed inscribed beneath small oval photos.

Reality hit her like one of Sliema Z Bus's buses: Giorgio was down there. Because Giorgio was dead. Separated from her now by six feet of soil and stone. And suddenly it was all too bald, too raw and real. Instead of the comfort she'd searched for, the resting-place was a place of horror.

Forget the twinkling eyes, it seemed to say, no more laughing mouth and hungry lips. No more searching hands. It's all ended down here with a box thrust into the ground, and Giorgio trapped inside it.

She closed her eyes and struggled to remember that this was better, better a proper death than to be a shell of a man at a hospital, a mockery and an insult.

'I knew you wouldn't be long.'

Judith staggered in shock on the sloping path as she spun around. 'Cass!' In a black dress overlaid with lace fluttering in the evening breeze, Cass clutched a white handkerchief. She'd aged ten years in the last months. Her eyes, washed with too many tears, were pink rimmed in the deepening folds of her face.

Cass stepped closer, crossing herself. 'They don't know I'm here,' she said. 'I pretended I'd left some medication at home that I needed. I knew you'd be around. I watched Maria watching for you all day. She was so very relieved when you didn't come. Thank you for letting the family mourn.'

Judith had lifted her arms to drag Cass into a fierce embrace, but now she let them drift down again to her sides. She was being thanked for not inflicting herself.

It was a queer thought, and one that made her feel strange and distant. She hadn't fainted since she was a teenager, but now she felt hot and empty, her ears ringing. Her voice emerged reedily. 'But I'm mourning, too.'

Cass's smile was thin. 'I know.
I
know, believe me, I know how it was between you. But they don't care. They want him for themselves.' She made a gesture as if clutching something to her heart.

'I loved him.'

Cass took out a brown leather purse and extracted a small item that glinted gold. Giorgio's crucifix, that he'd worn against his skin. She wiped wet cheeks with her handkerchief, then closed Judith's fingers around the gold. Her hands were cold. 'And he loved you. Only his body is here. You have his heart. Take it with you.' She turned and walked away, leaving Judith beside Giorgio's grave alone, feeling the gold warming in her hand.

It was three days later when Judith pulled up outside her house in Lavender Row. She'd spent a couple of days with Uncle Richard, it calmed her to be with him. His wife, the lovely Erminia, had smiled her big, warm smile and was serenely unmoved that Judith was unwilling to join in dinners with her cousins Raymond, Lino and Rosaire and their families. Molly and her mother should be so restful, she thought, struggling to open with one hand the tall front door.

Then Molly was bustling to meet her in the hall to offer a quick hug. 'I can't believe you've been all that way to go to a funeral.'

Judith didn't bother explaining that she'd been 'all that way'
not
to go to a funeral. It was too complex. She was just grateful that Molly wasn't launching into a session of sighs over Judith's strange ways.

Molly clasped her hands. 'I've done some shopping, there's a casserole in the oven, you'll be hungry.'

'Um, thanks.' Casserole sounded stodgy and worthy, very Molly, and unappetising even though she hadn't eaten much recently. She thought longingly of an empty house and a full wine bottle. It didn't sound healthy, but it did sound attractive.

In the kitchen, she found white wine in the fridge and red below the stairs. Excellent. She opened the white. 'Wine, Molly?'

Molly looked surprised. 'Oh, no, thank you.' As if drinking wine were naughty.

Judith poured herself a big glass, one of those enormous glasses meant to be quarter-filled with red wine to allow for breathing. She filled it. It took almost half the bottle. On the kitchen table lay her mail, on top a white envelope with
Jude
written large and untidy across the front. She opened it.

Jude,

Your ferocious sister grudgingly told me you'd be home tonight. You evidently decided you didn't want company on your odyssey, but you know where I am if you need anything.

Don't forget to eat.

Look after yourself.

Don't get drunk alone (ring me).

Good old Adam. 'What's in the casserole?'

Molly smiled, on solid ground. 'Chicken, leeks, carrots and potatoes.' She reached swiftly for a bowl and took the casserole out of the oven with mitts - Judith was sure there had been no oven mitts in the house when she left for Malta.

She accepted one ladle from the fragrant casserole. It steamed in the blue bowl she reached down. Judith breathed it in. 'Lemon?'

Molly looked pleased. 'And thyme.'

Judith began to eat, because if she didn't make an effort she'd soon be as thin as a witch.

Halfway through the modest portion, Molly asked in a small voice, 'Can I stay?'

Judith lay down her fork, and patted her sister's soft shoulder. 'Of course you can! You'll need somewhere until you decide what you're going to do.'

Eyes reddening, expression relieved, Molly turned away to reach for a phone pad - Judith didn't think there had been one of those before, either - and tore off a message for her. 'Kieran's coming round in a while. Desperate to talk to you about something, apparently.'

Immediately, Judith set the wine aside.

Chapter Seventeen

'Can we stay?'

Kieran and Bethan sat together like a pair of cuddly toys on Judith's sofa, hands clasped tightly. Their cheeks were hollow, eyes shadowed. Molly had ostentatiously taken herself off to her room, although slowly, perhaps hoping for an invitation to stay and be part of the solemn meeting. Judith would have changed places with her like a shot, gladly leaving her sister to deal with what was very obviously going to be a problem.

'Stay here?' repeated Judith, thoughtfully. That would fill her house right up and deprive her of the peace to mourn that she craved. She'd even have to ask Molly to move from the spare double room to the box room. She'd be able to hear Kieran and Bethan through the wall. Giggling, making the unmistakable sounds of sex. Embarrassing her, unembarrassed themselves.

There would be a morning and evening queue for the bathroom.

The television on non-stop. Music at headache volume.

She was too fragile for this. OK, fragility aside, too
middle-aged
and probably too curmudgeonly. 'Why?'

Bethan looked down at her trainers, oversized things that had once been white. 'I'm not getting on with my parents.'

'Why?' Her voice was calm as she looked from Kieran to Bethan and back.

They gazed at each other. Kieran whispered to Bethan, 'Be best to explain.'

Bethan's eyes filled with tears as he slid an arm around her narrow back. She nodded. 'Tell her, then.'

The caramel flecks in Kieran's eyes were very bright. 'We're going to have a baby.'

Oh. No.

Frozen, Judith stared at him. Had to force herself to remain calm. No good would come of yelling, 'Oh you
stupid, stupid little buggers!
' however much it was her first instinct.

She spoke out of stiff lips. 'So you told Bethan's parents, and they were furious?'

Two shaken heads.

She thought again. 'You haven't told them? You've just assumed that they'll be furious?'

Two nodded heads.

'You don't know what they're like,' added Kieran, earnestly. 'They're awful. They'll murder Bethan when they find out.'

'She's going to tell them!' squealed Bethan, leaping to her feet in panic. 'We can't stay, I can't bear it if she goes and tells them!'

Kieran jumped to his feet, too, uncertain, his complexion very white against the bright red bead on the ring he wore in his eyebrow. 'I won't let her!'

Judith sat still. Leaping to the feet took energy she couldn't summon. And, oh God, a new great sadness to add to the one she carried already. Obviously, pregnancy outside marriage didn't mean the same shame or economic difficulties that it had when she was seventeen.

But what would happen to their youth? They were hardly more than babies themselves, it was too soon to give their lives over to parenthood and putting themselves last all the time. 'Sit down,' she suggested, without raising her voice. 'I
can't
tell Bethan's parents - as I don't know who they are or where they live. And I think we three need to talk some more. Could you please sit down? You're giving me neck ache, and dramatic outbursts simply won't help anyone.'

Deflated, Kieran and Bethan sank back onto the sofa.

At the end of a torturous hour, Judith had established that Bethan was eleven weeks pregnant, had both done a test and seen a doctor, and felt unable to tell her parents, especially as they didn't even know that she was going out with anyone.

'Why not?' Judith demanded, blankly astonished at this information.

Bethan leant forward earnestly, as if urging Judith onto her side. 'It's one of their rules that I can't go out with anyone more than two years older than me.' Then she launched into a tangled explanation about the deceptions and subterfuges she'd felt obliged to employ so that they wouldn't realise she'd broken that rule. 'They have loads of rules. Loads and loads.'

'Rules to do with wellbeing and safety, I expect.'

Bethan fixed Judith with big, tragic eyes. 'You don't understand.'

Sympathy twisted in Judith's chest. At least she understood that Bethan was young to give her life over to bringing up a baby. She made her voice gentle. 'On the contrary. I think I understand all too well.' She thought furiously for several minutes, caught in the age-old parental obligation of wanting to act in a way most likely to benefit the kids. The clock ticked, and Kieran and Bethan held hands and stared at the carpet.

Eventually, Judith offered, 'I'm prepared to consider letting you stay here if you ring your parents and tell them where you are.'

With a smirk of relief, Bethan jumped up once more and started for the door. 'I'll ring from my mobile.'

The poor thing must think Judith was simple.

Rubbing her forehead wearily, Judith disabused her of this notion. 'What,
pretend
to speak to your parents? And then declare that they don't mind a bit that you're moving in with an unknown woman for no particular reason? I don't think so! Ring them from this phone, and they can speak to me as well.'

Silence. Slowly, Bethan sank down again, making no effort to make the call.

Kieran looked at Judith pleadingly. 'You don't know how awful they are!'

Judith's patience began to stretch. 'For minding that she's ballsing up the life they gave her for the sake of a condom or a pill she could get free from the doctor? That she's kept you a secret because you're precisely the person they've asked her not to go out with? That she's lied to them, fabricated a tarradiddle of outings with friends and mangled their trust? Forced a grandchild upon them in the most difficult of circumstances, robbing them of all the joy a grandchild ought to bring?' Her voice rose in volume.