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- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
Childless Maeve Corrigan, though rich and successful, is dying of cancer. She wants to leave her business empire to one of the offspring of her two estranged brothers, Des and Leo. But which young relative should she choose? Des has four children and he is overstretched financially. Leo is the unambitious owner of a hardware store in a remote Australian town and has two children. As the younger generation begin to gather around Maeve, old secrets are revealed, new allegiances made, and there are surprises for every member of the family. The Corrigan legacy isn't what it first appears.
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Seitenzahl: 501
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
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The Corrigan Legacy
ANNA JACOBS
Contents
Chapter One
London. January. Heavy rain drives sideways, drivers squint through a blur of water. Pewter puddles mirror charcoal sky.
Judith Corrigan walked slowly out of the building, ignoring the rain that was flattening her hair against her skull. When she got to her car, she paused for a moment, staring blindly into the distance. It was water running down her face that made her realise she was standing there like a fool. Sliding into the driving seat, she shut out the rest of the world and leaned her head back with a sigh.
The news she’d just received wasn’t a total surprise but still she’d hoped … foolish as that was … and now her last hope had just been destroyed.
It hurt.
She fumbled for the car keys, which she’d dropped into the lap of her sodden skirt, knocked them to the floor and didn’t bother to pick them up. The tears welling in her eyes overflowed and with a soft mew of pain she rested her head on the steering wheel and wept.
When someone knocked on the car window she turned her head, saw a police uniform and tried to roll the window down. But the keys weren’t in the ignition, so she had to open the door to a flurry of chill raindrops.
The policeman bent down, concern on his face. ‘Are you all right, madam?’
It took her a moment to find any words, so she nodded, then nodded again. ‘Yes. Just – some bad news.’
‘You’ve been sitting here for a while. Are you all right to drive home?’
‘Yes. I’m – um – coming to terms with it now.’
As he nodded and stepped backwards, she closed the car door, mopping her face, twisting sideways to look at herself in the rear-view mirror, realising suddenly how wet she was. She glanced at her watch. There was just time to get home and change before Des came back from the office. A little make-up would hide the signs of tears.
Bending down, she fumbled for the keys then with hands clenched tightly on the steering wheel, she drove out of the car park and made her way home through a winter world so lacking in light and colour she felt as if she was trapped in an old sepia photograph.
Which suited her mood perfectly.
Des Corrigan didn’t notice the weather or the traffic. As his chauffeur drove him home, he spent most of his time talking on his mobile phone.
When he entered the house he went straight into the living room to announce, ‘We signed today. She doesn’t know it, but this is the beginning of the end for my dear sister.’
Judith gave him a long, level look. ‘So you decided to go ahead, in spite of me begging you not to?’
‘I told you I would. What I do in my business is not your concern. You’re my wife, not my damned accountant.’
‘I meant what I said, Des.’ She stood up and walked across to the doorway. ‘I’ll go and pack my things.’
He followed her out into the hall, grabbed her arm and dragged her back into the living room, not without a struggle that left him breathless, because she wasn’t a small woman and she fought him with the extra strength anger can lend.
As he slammed the door shut behind them, he yelled, ‘We’ve been married for nineteen years, dammit, and you’ve never even met my sister. What can she possibly matter to you?’
Judith wrapped her arms round herself, rubbing the soreness where his fingers had dug into the skin of her upper arms. She could smell the wine on his breath and knew that made him reckless sometimes. Beneath her anger she felt deep sadness. This, on top of everything else! ‘I don’t have to meet her. It’s you I’m leaving, Desmond Corrigan, because I don’t like what you’ve become.’
‘I won’t let you leave.’
‘How will you stop me? Tie me up? Set one of your security people to guard me day and night?’ Her laughter was a mere rasp of sound, totally unconvincing, but it was the best she could manage. As she tucked a lock of still-damp hair behind one ear, she felt her fingers tremble and made a huge effort to speak steadily. She wasn’t sure she’d succeeded. ‘You can’t stop me leaving you any more than you could stop your first wife from doing the same thing – and she probably left you for similar reasons.’
Judith knew how few morals he had when it came to either business or his own desires. Well, she’d known it for a while, really, but it had taken time for her to admit to herself that she’d had enough of it, because he could be charming when he wanted and was very good in bed.
The main reason she’d stayed was not because she was still in love with him but because they had a son. Mitch mattered more to her than her husband now, far more.
Des stared at her for a moment then stabbed a forefinger towards the trio of white leather couches which had been delivered only the month before. She sat down because she couldn’t fight him physically, but she hadn’t changed her mind about leaving and wouldn’t, whatever he said or did.
He sat on the next couch to hers, at right angles, eyes watchful. ‘Stop playing silly buggers, Jude. We’ve disagreed before. You didn’t walk out on me then.’
‘Maybe I should have done. I’ve thought about it a few times.’
‘Surely Maeve can’t matter more to you than—’
‘Haven’t you been listening to me? I don’t give a stuff about your sister. It’s you I care about. What you’re turning into. What sort of an example you’re setting our son.’
His expression grew sulky. ‘Maeve stole the family business from Leo and me, you know she did.’
‘She paid out your shares in full. That’s not stealing. And the business wasn’t big enough to support the three of you then, you know that. She’s the one who’s made it what it is now. Besides, this all happened thirty years ago. Get over it!’
‘But she forced us to sell them to her, cheated us of our birth right. She was determined to be top dog there. Corrigan’s is known all over the world for precision engineering of small, specialist parts. And look how rich she’s become on it, yet she never paid us a penny for the potential. I swore then that I’d get the family business back from her one day and now I have done, or I will have once the paperwork goes through.’
Judith had argued about this before but for her own peace of mind, she tried again. ‘You don’t need that business, Des. And doing it this way, with trickery and lies, stinks. Does your brother know what you’re doing? Have you even asked Leo if he wants the family business back? He seemed happy enough running his hardware shop when we visited him.’
Leo was the unambitious one, a taciturn man more interested in his family than the world outside his small country town. Judith had only met him once, given how far away he lived, but she’d liked him and his sensible wife.
‘Leo’s grown old and lazy – that’s what Australia does to you. Life’s too easy there. Anyway, he always was too stupid to help himself. I’m not.’
‘You haven’t told him, have you? For all your big talk about family, you’re doing this purely for yourself, out of sheer spite.’ She lifted her chin to stare him out. Gone were the days when Des could intimidate her with an angry look – or make her bones melt with a loving one. He was married to the business nowadays – and to that damned mobile phone of his. Their marriage had been over for a long time, except as a useful social arrangement.
He folded his arms and leaned back. ‘Just for that you’d leave me? Get real, Jude.’
‘No, not just for that.’ She hesitated but after what she’d heard today it was more than time to get everything out in the open. ‘There is also the question of your current mistress. Your previous one was, you swore blind, a temporary madness. The existence of Tiffany Jane Roberts makes infidelity seem more like an ingrained habit to me.’
After one twitch of surprise, he became very still. ‘How the hell did you find out about Tiff?’
‘I paid a private detective. Five mistresses you’ve had in the past ten years, he tells me, not to mention the odd one-night stand when the opportunity has presented – like last month in Manchester. You even boast about it to your business friends. They all know you’re unfaithful to me. How do you think that makes me feel? And I’m sick to think of the diseases you might have passed on to me.’ She slapped her open palm down on the couch and hurled at him, ‘Years of it!’
‘Maybe I wouldn’t have needed the other women if you’d been more accommodating, Judith. You’re not exactly the world’s greatest lover, you know. Not even in the also-rans.’
She picked up a cushion and hurled it at him before he realised what she intended. ‘Your infidelity has nothing to do with my skills in bed. You’re just greedy.’ She paused and swallowed hard. She’d promised herself not to scream at him, to tell him quietly then leave. It was proving harder than she’d expected.
He flapped one hand sideways in a dismissive gesture. ‘Ach, they meant nothing, those women. You know I’ve got a higher than average sex drive. It’s often the way with successful businessmen – and politicians.’
‘They mean nothing? This Tiffany female has been with you for five years. And your first long-term mistress bore you a child. A daughter. Whom you still support. Is all that nothing?’
‘How the hell did you find out about that?’ His expression lost its geniality – its humanity, too. He looked like someone from a Breughel painting, a man with a brutal, lumpy face made insensitive by the harshness of daily life. But Judith knew that Des had not had a hard life, he had just lived life to the full.
‘I wonder what we’d find if I had a detective look into your life?’ he muttered when the silence dragged on.
‘No infidelities, that’s for sure.’ She watched him force a smile. He could always pull out that particular smile, but she could spot it a mile off now and knew it wasn’t genuine. ‘You’re a fine-looking man, with that head of silver hair. And you’ve kept yourself trim, too …’
He nodded, as if she were complimenting him.
‘But you’ve gone rotten inside.’
He jerked upright and glared at her. ‘And you’re a fat old sow. You’ve even let your hair go. It used to look good, now it’s just ordinary.’
‘You hate that, don’t you? Other men have wives who don’t look like stick insects – and they still manage to love them, but not you. Desmond Corrigan’s wife has to be fashionable in every way, a visible sign of his success. And heaven forbid she keep her natural, light brown hair with no highlights. Well, next time you marry you can get yourself a skinny young trophy wife – preferably a blonde, because you clearly prefer them. But don’t forget to write it into the marriage contract that she mustn’t put on any weight.’
‘I don’t want another wife. I want you.’
‘Why? You just said I’m not the best in bed.’
‘You’re not that bad. We’ve been together nineteen years and it’s stupid to throw it all away on a whim. You’re a good wife for a man like me. You can talk to anyone. People like you.’ He gave her a sour glance. ‘But you could have lost the weight. It’s not much to ask.’
‘I tried. Several times.’
‘Well, you didn’t keep it off for long.’
‘No. It’s not much fun living on lettuce leaves. Or eating them alone when your husband’s away, which is at least half the time with you. What’s more’ – she stared at herself in the mirror – ‘I quite like being this size. I enjoy the voluptuous feel of my body. Read the latest research, Des. Most normal men like curvy women and some people are meant by nature to be larger than size eight or ten. Marilyn Monroe was my size, you know.’
‘Well, I don’t like all that blubber.’
‘My body’s firm, well-toned, and—’ She bit back further protests. She’d never been able to convince him, didn’t need to now, because she’d made her decision. Relief whispered through her, mingling with the sadness, and she knew leaving him was the right thing to do.
He leaned forward, his body menacing, one hand bunched into a fist. ‘You’ll have to fight me for custody of Mitch.’
‘I won’t, actually. I’ve already seen a lawyer about that. Our son is considered old enough to choose for himself, so the courts will let him do just that.’
‘My lawyers will find a way round it.’
‘I’m sure they’ll try. I know you’ll use any dirty trick you can think up.’ Suddenly Des sickened her. She stood up so quickly his outstretched hand missed her. ‘But Mitch is my son, too, and I want him because I love him. You just want a son and heir to carry on your name – you’ve never been interested in your daughters, either from your first marriage or by your mistress – and you only want custody of Mitch to score off me. He’ll be as lonely as I’ve been if he continues to live here with you.’
Her feet made no noise on the thick grey carpet and when she opened the door, the eavesdropper fell through it and landed at her feet.
She stared down at her son. ‘Well, Mitch, I see there’s no need to tell you what’s happening. You’ll be able to make a well-informed choice about your future.’ She watched coolly as he stood up, seventeen years old, red haired, as his father had been once, six foot tall but thin and poorly co-ordinated, not yet used to his new height – which came from her side of the family, not Des’s.
Mitch looked down at her from his two inches of extra height, something they often joked about. ‘I’ll go and stay with Gran till you two have sorted things out. I don’t want to play piggy in the middle.’
From behind them, Des, the smile back in place, said calmly, ‘I’ll drive you over there, son.’
Mitch backed away, shaking his head. ‘No, thanks. I’ll phone Gran and she’ll come and get me.’ He turned and raced up the imposing curve of the staircase as if he couldn’t bear to stay with them a minute longer, banging into one of the paintings on the way and leaving it rocking to and fro on its gilt chain.
Des turned to his wife, fury twisting his face again. ‘You’ll be sorry, you stupid bitch! I’ll make very sure of that. You’re really going to miss the luxury of all this.’ He gestured widely with one hand at the echoing hall that reached up three storeys in the centre of the house, all polished marble floor tiles and gleaming white columns.
Judith followed his gaze and smiled. He was proud of this house, but it was an architect’s kitsch fantasy designed to suit the whim of a rich man who had no taste. Des had simply indulged himself in whatever displayed his wealth most ostentatiously and mocked his wife’s pleas to tone things down. ‘I’ve never really liked this house. You’re welcome to it.’
‘You’ll not set foot across the threshold again if you leave, mind.’
‘Why would I want to? Most of my things are packed and gone already.’ She realised suddenly she wouldn’t have done that if she’d felt they really had a chance of healing things between them. But it had been harder than she’d expected to tell him. ‘I’m not sorry I married you because we had some good years and you gave me Mitch. But I’ve stayed with you far too long.’
Hoping, always hoping … that things would improve … that one day Des would stop lusting after money and decide he’d made enough of it … that they could start enjoying life together. He’d promised that often enough.
‘You didn’t mind me supporting you while you fiddled around with your painting, though, did you? You didn’t mind me buying you the best of equipment or paying for those expensive private art lessons.’
‘I earned them by acting as your hostess at those damned boring functions you’re always putting on to impress rich investors. And anyway, I needed something to occupy my time while you were out with your tarts.’
She paused halfway across the hall to say, ‘Oh, and by the way, I’ve drawn all the money out of our joint account.’
‘Peanuts!’ he scoffed.
‘More than enough for my needs for quite some time. If you remember, I have my aunt’s house in Lancashire. I’ll go and live there for a while.’ Her aunt May had died the previous year, dropping dead suddenly of an aneurism, the way she’d have wanted to go. Des hadn’t even bothered to attend the funeral, but Judith had gone to farewell her only aunt and wept about her loss.
‘You’re welcome to that hovel.’
It wasn’t a hovel. It was quite a large house, by normal standards if not by Des’s inflated ideas of what a des res should be like. Judith had made many happy visits to the village of Blackfold and when she went round the house after the funeral she’d felt an indefinable sense of welcome. So she’d decided to keep it and rent it out.
She began to climb the stairs slowly and wearily, not even looking back at him as she added, ‘And even before the lawyers start dividing things up, don’t forget that one of your smaller companies is completely in my name. I think I’ll be quite comfortable with the income from that, don’t you? I may even decide to get involved in managing it.’
‘You’ll sign that over to me before you leave,’ he roared. ‘You’ve no right to it now.’
She’d known that would upset him. Very possessive about his holdings, Des was. He’d only assigned it to her for tax avoidance purposes, and she wasn’t really sure whether it was hers. ‘I mean to have a share of your worldly wealth, Des, because I’ve earned it.’
Footsteps came pounding up the stairs behind her and she turned in shock. When he shook her hard, she fought back, kicking him in the shins. Yelling in pain at that, he thumped her and she felt herself start to fall, slowly, so slowly she thought she had time to grab the burnished brass handrail. But she missed it and cried out in fear as empty space whirled round her. She seemed to tumble and bounce for a very long time before darkness engulfed her.
When she came to, Mitch was crouched over her protectively and Des was sitting part-way up the stairs with his head in his hands.
Her son clutched her hand. ‘Don’t try to move, Mum. The ambulance is on its way. I think you’ve hurt your knee. It’s badly swollen.’
She moved her head to look and couldn’t hold back a whimper of pain at even this small movement.
Des raised his head. ‘Hell, I’m sorry, Judith, truly sorry. I didn’t mean to—’
She closed her eyes. Didn’t speak. Didn’t want to see him or speak to him ever again. Just held her son’s hand and waited to be carried out of her husband’s life on a stretcher.
Cheshire. A stark January day. An icy wind savages the broomstick trees. Flurries of chill drops make a vain assault on the double glazing.
Oblivious to the weather, Maeve Corrigan sat bolt upright in her favourite armchair and made her announcement to Andy Blauman in measured tones.
Which jerked him out of his relaxed sprawl into instant, shocked attention. ‘Ah, Maeve, no!’
‘I don’t want your pity, just your help, Andy. And in return, I’ll—’
‘You know you’ve no need to bribe me to help you – whatever the circumstances.’ His gaze was reproachful.
While the wind whistled in shrill encouragement outside, she speared him with one of her famous looks, keeping him and his pity at bay. ‘I have always paid my way and I intend to continue doing so until the day they carry me out of here feet first.’ Which was, unfortunately, going to be sooner than she’d expected.
But when he rushed across to fold her in his arms, for a moment – just one moment of weakness – she couldn’t bear to push him away, and let herself sag against the warmth of his young body, stroking his curly hair.
Like a teddy bear he was, this large American of Irish-Jewish descent who had come to Ireland as a young man to find his mother’s family, followed the trail of his distant relatives to Maeve in Lancashire and stayed there for over ten years. He had a softness to him that he tried in vain to hide and when he’d first come to work for her, she’d had to teach him how to be firm with the workers. If he hadn’t learned, she wouldn’t have kept him on, but he picked things up quickly, did Andy.
Now, well, she didn’t know what she would do without him, needed him for the next two years to implement the provisions of her will and manage her legacy to her family. And as she couldn’t be here, she intended to bind him to herself and her heirs legally.
As she felt tears welling in her eyes, she shoved him away, concentrating on the anger that had been simmering within her ever since her last trip to the oncologist. ‘Get away with you!’ She blinked furiously, refusing to weep in front of him or anyone. ‘Sit down again, will you, and listen to what I want you to do.’
Five minutes later he was scowling. ‘Maeve Corrigan, that’s outrageous!’
She beamed at him, restored to good humour by her own cunning. ‘Yes. It is, rather. So you’ll do it for me, then, Andy?’
He was sulky now. ‘What choice do I have? As if I’d desert you at a time like this!’
She smiled, satisfied that she was conducting this business of dying in her own way, as she had done everything else in her life since she’d turned twenty-one. Right from her childhood she had found it deeply satisfying to make people dance to her tune. Well, why not? She not only knew exactly what she wanted but also the best way to get it, while other folk rarely did.
Except that she hadn’t been able to bear children. That had been her one failure in life, the main thing she regretted now. But nature, gifting her with so much else, had denied her this privilege.
Her two brothers had children, though, five of them. And so they would be her heirs. But the main Corrigan legacy, her money, would go to only one, whoever seemed the most capable of holding it together.
Chapter Two
Australia. January. A month of searing heat and bushfires. Seven o’clock in the morning and the sun is already poking hot fingers through windows, making pampered, foreign flowers in gardens shrivel and die.
Kate Corrigan woke up feeling shivery. As she got out of bed, the room wavered around her and she had to clutch the chest of drawers or she’d have fallen over. Her legs felt wobbly, her head throbbed with every movement she made, while her face – she grimaced at it in the mirror – was sickly white, in shocking contrast to the flaming red of her hair.
She looked like a Modigliani woman today, attenuated, mournful, not quite real. She felt as two-dimensional as one of his paintings, too.
Damn! She must have caught the flu that was going round at work.
In the kitchen, her partner, Joe, was eating his usual greasy platter of eggs and bacon. Summer or winter, he always started the day with a fry-up, the mere smell of which sickened her, for she was definitely not a morning person.
‘Hey, you’re late today,’ he teased, not even glancing up. ‘The kettle’s just boiled. Get yourself an injection of good old English breakfast tea. You’ll feel better then.’
His voice seemed to echo round the kitchen of the flat they shared. It boomed inside her head, too, and she winced as she sagged against the doorpost. Someone seemed to have sandpapered her throat during the night, so her words came out huskily. ‘Joe, I think I’ve got the flu.’
He stopped eating to turn and stare at her. ‘You? You never catch anything!’
‘I had a bad dose of flu eighteen months ago, just before I met you. It lasted for weeks. I couldn’t seem to shake it.’
‘You never told me.’
‘Why should I? It was over and done with by then.’ She massaged her temples with her fingertips, but that didn’t prevent the bongo drums from thumping away inside her skull. ‘Would you get me a cup of tea, please?’
Her asking a favour in such a hesitant voice was enough to make him put down his knife and fork and come over to tilt her chin up with one hand while studying her face. ‘You look dreadful, woman. No wonder you went to bed early last night. Want me to make an appointment at the doctor’s for you?’
She shrugged his hand off. ‘Why bother? Everyone knows how to treat flu. Go to bed, dose yourself with aspirin and rest. If I take a couple of days off, I can—’
He turned her in the direction of the bedroom and pushed her gently along the corridor. ‘Get back to bed this minute. You’re as white as my shirt and you look heavy-eyed. It’s a bad flu, this one. My secretary was off work for two weeks and only came back yesterday. She still felt rotten, though, and went home early, so I’ll be surprised if she turns up again today.’
Kate pushed him away then had to lean against the wall to steady herself. ‘Well, I can’t afford more than a couple of days off. Hell, I can’t even afford those, really. I’ve a workshop to run on Friday for this new mid-management training programme.’
He said nothing, just put the kettle on. Kate Corrigan was fun, attractive and passionate. She had a fine brain and a fine body, too, slender, but soft and welcoming when you made love. But she was also the most stubborn woman he’d met in his whole life. If she was dying and decided to go into work first, she’d hire two men with a stretcher and do it.
He took her a mug of tea and a couple of paracetamols. ‘Want me to bring you some toast as well?’
She covered her eyes with her forearm and shuddered. ‘No thanks. I’ll just – take these tablets and have a nap. Could you draw the curtains again, please?’
‘Want me to ring work for you?’ he called from a million miles above her head. ‘Kate?’
She peered at him from the shadow of her arm. ‘Of course I don’t! I can do my own bloody telephoning. This is only a touch of flu.’
When she woke, Kate felt totally disoriented and it was a few minutes before she realised it was after ten o’clock and she’d not yet contacted work. Oh hell, and she’d missed her first meeting, too! She rolled over and reached for the phone.
Her head swam the minute she lifted it from the pillow and she dialled the number with great difficulty, because the keypad seemed to be jiggling about in front of her. ‘I’ve got flu,’ she croaked to the receptionist. ‘Can you tell Peter I won’t be in today, probably not tomorrow, either?’
‘Yeah, sure. Do you have any appointments that need cancelling?’
Kate tried to think and couldn’t. Her head was full of grey concrete, far too heavy to hold upright. ‘Will you look in my desk diary, please? I can’t seem to think straight.’
‘You sound really bad. Have you seen the doctor?’
‘No.’
‘Well, you’d better—’
‘Bye.’ Kate put down the phone. She couldn’t even raise the energy to argue. Which was not like her.
Next time she woke it was two o’clock and she was bursting to go to the bathroom. She sat up and immediately fell sideways on the pillows as the room whirled round her. Standing up was an act of will and she lurched from one piece of furniture to the other like a drunk.
It was hot so she switched on the air conditioner on the way back to bed, sighing in relief as cool air began to waft around her.
When she woke again, Joe had just arrived home. Why in heaven’s name did he always have to bang the front door shut so loudly?
He came to stand in the doorway of her bedroom. ‘Good thing I came home early. You look bloody awful, Kate!’
‘I feel bloody awful.’
‘I’d better sleep in the spare bedroom tonight. Did you go to the doctor’s?’
‘No. I slept most of the day.’
‘I’ll make an appointment for you right away, then.’
Her protests fell on empty air. He made the appointment, overrode her objections then had to support her out to the car, she was so groggy.
‘A fortnight off work, at least,’ the doctor said. ‘Remember what happened to you last year when you didn’t take care of yourself?’
We’ll see about that, Kate decided on the way home. A week off work was plenty long enough. She wasn’t an old woman, but a fit twenty-eight-year-old. This time, unlike last year, she’d take plenty of vitamins, really cosset herself for a few days. Sometimes you had to give in to these things. But only for a short time. It didn’t do to wallow in illness.
What did doctors know, anyway? She’d seen a programme on television last week which said that medicine was an art, not a science. She agreed absolutely.
After Judith came out of hospital, where she’d needed an operation on her knee, she moved into a luxury hotel at her husband’s expense – an offer conveyed to her by his lawyer with extreme care to include no admission of Des’s liability for her ‘accident’. Her mother had offered to have her, but that would have involved stairs and anyway, why shouldn’t Des pay for what he’d done?
She’d have to do several weeks of physiotherapy to get the knee right, which would mean staying here in London instead of settling into her aunt’s old home in Lancashire.
Her son came to take afternoon tea with her after school on her first day at the hotel.
They’d avoided talking of it until now but she had to start making long-term plans. ‘What have you decided to do, Mitch?’
‘What have you decided, Mum?’
‘As I said the other night, I’m going to live in my aunt’s old house in Lancashire – for a while, anyway. Do you fancy coming with me? You know I’d love to have you.’
As he avoided her eyes and began to fiddle with the crumbs on his plate, she knew she’d guessed right.
‘I can’t, Mum. I’ve got exams coming up in a few months. The big ones. I want to do well, so I can’t risk changing schools.’ Suddenly he looked younger, unsure of himself. ‘There’s no chance of you and Dad – you know, getting back together? He’s really sorry for what he did.’
‘I’m sure he is. It’s costing him a packet as well as putting him in a bad position for negotiating a divorce settlement. And no, there’s no chance whatsoever, even if he hadn’t thumped me.’
‘He hasn’t hit you before, has he?’
She could sense the desperate anxiety behind his words. ‘No, Mitch, he hasn’t. I don’t think he really meant to hit me this time, either, but he’s getting a bit short-tempered recently.’
He sighed in relief and closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and asked, ‘What did he do – to make you leave him? I – um – didn’t hear that bit and he won’t tell me.’
‘The last straw was tricking his sister into selling her business to him.’
‘Oh.’ Long pause, then, ‘What was the first straw?’
Trust Mitch to realise there was more to it. She hesitated, but decided her son was old enough to understand. ‘He’s been unfaithful to me – several times – almost from when we first married.’ And how humiliating was that? ‘You have another half-sister besides Liz’s daughters. This one is twelve now.’
‘Oh.’
Judith tried to make a joke of it. ‘This needn’t affect your relationship with your father. He’s not been unfaithful to you, after all.’
Mitch gazed at her with a face so full of untarnished idealism, she could have wept for what life would inevitably do to him.
‘When I take over the business, Mum,’ he said in the tone of one swearing a solemn oath, ‘I won’t do anything unethical, I promise you.’
‘I didn’t realise you were planning to take over the business.’
‘One day, yes. I like organising things. Dad doesn’t and he leaves too much of the important stuff to other people. I can do better than that, or I will be able to when I’ve got my MBA and gained some experience. I intend to go to Harvard for the postgraduate stuff. They have a mission to educate leaders who will make a difference to the world.’
‘Sounds good. You’ll have to work hard to get in.’
‘I like studying.’
More silence, then he finally answered her question. ‘If it’s any consolation, I don’t plan to live with Dad. I’ll stay with Gran for the next few months, until the exams are over and then, once I get to university, I’ll live in. She says it’s all right with her. Will Dad agree, do you think?’
‘As long as I’m not getting you, I doubt he’ll argue.’ Besides, Des got on really well with her mother.
‘I’ll come and visit you in the holidays, though, if that’s all right.’
‘Of course it is.’
What he said next was not what she expected.
‘It must be great to have parents who love one another. I’m really lucky that I’ve got Gran to turn to.’
Judith had to force the words out because her throat was thick with tears. ‘I’m going to miss you a lot, Mitch.’
‘I know. But you’ve got your painting. You’re good at it.’
‘Not good enough to make my living by it. I’ve known that for a while. I’ve tried hard and I’m competent technically, but my teachers haven’t hidden the fact that there’s something missing, that I’ll never make a top-drawer artist. So I’ll have to find something else to do with my time.’ She had to wipe away a tear with her fingertip.
He reached out and patted her arm awkwardly, for he was at an age where casual touching and kissing embarrassed him. ‘Sorry, I didn’t realise. I don’t know much about art. I like some of your paintings very much, though. Can I have that one of sunset over the river to hang in my bedroom at Gran’s?’
She nodded. It was her favourite, too. She’d done it a couple of years ago and her teacher had praised her so unstintingly she’d rushed home to show it to Des and tell him. After that, however, her teacher had never been quite as enthusiastic about what she produced, so she’d come to realise that the painting was the nearest she’d got to being really good.
Another pause, then Mitch added, ‘We can email each other every day. You really will have to learn more about computers now.’
‘All right. It’s a deal. You can teach me before you leave.’
He began fiddling with his watch. ‘I don’t think it’ll break your heart me living with your mother. I’ve been reading a few books about relationships, trying to understand this mess. You never give yourself fully to anyone, Mum.’
She stared back, astounded. He was too perceptive by far, this son of hers. Were all modern children this aware, or had she and Des done it to him? ‘I do care about you, you know, Mitch,’ she said, choosing her words carefully. ‘Very much indeed, more than I care about anyone else.’
She watched a thoughtful expression settle on his face, and refrained from adding that Des wasn’t the sort of person to whom you revealed everything. She’d always known that and acted accordingly. But she hadn’t realised she’d been guarded with Mitch as well.
‘You care about me in your own way, on your own terms,’ he went on. ‘Not enough to let me spend much time with my sisters or have them round at our house.’
Not that old complaint again! ‘Half-sisters, actually.’ And why should she encourage it? Whenever he visited them, he came back dissatisfied, angry about not seeing them more often, frequently taking that anger out on her, since his father was rarely around.
Des’s first wife didn’t really want Mitch visiting them, either, and was quite rude about it on the phone sometimes, but Liz hadn’t stopped him going there.
It was strange how well he got on with them, his older half-sisters, how the three of them schemed to meet and spend time together. When Lacey got married in a couple of months it’d be even easier for them to meet, because she’d have her own home.
Mitch would be going to the wedding with his father now, because Judith was no longer in the picture for such family occasions. She sighed. She’d never had Liz’s touch for bringing children up. From all she’d heard, Des’s first wife had showered her daughters with open affection, crawling around the floor with them when they were little, sitting for hours with them on her knees.
But it was partly Des’s fault that she’d not been around more. He’d been very demanding of her time when they were first married and hadn’t paid much attention to their son. He said they had a nanny for that. She should have gone against Des’s wishes and taken a bigger part in the daily tasks of raising Mitch, she saw that now.
It was too late to remedy matters. Too late to remedy a lot of things.
Judith sat and chatted to Mitch until it was time for him to go back to his grandmother’s for the evening meal, enjoying his company, agreeing to start taking computer lessons soon.
It wasn’t until later, after the staff had cleared away her half-eaten room-service meal and wished her a good night’s sleep, that she let herself weep about moving north, away from her son and mother. There was no one here to see her weeping, after all.
But she couldn’t, just couldn’t stay near Des. If she did, he’d never leave her alone. He hated to lose control of anything.
Tomorrow she would get on with building herself a new life, go down to eat in the hotel restaurant in that damned wheelchair, call her friends, start arranging for the move. She wasn’t sure exactly what she’d do with herself in Lancashire, wasn’t sure what she’d be like at living alone.
But even if she didn’t stay permanently in May’s house, it’d give her a breathing space to get her head together again – and to find something to do with the rest of her life.
Chapter Three
Central London. Tourists, ancient monuments, museums. Chill winds, moist air threatening rain. Buildings, sky, pavements, roads – all tone perfectly in shades of grey.
Cal Richmond strode through the streets, avoiding people by instinct as worry etched away at his thoughts, worry about his twelve-year-old daughter, Lily. His ex was up to something, he knew it as surely as he knew his own name. Kerry was beautiful, capable and not to be trusted where her own interests were concerned.
Why this summons to her lawyer’s? What the hell else could she want of him? Why couldn’t she have told him what was wrong when he’d picked Lily up for his fortnightly access visit the previous weekend?
He paid maintenance willingly, took his daughter out whenever he was allowed, had Lily to stay with him for extra weekends whenever Kerry wanted to get away with her latest guy. What more could a man who loved his child do?
Have her with him all the time.
The old longing crept unbidden into his mind, as it so often did. He knew Kerry was an efficient mother who cared properly for all Lily’s physical needs, but she wasn’t a demonstrative person. He’d rarely seen her cuddle Kerry since their daughter grew out of being a toddler and had been surprised when she’d insisted on custody. That was the only thing they’d quarrelled about, but mothers seemed to have an advantage in the legal system when it came to bringing up little girls.
The waiting area was overheated and he loosened his overcoat, unwinding the long, multi-coloured scarf Lily had knitted for him. When the receptionist called his name, he stood up thankfully. One way or the other, this would soon be settled and then they could all get on with life until Kerry’s next crisis.
In the office, his ex-wife was sitting primly at one side of the lawyer’s desk, dressed in the black outfit she used to impress the authorities on solemn occasions, more conservative than her usual outfits though as flattering as all her clothes. She was wearing well, didn’t look thirty-nine. In fact, in the six years they’d been divorced she seemed to have thrived. Well, it had been plain almost from the start that they were a mismatch, but they were expecting a child and had agreed to try to make it work. And he’d been useful to her, looking after Lily so that she could go out to work, doing the PR job she loved.
He looked at her outfit again. It shouted that it was an expensive designer creation. Not for the first time he wondered where she was getting her money from. Surely her job didn’t pay for such exquisite clothes?
He nodded to her but she stared back at him stonily, as if he were a stranger.
‘Please sit down, Mr Richmond.’ The lawyer hesitated, took a deep breath then said, ‘It’s bad news, I’m afraid.’
‘Oh?’
‘Your wife has had DNA testing done on Lily, which proves conclusively that the child is not your daughter. Ms Foster is therefore— Mr Richmond! Please sit down.’
Cal stared at Kerry in horror. ‘I don’t believe you! Of course Lily’s mine.’
‘She doesn’t even look like you, with that red hair!’ Kerry snapped. ‘I’d have thought you’d be glad. It means you won’t need to pay any more maintenance.’
‘I’ve never resented paying maintenance for Lily and well you know it. How the hell did you get a sample from me?’
‘You cut your finger when you were fixing that shelf in Lily’s room.’ Kerry gave him one of her tight, smug smiles.
He had often wanted to shake her and tell her to stop playing games, but never had the desire burned as fiercely as it did today.
The lawyer intervened. ‘Please sit down, Mr Richmond. That’s better. Now, let’s discuss this in a civilised manner.’
Cal ignored the man’s bleating and addressed his wife. ‘You’re trying to take Lily away from me. Well, I won’t have it. She’s mine in every way that matters and I love her.’ He watched Kerry’s lips curl in that sneer she did so well. ‘Anyway, I don’t believe you.’
‘She’s not yours. I’ve always suspected it, so in the end I had the tests done.’
‘I don’t care two hoots about your tests. Whatever they prove, if they prove anything, she’s still my daughter because I’ve helped bring her up.’
‘She’s not yours. I’m marrying again and Wayne’s adopting her, then we’re all moving to the States. I’ll pay you back the maintenance, if you like, and I apologise for deceiving you. I wasn’t sure … I’d hoped …’ She gave her lawyer a help me look.
Comprehension roared through Cal. She wanted to move away from England and knew he’d never let her take Lily away from him. This was a trick, it must be. ‘I insist on new tests being done, tests where I can see the provenance of the samples. I won’t believe anything until I see that.’
It couldn’t be true. Dear God, it just couldn’t!
She gave an exaggerated sigh and looked at the lawyer.
‘Since Mr Richmond didn’t willingly provide a sample, it’s a reasonable request, Ms Foster. The courts will also need to be sure of the provenance of the samples.’
Scowling, she turned back to Cal. ‘Very well. But it won’t make any difference. I’m telling you the truth. You’re not Lily’s father. I’ve always known it. Why do you think I rushed you into marriage?’
He felt sick to the stomach because her words had a ring of cold truth, but he wasn’t giving in so easily. ‘I am her father, whether biologically or not. And if you try to stop me seeing her this weekend, I’ll go straight to the children’s court for access.’
She glanced at her lawyer again.
‘Unless you fear he’d harm the child, it’s a reasonable request, Ms Foster.’
‘Oh, very well.’ She turned back to scowl at him. ‘But you’re not to upset her.’
‘Have you told Lily?’ Cal asked.
‘Yes.’
‘How did she take it?’
‘She was a bit upset. But children get over these things very quickly.’
Cal bit back hot words of protest. Lily wouldn’t get over him quickly, he was sure, any more than he’d get over her. He’d loved her from the minute she was born – and she loved him too, far more than she loved the mother who could hardly be bothered to listen to her these days and who had little idea of their gifted child’s hopes and aspirations. Then he remembered something else. Lily had been born a month early. He felt sick to the core. It couldn’t be true, could it?
The lawyer stood up. ‘I’ll be in touch about the tests, Mr Richmond.’
Cal walked outside, his soul in torment. If they took Lily away from him, he didn’t know what he’d do. He could see why the legal system drove men to desperate measures, but he’d never hurt his child, or anyone else for that matter.
He had to see Lily, talk to her, make her understand that whatever the outcome of the tests he would still consider himself her father in every way that mattered.
Cal couldn’t pick Lily up until Saturday, his usual visiting day, because Kerry refused point-blank to give him access sooner, or even allow him to speak to their daughter on the phone. But she forgot about email and he was able to contact Lily as soon as he got home, telling her he loved her whatever the damned tests showed.
Her reply was unlike her usual chatty emails. Short. Guarded.
I can’t think straight about this, Dad. Can we just go back to your place on Saturday and talk?
Lily
He had tears in his eyes as he read this and sent back his willingness to do whatever she wanted.
And his love.
When Saturday came, Cal arrived half an hour before his usual time. Lily ran out immediately without looking back or waving farewell to her mother, and flung herself into his car. Kerry came to stand on the doorstep, arms folded. He knew that look. She wasn’t happy about this visit, was plotting something.
He forgot about her as he looked at his daughter, her swollen eyes, her unkempt hair, her down-curving lips. ‘I love you,’ he said softly. ‘Whatever anyone says or does, I love you, Lily. And I am your father, in every way that counts.’
‘She says you’re not.’
He drew round the corner, drew over to the kerb and stopped the car, then pulled her to him in a cracking hug. ‘Do I feel any different? You don’t.’
She blinked at him, tears welling in her eyes, then buried her face in his shoulder, sobbing.
After a moment or two he said, ‘How about I drive us home and we don’t talk till we get there? I’m upset too, you know, and I don’t want to cause an accident. This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me in my whole life.’ Far worse than the divorce.
‘Me, too.’
In the house they went into the kitchen and he made hot chocolate, her favourite comfort drink. They carried their mugs into the sitting room and sat close together on the sofa.
‘Did you know you weren’t my – my biological father?’ she asked.
‘No. I hadn’t the faintest idea.’
‘She said you always suspected something, that you’d asked her before and she’d been too afraid of you to admit it.’
Disgust roiled through him at Kerry’s cunning, making him feel physically sick. ‘That’s not true! I never suspected a thing. And she was never, ever afraid of me. I’m a geek, not a macho muscleman. If anything, I was always too soft with her.’
‘She’s going to try to stop us meeting after today. I overheard her talking to Wayne. We’re supposed to go and live with him in Texas, but I won’t do it, whatever she says. I want to be near you and’ – she hesitated then added quietly – ‘I’m English and I’m staying English.’
When her hand crept into his, Cal held it tightly. ‘I don’t know what to think, what to advise, but you have to remember that she’s going to put her own spin on the facts whenever she says anything about me. Everyone does.’
Lily rolled her eyes. ‘It’s more than that, Dad, and you know it. Mum’s an expert at twisting the truth. You should hear what she says to Wayne about you.’
He sighed. He hated to blacken Kerry in her daughter’s eyes, but his ex sounded to be working against him already. ‘Well, don’t believe anything about me until you hear it from my own lips.’
Lily sniffed and took another sip of her chocolate drink. ‘She may be able to stop us meeting or talking – and I think she definitely will, because she’s taken my mobile phone away from me already – but she can’t stop us emailing. If she takes away my computer, there’s always an Internet café or I can email from my friends’ houses. I’ve already arranged with Karen that if I pass her a note, she’ll email it to you for me. I’ll get myself online, so that you can send messages there, not to the home computer.’
He was aghast. ‘Is all this necessary?’
She turned a knowing gaze on him, a woman’s look not a child’s. ‘You know it is. This isn’t a time to be thinking the best of people, Dad. We have to make plans.’
‘How can I do anything till I know the facts? We have to get the results of the new tests. Maybe there’s been a mistake.’ But the words sounded lame even to his own ears.
‘The tests will only slow her down. She’s got everything planned, believe me. She always does have.’
‘You shouldn’t talk about your mother in that tone.’ He hesitated. ‘Did she – tell you who your biological father was?’
Lily shook her head. ‘It’s not Wayne. She’s only known him for a year or so. When I asked her she said it’s none of my business who my father is. Can you believe that? None of my business!’
They spent the day at Cal’s flat, watching DVDs of movies they’d seen and loved before, but paying little attention to them. Talking. Thinking. Just hanging out together.
‘You’re too cynical for your age,’ he said, giving her an extra hug. ‘And you shouldn’t have to face all this.’
She shrugged. ‘I’ve always been old for my age. I wonder what my biological family background is like.’
This new hard edge to her tore at his heart – it showed a resemblance to her mother, though Lily had a sweetness to her nature that Kerry didn’t. But the girl was only twelve, for heaven’s sake, she should have nothing worse to worry about than school, what to wear and chatting to her friends.
When it came time for her to leave, Lily lost all her assurance and burst into tears, clinging to him, weeping, begging him to let her stay with him.
‘Sweetheart, you know I daren’t. It’d give your mother more ammunition. We’ll do what we said, stay on email, make plans, see if we can persuade her—’
‘To do what? Wayne’s rich. She’s really excited about going to live with him in America. They’re talking about marriage, you know.’
‘Do you get on with him?’
‘I don’t not get on with him. He gives me presents, chats while he’s waiting for her. But he doesn’t really see me. He only sees her. His tongue’s hanging out all the time he’s round our place. It’s gross.’
Cal glanced at his watch and sighed. ‘We really do have to leave now, sweetheart.’
‘You’ll see a lawyer, find out where you really stand? Promise me. Don’t take her word for anything,’ Lily said urgently as he drove her back.
‘Yes, of course. As soon as we get the results from the tests.’
When they got there, Kerry came to the door. Wayne was standing at the living-room window, watching. She sent Lily inside and glared at Cal. ‘She’s been crying.’
‘She’d been crying before I picked her up as well. She doesn’t want to leave me. Kerry, why don’t you let me have custody? You know I’ll look after her properly.’
‘No way. You’re not her father.’
‘I’ll fight you all the way, you know that.’
‘With what? You have no grounds to challenge me on what I do about Lily.’
She said that so confidently. Could she be right? Surely the law wouldn’t be so cruel to him?
When he got home he tried to work, then gave in and wept. Men weren’t supposed to do that, but he couldn’t keep a stiff upper lip about losing Lily.
Kerry’s lawyer had a letter hand-delivered the very next day, since Cal worked mainly at home. It set up an appointment for the taking of DNA samples from him and Lily, and stated that owing to the child having been upset the previous day, further access meetings would be suspended pending a decision by the courts.
He gave the DNA sample, watched as they took one from Lily and managed to hug her before Kerry could stop him. Then he waited until the lawyer’s clerk, who’d been there as an observer, had left. He was pretty sure the laboratory, part of a well-known chain, wouldn’t let the samples be tampered with.
Afterwards he saw a lawyer of his own, who took notes about his case and said he’d better not do anything to rock the boat until the test results came back and they were more certain of exactly where they stood.
But the man did admit that the legal situation wasn’t as black and white as Kerry had said, not by any means, because of Lily’s age.
Cal tried to take some comfort from that, but it was all so chancy, with so many ifs and buts, that he couldn’t see his way clearly.
After that the test results were all he could think about. His work suffered. It was hard to design clever web pages when his heart felt torn apart, when he had no weekend visit from Lily to look forward to, when the ground felt to have shifted beneath his feet and further earthquakes still threatened.
It was two months before Judith’s knee was better enough for her to move to Lancashire. During that time she stayed at the hotel, reading a lot, trying to get used to the new laptop computer she’d bought, seeing as much of Mitch as she could. While she relished the idea of what her stay was costing Des, she was increasingly frustrated by her physical limitations and wished desperately that she was in her own home.
She didn’t press charges of assault against Des but made sure her lawyer had evidence that it had happened – just in case.
In case of what? She wasn’t sure. Des had never thumped her before. It seemed so unlike him. Well, he wouldn’t get the opportunity to thump her again, she would make sure of that.
Various friends visited her at the hotel, curious as to why she wasn’t recuperating at home. ‘Des and I have split up,’ she told them, always adding, ‘but I don’t intend to discuss the reasons for that with anyone.’
She hated the thought of her private pain being paraded for everyone to pick at, so usually turned the conversation towards the village she was moving to in Lancashire and her intention of spending more time on her painting. ‘Once I’m settled in, you must come and visit,’ she told one or two particular friends – but only those whose husbands were not dependent on doing business with Des. She didn’t want to expose anyone else to his business spite.
Chapter Four
March. Snow one day, immaculately white. A week later, golden sunshine and the first daffodils dance lightly across the land, challenging winter’s dull colours.
Eventually the time came for Judith to arrange her move. She informed Des’s lawyer of the coming move, saying she hadn’t fixed on an exact date yet but it would be within the week.
Des turned up at the hotel the very next day. She was so stunned to see him when she opened the door that he’d walked in before she could protest.
She remained where she was, didn’t even try to close the door. ‘Go away.’
‘I want to talk.’
‘Well, I don’t.’
