Like One of the Family (37 page)

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

‘De nada
,' Fernando said graciously.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘What's the matter?' she whispered.

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

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

Terry felt as if something had flopped in his stomach. His throat tight and dry, he reached for her, desperate to make love to her again. When Claire came readily into his arms he read the same hunger in her eyes.

Later, lying in each other's arms, with the early morning light creeping into the room, Terry told Claire what had happened on the road to Motril and what the doctor had said about Jane and how Fernando Gonzalez had driven him to the airport.

‘It's getting late... the others may wake up.' She sat up hurriedly in the bed then looked in confusion at her naked breasts. Terry laughed at her expression and tenderly wrapped his arms about her, covering her shoulders and breasts with tiny kisses.

‘You are so beautiful,' he kept telling her.

Weakly, Claire pulled away. ‘I'm afraid Ruthie will come looking for me.'

‘No, she won't. It's too early.' Terry tried to pull her back to him but Claire resisted. She held the duvet against her.

Close your eyes,' she told him and seeing that she was serious, he reluctantly obeyed. What to cover herself with? There was only the crumpled cotton towel. It lay discarded on the floor. ‘Keep them shut,' Claire ordered, and reached for the crumpled cotton towel on the floor....

Terry closed his eyes but as soon as she slipped from the bed he opened them again. He watched her bend and pick up the skimpy towel and wrap it about her slim body. He could not get enough of looking.

The days that followed were a mixture of unease and delight. Claire's anxiety about Jane was compounded by feelings of guilt at having slept with Terry in his mother's bed. At the same time, she felt loved and cherished as never before.

She came home from college each evening hoping he would be there before her. He always was. He had Jane's car to travel from the barracks, and a genuine excuse for the late passes on the grounds that he must take care of his sisters in his mother's absence.

Sometimes he stayed the night and got up very early next morning to drive back to Baldonnel to arrive before the bugle sounded reveille. The long hours before bedtime they spent in the kitchen, sitting apart, touching only fleetingly when she handed him a mug of coffee or he passed behind her chair as she was helping Ruthie with her homework, but stroking each other with their eyes and their thoughts until the tension was almost too much to bear. Later when Ruthie was asleep he would be waiting for her and they would come together in a frenzy of lovemaking. It was as if the accepted standards of behaviour were temporarily suspended and they lived in a curious kind of erotic limbo, enjoying the solace of each other's bodies with an almost pagan sensuality and deliberately blocking out everything but themselves.

After lovemaking, lying in each other's arms, they talked about things closest to their hearts. Terry told her how Con had died. ton. He did not go into details about the crash for the memory was still too raw and painful. Claire lay on the pillow watching him and fondling the tendrils of hair on his neck with a gentle hand as he spoke. And then of his own accord Terry brought up the subject of Grainne.

‘When Mum told me I was off the hook I was bowled over,' Terry confessed. ‘I couldn't take it in at once. I felt... I dunno... like it must feel before a firing squad and at the last minute someone comes dashing up with a reprieve. Like a bloody miracle!' He laughed softly. ‘I knew I didn't deserve it. Oh Claire, the worst part was not being able to see you or ring you like I wanted. You must have wondered.'

‘Yes I did.'

‘I was sure you would despise me. I despised myself. God! I felt so trapped.

I kept worrying about the mess I was in, even when I was flying, and that's really stupid. You need every bit of concentration or you could end up in bits. I found myself hating Grainne, which was unfair, and myself for mixing Mum up in it and letting her sort out my mess. Squalid!' His voice shook.

Beside him in the dark, Claire shuddered. She thought she would want to die if Terry ever felt like that about her. Despite herself, her sympathy went out to the unfortunate Grainne. But though she felt her own heart would break if she lost Terry, she knew she would never resort to tricks to keep him. She would rather give him up. Their relationship could only endure, Claire told herself, just as long as he loved and wanted her, not because of any sense of obligation.

Antonio Gonzales rang twice during the week, reporting favourably on Jane's progress, and then at end of the first week a letter arrived from Jane addressed to them all. Sheena read aloud to the others, her voice quivering with suppressed tears.

“My dear children, I am getting better every day so please do not worry. I think of you all the time and look forward to the moment when we can be together again. I wish you could visit but that is the drawback of having an accident abroad. I should have planned it better! Everyone here is being so kind. Fernando came to see me today. How lucky we are to have such good friends. I know I can trust you to take care of each other. Claire, don't allow Ruthie to have all her own way and please insist that she takes her vitamins.
Mucho amor
and a thousand kisses, Mum.'

Sheena laid down the letter. ‘It's not in her handwriting,' she said worriedly.

Ruthie had taken the news of her mother's accident surprisingly well, better than Sheena who had wanted to fly at once to Spain to be with her. Now re-reading the letter, Sheena was not entirely convinced that Jane was recovering.

‘I can't understand how Mummy couldn't scrawl even a line,' she said.

‘Perhaps she didn't have any note-paper,' Claire tried to reassure her. ‘Surely the fact she could dictate a letter shows she's not too bad. Anyway we have Antonio's word for it that she's getting better.'

‘Yes,' agreed Sheena doubtfully. ‘Still, I wish we knew for sure.'

When Terry arrived later in the evening Claire told him how upset Sheena was and he suggested that they ring Antonio and get the number of the hospital from him so that they could ring it directly themselves.

Sheena cheered up at this and they all grouped about Jane's desk while Terry gave the Nerja number to the operator. Terry was relieved when Antonio rather than Fernando answered.

‘I am happy to say your mother continues to make good progress,' Antonio's deep voice resounded in his ear. Terry nodded and glanced encouragingly at the girls to signify the news was good. ‘Today we heard she is being moved to a convalescent hospital in Nerja towards the end of this week. You will find it easier to visit her when you come.'

‘Thank you, Señor
,
' Terry said politely. ‘Please give Mum our love and tell her we're managing fine. I'll ring again when I know for sure when I'm going.' His CO held out hopes that he could arrange to get Terry a cockpit seat on a jet carrying diplomats to Spain in another week or two. Literally a flying visit - a couple of hours at the most - but it would be long enough to visit her.

Terry got the number of the hospital and put down the phone feeling a lot happier, as was Sheena when she heard what he had to tell her. She decided to wait until the following evening to ring and find out more about the new hospital her mother was going to. In the meantime she ran upstairs to hunt up some notepaper and, with Ruthie hanging over her shoulders, sat down on her bed to write a long letter back to Jane.

Terry had said they were managing fine in their mother's absence but secretly he was concerned about their lack of money for day-to-day living expenses. The money he had brought back with him from Spain was almost gone.

Suddenly remembering that Jane always kepy cash in her desk to pay bills, he rooted around in the drawers and was relieved to find almost one hundred pounds. He stuffed the notes in his pocket and went to tell the girls, and then they all drove to the supermarket and bought enough food to last them another week.

Jane was not used to playing the passive role of patient. Except for an occasional bout of flu she had never been sick in her life; like all doctors she was better at administering post-operative advice than taking it herself, and found it hard to accept her dependent condition.

For the first few days she was unable to raise her arms and everything had to be done for her. She was reliant on nurses to wash her and feed her and change her dressings, even cleaned her teeth for her. She was lonely too. The nurses were busy and could not linger to give anything more than nursing care to
la médica irlandesa
,
so Jane was grateful when Fernando came to see her. She was also more receptive to Antonio's attentions than she might otherwise have been, when he too visited her later that week.