In Focus (2009) (33 page)

‘Yes. Ghita rang to let me know. Horrible, isn’t it? I didn’t let on at work that it was Mum. It was on the midday news on TV as well. I saw it while I was eating my lunch. They showed our block of flats and Ghita walking past. What exactly happened with Mum?’

He explained about the floods of tears.

Jo stared down at her clasped hands. ‘I’ve been there. I know how she feels.’

She spoke so quietly he had to strain to hear what she was saying.

‘Ghita helped me when I was at my lowest ebb, otherwise I don’t know what I might have done.’

‘Then you’ll understand. I think your mother’s been pushing her own feelings back ever since Pete was kidnapped.’

‘Do you think that’s why she’s always been a bit uptight and guarded?’

‘I’m no psychologist, but I wouldn’t be surprised. I’ve rarely seen anyone as upset as she was today.’

‘She doesn’t usually cry at all.’

‘I hope your boss won’t mind you leaving early.’

‘Too bad if he does. But Mr Benson knows I don’t take time off unnecessarily.’ She walked in silence, then said, ‘I’m not sure Mum will open up to me, though. She doesn’t talk about her feelings, never has.’

‘It’ll comfort her just to have you there, I’m sure. This is my car.’ Edward made no attempt to unlock the doors, standing with one hand on the top of his car. ‘Look, I think she worries about upsetting you and losing another person she loves.’

Jo stared at him aghast. ‘As she lost her brother!’

‘Just a guess, but yes.’

‘I was sorry I’d run away even a week afterwards, but I was too proud to go home. Dad could be so sarcastic. He’d never have let me forget. But there’s no fear of me running away from anyone or anything again, believe me.’ She put up her chin and stared at him.

‘I do believe you. Tell your mother that sometime.’

‘I will.’

When he’d dropped Jo off, he went to Pete’s flat and ignored the journalists waiting outside, moving through them so purposefully they fell back before him.

‘What’s wrong, Edward?’ one of them called.

‘I’m just sorting out the mess that incorrect story has made of my cousin’s life.’

‘How is it incorrect?’

‘Come to the press conference later this afternoon and find out.’ He was through the doors by then and didn’t look back. Some situations could only be dealt with face to face, and this was one.

He wasn’t sure how Pete would react, though. That one incident, so many years ago, had marked the whole family, it seemed, Pete as well as his mother and sister. The father was conspicuous by his absence, even now, so Edward didn’t intend to waste time on him. A man who’d abandoned his wife and daughter so easily and jumped straight into another relationship wasn’t worth it.

Could the main players in the drama be made whole again? He’d try his hardest to help them, because they mattered very much to him.

But if Pete wasn’t prepared to be kind to his birth mother, then Edward would wash his hands of his cousin’s problems and concentrate on looking after Beth.

She wasn’t going to face any more crises on her own if he could help it.

Jo went into the flat and found Ghita in the kitchen, cooking something and looking sad. ‘Has Mum come home?’

‘Yes. She said she wanted to lie down. She looked dreadful, Jo, as if she’d been crying good and hard.’

‘She has.’ Jo explained quickly, then made a cup of tea to take to her mother.

She tapped on the bedroom door and when there was no answer, peeped inside. Her mother was lying on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. It took her a minute or two to react to Jo’s entrance.

‘Sorry. I’m a bit tired.’

‘You’re upset, you mean. Edward came and got me from work. He didn’t think you should be left alone.’

Even that didn’t rouse Beth out of her lethargy. ‘Well, he’s wrong. What I need quite desperately is to be left to think my way through this.’

‘Let me stay with you, Mum. You’ve never talked about what happened to you after your brother vanished. Tell me about it now.’

Beth sat up and glared at her. ‘I know you mean well, and Edward means well, but I can’t take any more kindness and fuss. It’s
suffocating
me.’

She looked so fierce Jo set the cup of tea down beside her and went back to the door. ‘All right. If that’s what you want, face it alone. But you don’t need to. I’m definitely not going back to work today and I’ll be here whether you want me or not.’

She went out, then poked her head back round the door to yell, ‘And I won’t run away again, whatever you do, so get used to that!’

Beth watched the door shut, feeling guilty about upsetting her daughter. Why could none of them realize that what she needed most was peace and quiet to pull herself together? That had always worked before. It was her way of tackling problems. She was ashamed of how she’d broken down in front of Edward. Weak, that was.

First she had to centre herself again. Somehow, ever since she’d discovered that Pete was her brother, she’d felt off balance.

She’d tried to look after her mother in this new crisis, as she always did, but she hadn’t been needed. This time her mother was the strong one, and anyway Linda had Nat now.

More tears came into Beth’s eyes, but she took a few deep breaths and got control of herself again. It was nice to know Edward was concerned enough about her to fetch Jo, though. He was a kind man, and foolishly she’d fallen in love with him. But if being with him meant being with her brother as well, seeing Pete regularly
and
his mother . . . then she couldn’t face it. Just couldn’t.

The look of scorn on Pete’s face as he’d offered her money to go away and keep quiet about their relationship, the way he’d treated her mother, who was also
his
mother – that’d shown her what he really thought of them. However hard he pretended to be friendly now, she wouldn’t be able to trust him.

No, she couldn’t face having anything further to do with him and that was that.

A short time later she hugged another thought to herself. It was comforting that Jo had come home from work, wanting to help. She couldn’t really help, no one could. But still, to know her daughter was there for her felt . . . good. It meant this horrible business hadn’t driven her away.

And if Jo meant what she’d yelled as she left the bedroom, that would fill some of the emptiness after she stopped seeing Edward.

She had her daughter back, even if she’d lost the man she loved. She must cling to that. Nothing in life was ever perfect. She should know that by now.

Ghita’s father was watching the television news during his lunch break at the corner shop he owned when he saw his daughter on the screen. She was going into the block of flats where Beth Harding, Pete Newbury’s sister, lived. It suddenly occurred to him that Beth Harding was the mother of Ghita’s neighbour Jo Harding. He snapped his fingers as he realized exactly where his daughter was living. No wonder he hadn’t been able to find her.

He listened to the reporter and it just bore out what he felt about the way life ought to be organized. His sons could say what they wanted, but the old ways were best. If Pete’s mother had been looking after her child properly in the first place, no one would have been able to kidnap him. A woman’s place was in the home, first her family’s home, then her husband’s. Women still bore the children whether you’d moved to a new country or not.

But he’d been wrong to throw Ghita out when
it
happened. His wife had never forgiven him for it. And see where it had led.

He called his eldest son in, and when they showed a summary of the main news articles on the television, he pointed Ghita out to Nuriel. ‘I’m going round there to find your sister and bring her back. She shouldn’t be living with a woman like that.’

‘What has Mrs Harding done wrong?’

‘It’s what she
is
– a woman running a business like a man. A woman whose mother let her son be kidnapped. What kind of an example is that for a decent young woman? No wonder her own daughter ran away from home. And now that woman’s name is on everyone’s tongue. How will any man want to marry Ghita if she associates with notorious people?’

Before his son could stop him, he’d hurried out of the shop.

Nuriel stood there for a moment, trying to get his head round all this. His father was so old-fashioned he’d treated Ghita unfairly over something which wasn’t her fault. When he found out what had happened, Nuriel had tried to find her, but she’d vanished, been taken into a women’s shelter. It had made him sad that strangers were the ones to help her, but at least it meant she was safe. And anyway, she’d have had a miserable life if she’d come home.

He and his mother worried about his father, who refused to change with the times. They lived in England now and had done for the past twenty-five years. Nuriel couldn’t remember living anywhere else, and Ghita and the others had been born here. This was their home.

Why had his father gone chasing after poor Ghita? What did he think he could do, drag her back by force? The trouble was, he might even try to do that, and then
he
would be in trouble with the police.

Leaving his youngest brother in charge of the shop, Nuriel hurried upstairs to the family flat to tell his mother what had happened. ‘I’m going after him.’

‘No one can stop him when he gets like this,’ she said sadly.

‘I can try.’

‘Tell Ghita I want to keep seeing her – and my grandson. He’s a lovely child.’

Nuriel went to give his mother a hug. ‘I will.’

Although Edward was longing to check that Beth was feeling better, time was of the essence. He went straight from the office to the hospital, armed with a video camera. If his aunt would say something conciliatory, it would help fill in the gap where he’d planned to have Beth make a statement.

Aunt Sue listened to his request and nodded. ‘Of course I’ll speak. But on one condition.’

‘Oh?’

‘Afterwards I want you to ask Mrs Harding if she’ll come and see me. Beg her to, if necessary. I can’t rest easy till I’m sure she understands that I didn’t know about the kidnapping.’

She was looking stressed, so he agreed. ‘But only on condition you rest after this and don’t let yourself get agitated.’ To his relief she sagged back against the pillows, nodding.

She smiled sadly. ‘How can I help but feel agitated, Edward, when the press is trying to destroy my son?’

He laid his hand on hers. ‘I told you I was going to sort all that out. Trust me. I shall do it. Unless we’re very unlucky, by the time I’m finished, Pete will come out of this more pitied than reviled.’

‘I never thought, you know . . .’ She broke off, staring blindly across the room.

‘Never thought what?’

‘How
he
must have felt at being taken from everything he knew. He wouldn’t speak at first, cried a lot. I held him, comforted him, was glad when he’d only come to me, not Donald. I was so selfish. I tried to make him forget the past by never speaking of it. But he was three, not a baby. Of course he must have remembered things.’

He kept a careful eye on her, still worried, but she took a deep breath and turned back to him. ‘You’re right. I mustn’t get agitated. It’ll do no one any good if I get ill again. Tell me what you want me to say.’

It was quickly done. She spoke simply and directly. What she said moved Edward greatly, but he didn’t let himself give in to his emotions. He had to hurry. It was up to him to get them all out of this safely.

Not only Pete, but the woman he loved.

Thanks to Ilsa’s efficiency, the press conference was scheduled for five o’clock in one of the big hotels near the office. Edward grabbed a sandwich on the run as he and Ilsa made the final arrangements. She phoned the major newspapers and television news programmes, while he called a few other important people to let them know what was happening. He particularly didn’t want the senior management at the television station to be surprised by what was going on.

He tried several times to phone Beth, but Jo said her mother was having a lie down and wasn’t answering the phone. He explained to Jo what he’d arranged and she listened carefully, questioning him a couple of times.

‘I’ll let Mum know you called and try to make her change her mind about coming to the press conference.’

‘I doubt she’ll do that and I won’t pressure her into it.’

‘It’d help, though, if she was there, wouldn’t it?’

‘Yes. But she’s been hurt enough so we’ll manage without her.’

Jo’s voice grew softer. ‘You really love her, don’t you?’

‘Yes. I’m not sure whether she loves me, though – or should I say whether she loves me enough?’

‘She’d be mad to let this come between you.’

‘Only she can know whether she’ll be able to face meeting Pete and his mother regularly. I can’t stop seeing him, or my aunt. They’re my only close family.’

‘You mean you’re not going to try to persuade her if she gives you the heave-ho?’

‘Persuade, yes, force, no.’

She was silent for a few moments, then said, ‘And on top of all else she’s had to face, I ran away, so she was left on her own again. I can’t believe how stupid I was, how insensitive! I knew about her brother and I still did it to her again.’

‘We all learn a few things the hard way as we grow up.’

She chuckled. ‘You don’t look as if you’ve ever put a foot wrong.’

‘Oh, I have. Believe me, I cringe when I think of some of the stupid things I did as a teenager. I was just lucky they didn’t have serious lasting consequences.’

She surprised him by saying, ‘I hope you and Mum do get together.’

‘Thanks. So do I. Um – what brought that vote of confidence on?’

‘Chatting to you, realizing you’re being straight with me. And what’s more, I think you’d make a great grandfather for Mikey.’