Chapter 6
6
Hudson was doing dinner for the kids and, although it was a long way off, dreaming of the day when it wasn’t such an ordeal.
He’d made Bolognese, a favourite and pretty much a staple in their house, but even that wasn’t simple. Carys might only be three but she’d noticed the pieces of carrot he’d painstakingly chopped into tiny chunks to hide in the sauce and was refusing to eat it, and Beau, a fifteen-year-old who seemed to have weekly growth spurts, had already heaped another scoop of the meaty mixture onto the remains of his pasta, meaning there wouldn’t be a big enough portion leftover to freeze for a family meal another day. It didn’t matter too much but sometimes, a night off from full chef duty would be good.
‘Slow down, it’s not a race,’ Hudson told Beau, who was shovelling the food in like there was no tomorrow.
‘Ready, set, go!’ Carys said, not once, not twice but several times, much to her brother’s amusement. Maybe he was already thinking he might hoover up her leftovers himself, although that was brave; Hudson was pretty sure Carys had stuck her fingers into the food more than once.
Hudson picked up Carys’s spoon for her. ‘Come on, try to eat some more. Yummy, you love the tomato sauce.’
Her little face said otherwise.
‘Come on, Carys.’ He decided it was pointless pretending the carrots weren’t there now she’d discovered them. ‘You like carrots, bright orange, like the t-shirt you had on yesterday.’ She loved to have sticks of carrot, cooked or raw, and dip them into red-pepper hummus. But, it seemed, that was vastly different to having them pop up unexpectedly in a meat and tomato sauce.
He picked up her bowl with an idea in mind. Anything was worth a shot. He went back to the pot he’d cooked the sauce in and ladled out another big spoonful into a different bowl. He patted it down so there was no orange to be seen and took it back over to her. She’d eaten some of the spaghetti from her other portion at least.
He set the bowl down. ‘See, no more carrots, just Bolognese.’
‘Dad, she’s not stupid.’
Beau’s comment earned him a dagger of a stare from his dad.
‘Stupid!’ Carys yelled.
‘Cheers for that, Beau.’
Beau picked up the bowl of grated cheese from the centre of the table and shoved it Hudson’s way. ‘She likes cheese on top, remember.’
Ever since three months ago when Hudson found Beau drinking vodka at the house when he was not only underage but supposed to be watching his little sister, Beau’s behaviour had at least simmered. Hudson had roared at him that day; he knew he’d scared his son into realising how dangerous it might have been not paying attention to Carys.
‘Cheese?’ Hudson asked his daughter, to which he got a toothy grin. And with a sprinkling of cheese, this time she accepted the spoonful of food. ‘Cheers, Beau.’ Hudson smiled at his son, who shrugged in that fifteen-year-old way that meant even if it was a moment of peace, he wasn’t going acknowledge any sort of camaraderie with his father.
As Carys ate spoonful after spoonful, her little legs jiggling below the table, Hudson watched Beau, who, despite his moodiness and acting out since his mother left, was a good kid. And apart from that one time Hudson would rather not think about, he was really good with his sister. The other day, Beau had taken Carys after her bath and put her to bed so Hudson could clear the kitchen. He didn’t usually but Hudson had been late home from work following a particularly involved patient case and so it put pressure on the evening routine. When Hudson went back upstairs, he’d heard Beau laughing, Carys giggling. She was too little to irritate him yet and Hudson had hovered on the stairs for a while just listening to the pair of them.
Beau was first to finish his dinner and with a touch to Carys’s cheek which made her grin as he passed by, he took his bowl over to the sink.
‘How’s school?’ Hudson asked before his son could escape.
‘Dull.’ But at least he was going.
‘How are your friends?’
‘Dad, don’t be a loser.’
‘Just taking an interest.’
Hudson was the one here at the house every single day and although he wouldn’t change it for the world, he sometimes felt sorry for himself that he was still the enemy. Perhaps he was just the only one in the firing line. It was frustrating that Beau was nicer to Lucinda than him because she was the one who’d lied in their relationship, the one who had cheated. But of course the kids didn’t know those things and they never would unless she chose to share those parts of herself. It wasn’t for him to poison his children against their mother; he wanted them to have her in their lives. But it still felt unfair that he was treated like the baddie, because he’d been there for Beau a lot. Beau just didn’t seem to see it. He’d been at every school assembly he’d been invited to, gone to every parents’ evening, he’d done the pick-ups and drop-offs from school sports, it was him who’d looked after the kids when they were sick.
Lucinda had worked the long hours, which he didn’t judge her for most of the time, but it was as though the work agenda always took precedence over anything going on at home. Even now, she was forever at day-long meetings, working with a new client, out of town on business. She kept in touch with technology when she couldn’t be with the kids in person, but it wasn’t the same. And Hudson was never quite sure how much she was telling the truth about where she was and how long she had to stay away, because lies had come so easily to her over the years. But that was for Lucinda’s conscience, not his – he would protect the kids and it was up to her to prove that she was still the mum she claimed to be, that she loved them both and that of course she was always there for them. There should be a caveat to that which read, When it suits me but Hudson would never say that out loud; it would fuel her anger and the last thing any of them needed was more tension.
‘I’ve got homework.’ Beau moved towards the doorway but stopped next to Carys and poked out his tongue, making her giggle and do it in return – not really helpful at dinner time but Hudson didn’t want to discourage the interaction because it brought out a happier side to his son, a side he didn’t get to see much of these days.
Hudson wondered whether he really did have homework or if Beau was feeding him a line to get away. And the thought that he was learning that from his mother had him glad that the kids spent the majority of their time here, at this house.
He tried a subtle line of enquiry – no use questioning Beau’s claim as it would be like throwing a grenade into the mix. ‘What homework do you have?’ His exams would be next year but this year was important too and Hudson wanted him to do well.
‘Maths.’
Hudson wondered whether Beau had picked the one subject he knew his dad hated and wasn’t likely to offer him help with. Lucinda was the maths whiz of their family. It came naturally to her.
But Beau was still hovering.
‘Something on your mind?’ Hudson carried on helping Carys, who didn’t seem to have a problem with the taste of the carrot pieces now she couldn’t see them under the sauce and the grated cheese.
‘Did someone really leave a baby in a box?’
‘How did you hear about that?’ Hudson scooped up another spoonful of Carys’s food and she obligingly opened her mouth.
‘I saw that lady you work with on the telly. Was the baby dumped?’
‘I wouldn’t say dumped, but yes, a baby was left at the airbase.’
‘Who would do that?’
‘We’ve no idea but whoever it was likely chose the air ambulance base because they knew it was a safe place.’
‘It’s cruel, don’t you think?’
Hudson tugged a baby wipe from the packet in the centre of the table and after a quick clean of Carys’s face, much to her disgust, he gave her another fresh wipe to do her own hands. ‘It is cruel if you think about the basic facts but there’s usually more to it than what you see on the surface. Whoever did it would have had reasons neither you nor I can hope to understand, not right now.’
‘Do you think you’ll find the person?’
His son might be rude and snappy a lot of the time but inside that tough shell he displayed with Hudson was a heart of gold, a soft side, the son who had shed tears on his first day at school, the son who had done his best to stand up tall when he was tackled so roughly in a school game of rugby that he got a mild concussion. There was a time when Beau had been fascinated by his dad’s job too – he might not be up in the air with The Skylarks but the fact that his dad worked for an air ambulance charity had, a few years ago, been something Beau boasted about to anyone who would listen. He’d loved to hear the helicopters going up in the air, had watched them from ground level until they disappeared out of sight.
Hudson missed that kid, he really did. And he hoped that one day, when things settled, perhaps he might get to see him again.
‘I hope someone comes forward, I really do. For now, the baby is safe.’ Hudson put a hand on his son’s shoulder. ‘Want some dessert before you go up?’
‘Can I take it to my room?’
‘Sure. Just don’t get it on your books or your laptop.’
‘I’m not Carys,’ he said with a typical roll of the eyes.
Hudson dished up ice cream and distributed freshly washed and hulled strawberry pieces to each bowl and handed one to Beau.
‘Dad… what if they never find the baby’s mother? Or father?’
‘Then she’ll go into foster care indefinitely until a permanent family is found.’
Hudson wasn’t sure but he thought he heard Beau mumble something as he walked off about it not being right, not being fair. Hudson liked to think that maybe his son was counting his blessings, that maybe this sort of thing reminded him of how lucky he was.
Hudson and Lucinda had made the decision to separate long before she moved out. They’d kept up a pretence in separate bedrooms while she found a flat to rent, and while they initiated divorce proceedings and the process began, with neither of them contesting anything along the way. They’d agreed that Hudson would keep custody of the kids while she had full visitation rights. She didn’t use those rights as much as she could, but it was an arrangement they’d both been happy with and the one they saw as causing the least amount of upset and disruption for the kids. At least that was their prediction but it hadn’t gone as smoothly as they’d hoped.
Carys had regressed with her toilet training and had frequent accidents, she’d been clingy, she’d been difficult to put down at night and almost impossible to leave at childcare or even with Hudson’s parents. Slowly, she’d returned to her normal cute, content smiley self. She’d been the easy one compared to her older brother.
Beau was at an age where he had his own, sometimes very strong, opinions which were out of anyone else’s control. He’d dealt with their initial announcement in his own way – at first he’d gone quiet and seemed calm but what followed was a storm unleashed in the form of rebellion at school. He’d skived off lessons twice, been in detention for talking back to a teacher and another time for failing to hand in homework for the third time in a row. For a while, he’d talked back to Hudson, shouted and sworn at him, in a way he never had before. He didn’t do that so much any more, he was more likely to offer up the silent treatment, but Hudson wasn’t sure which of those behaviours he preferred.
And Hudson had no idea whether he’d seen the worst from Beau yet or whether that might still be to come.
Throughout all of this, Hudson had kept his home life quiet from his life with The Skylarks. It had been his way of coping, at first to pretend it wasn’t really happening and then just because he didn’t want to be asked about it, he didn’t want to admit what a total shitshow his life had become and how he hadn’t been able to see what was going on. He always knew he’d tell people eventually but he wanted to get himself and the kids in a better place first. In the meantime, his parents had been by his side; they’d been his counsel, his outlet.
During the separation and the divorce proceedings, another relationship had been the last thing on Hudson’s mind, especially when Lucinda had already met someone else who seemed a bit more of a permanent fixture given he’d met the kids. Whoever the man was, and Beau didn’t give much away, the new relationship hadn’t gone down well with Beau and Hudson wouldn’t make things any more complicated for his son or his daughter. He vowed to leave his personal life until the kids’ altered lives settled down and they felt safe, not like something else was about to blow their world apart.
That was all good in theory. But lately, he and Nadia had worked a lot closer together on some serious cases, especially since Paige had reduced her hours, and the more time they spent together, the stronger his feelings became. Seeing her with baby Lena at the hospital had ignited a burning desire to get to know her more.
But he sometimes got the impression she was hiding just as much, if not more, than he was.