Chapter 21
21
Hudson admired Nadia for having the guts to call Archie. With everything she’d told him, it couldn’t have been easy. But it had helped Hudson do what he needed to do after he picked Beau up from his stint with the collection pot outside the supermarket.
‘Is that Mum’s car?’ Beau asked when they pulled up in the driveway at home.
‘It is. She’s been waiting with Carys.’
If Nadia could take steps to face up to things, then so could he. And it was about time he and Lucinda represented more of a united front. The snippy remarks, the conflict, it all had to stop, at least in front of the kids. They were both guilty of doing it. He’d called her earlier to ask her to come over so they could talk to Beau together, show that from this moment on, they were still a family, just one that didn’t look the same as before. He’d reminded her that it couldn’t always be him playing bad cop and her good cop; sometimes, she’d have to lay down the rules too even if it meant an argument with her son and, in years to come, her daughter. When they first split up, he hadn’t minded being the disciplinarian, it had made him feel more in control, like he knew what was going on, but for Beau’s sake especially, that had to change. He actually hadn’t expected to get through to her so easily on the phone call, he’d expected her to say he was being dramatic, but she’d agreed that yes, they did need to do something and that she would come over.
Perhaps pillow talk with Conrad had told her how much trouble Beau could’ve been in, perhaps her parents had spoken with her because he’d told them about Beau and what had been going on on the phone a couple of nights ago. Whatever had changed, whatever reason she was here now, it was a good thing as far as Hudson was concerned.
He let himself and Beau into the house and he could tell from the sounds that Lucinda and Carys must be in the kitchen. ‘You can hit the shower first if you like; I know you didn’t get a chance this morning.’
‘Thanks, Dad.’
And it would give Hudson a chance to make sure he and Lucinda worked together on this. What Hudson wanted most of all out of today was for Beau to realise that a part of his world might have wobbled but it certainly hadn’t ended just because his parents’ marriage did.
‘Where’s Beau?’ Lucinda was at the sink rinsing out the yoghurt tub Carys had clearly devoured the contents of – some of it was in her hair.
‘Taking a shower.’ He gave his daughter a kiss on the top of her head. ‘He’s had a stint standing outside the supermarket with a collection pot; thought he could use a bit of time before we all talk.’
She dropped the yoghurt pot into the recycling tub in the cupboard below the sink. ‘I have told him my thoughts on what he did, you know.’
‘I know, but I think hearing it from us both at the same time will help him to see that even though we’re not together, we’re both very much there for him.’ He’d gone over and over in his head the best thing to say so she didn’t get annoyed and assume he was picking fault. The last thing any of them needed was a full-scale row to raise the tension around here.
But it seemed he’d been a bit too optimistic.
‘You’re too strict with him.’ Lucinda placed a couple of crackers on the tray of Carys’s highchair.
‘He could’ve got a fine, a criminal record.’
‘I don’t mean with the hoax and his punishments, but you’re too strict with the rest of the rules. If we’re representing a united front, then I get an opinion. Which brings me to another point – can you please try not to show your frustrations with me so much in front of the kids?’
He was about to argue back but she was right; he did do that. ‘Okay, I’ll make a concerted effort. I promise.’
‘Thank you.’
‘What else do you think I’m too strict with?’
‘There are rules about homework, seeing his friends, bedtime. He’s fifteen; it’s no wonder he’s rebelling.’
He tried to keep his head; Beau would be down any second. She seemed to be doing her best to cause more upset, despite only just asking him to ease off on any of his criticisms. That would be hard to do if she was going to behave like this.
‘He needs rules, Lucinda. He needs boundaries. It’ll help shape him into a human being who considers others, who manages his time, who’s a pleasure to be around. He already is but rules and ways to behave are there to help him. And you’re right, he’s fifteen. Fifteen is no age at all. He’s still young, still finding his way.’
‘He needs to be a teenager.’
‘And I’m not stopping him.’
She’d be less combative if she wasn’t standing there like she could make a run for it at any moment. ‘Would you please sit down?’ He gestured to the chair after Carys let him wipe her face, her hair, and her fingers once she’d finished the crackers. He took her out of the highchair and she toddled off along the hallway to pick up her doll, which she merrily brought back to the kitchen to put in the toy highchair. It looked like dolly was going to get some food now.
‘For what it’s worth, Hudson,’ Lucinda said with a sigh after running her hand over Carys’s angelic hair, ‘I do think, on the whole, you’re doing a great job.’
She’d meant it as a compliment but he wasn’t sure he could take it as such. ‘It’s not a job.’
‘It’s a word. Don’t be so paranoid. You’re a good dad, whatever phrase gets through to you. I’m not criticising your abilities and I wish you wouldn’t criticise mine.’
‘We need to treat him the same. We can’t have one of us with rules, the other with none at all.’ When she opened her mouth to object, she soon closed it again as if finally, he was getting his point across. ‘I’m not saying my way is perfect, but otherwise he’s going to be all over the place; he won’t know what’s what.’
She took a seat and it was a while before she said, ‘Conrad regrets he hasn’t tried harder to get close to Isaac.’
He was surprised at that. From what Maya had said, her ex-husband wouldn’t be told when it came to their son; he always thought he was right. ‘He still sees him, though?’
‘He does but he knows things between them could be better.’ Head hung, she surprised him with an admission. ‘I want my kids to like me. That’s why sometimes I let them do different things; it’s why I throw the rules out of the window occasionally.’
‘Sometimes, I want to do the same, but it won’t help them in the long run.’
It was a while before she asked, ‘How’s it going with The Skylarks? Are they okay around Beau or are they angry?’
‘They’ve all taken it really well. The written apology was sincere, and I think seeing him helping out around the airbase, without that teenage chip on his shoulder that he sometimes has, showed them all his regret. I was worried someone would want to take it further, but so far, they’ve all accepted the apology. And you know what, I think Beau has actually been enjoying his time there.’
‘He said as much to me.’
‘Yeah?’ He took a tea cup from Carys, who had given one to Lucinda, one to dolly and now one to him. He pretended to sip from the cup.
Beau’s footfall had Lucinda and Hudson look at each other and when their eldest son came into the room, Hudson pulled out a chair for him.
‘How was the collection at the supermarket?’ Lucinda asked when it seemed their son had nothing to say.
‘All right.’ Eyes on the table, he slumped in the chair in typical teenage fashion with legs outstretched and face hidden somewhere beneath his fringe.
‘Raise much money?’ Hudson put in.
‘You already asked me that.’
‘I haven’t,’ said Lucinda.
‘I don’t know, the money goes into the slot, I don’t count it.’
‘Watch the tone,’ Lucinda warned and he looked up, surprised, but Hudson kept a blank expression because he was taken aback by her supportive remark too.
‘It seems your apology letter was received well,’ Lucinda began. ‘We are really proud of you for taking ownership of the hoax that you were a part of.’
Hudson opened his mouth to ask again who his comrades had been but then he closed it, kept the focus on the reason they were here.
‘I like being at the airbase,’ Beau confessed. ‘They’re all really nice, too nice, when they don’t need to be.’
‘It’s part of the job description a lot of the time.’ Hudson smiled. ‘But you’re right, they are.’
‘I’m proud of that too,’ said Lucinda, ‘that you’re helping out to make up for what you and the others did.’
Hudson had done most of the hard yards with parenting up until now – the parent evenings, minding the kids when they weren’t well, doing the school run every morning and pick-ups from childcare or after-school care. When Carys went through a stage of colouring on the wooden floorboards, it had been Hudson who cleaned it all up and told her off in a firm but gentle way when she was so young. When Beau got into a fight outside school a couple of days after Lucinda walked out, it had been up to Hudson to teach him that no matter what his frustrations, no matter how much someone wound him up, using his fists wasn’t the answer. Carys had gone through a biting phase a few months ago and it had been Hudson who went up to meet with the other parent at childcare and apologise. It wasn’t that Lucinda didn’t care, but Hudson’s job, his proximity to his kids made it easier for him to deal with these things. He didn’t begrudge her her successful career, but it wasn’t up to him to convince the kids of her love for them; it was up to Lucinda to show them both how she felt. And if she didn’t, he’d have to be here to catch them from every disappointment, every let-down she was responsible for. He just hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
‘I didn’t realise how much money it cost to send the helicopter on a mission.’ Beau started talking unexpectedly, although he still wasn’t looking up from beneath that fringe. ‘I feel bad about it.’
‘Not so bad that you’ll tell anyone who the other lads involved were?’ Lucinda asked.
‘No way, Mum. I told you, I don’t want to be a grass.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, just tell us who they were,’ she went on. ‘I’ve a good mind to go up to that school and ask around – you hang out with Simon and Gareth still; was it them? Beau, tell us.’
‘No!’
‘Beau, you have to.’
This was spiralling out of control. It had been going so well, but when Lucinda kept asking him, Hudson knew what was going to happen even before Beau pushed out his chair and stomped off with calls from Lucinda of, ‘Don’t you dare walk away from me,’ and, ‘Come back here right now!’
She turned her venom towards Hudson. ‘That is not okay, you know, to walk away when we’re having a family discussion. Are you going to get him back down here? Or am I?’
‘Well, at least you’re playing bad cop for once,’ he said.
‘It’s what you wanted!’
She had no idea of the difference, did she? That you could be bad cop without blowing the situation up, resolving nothing.
‘Maybe we should try this again another time,’ he suggested.
‘Or maybe we just accept it is what it is, or rather what we are. Divorced. And Beau is going to have to adapt.’
He should’ve known this wouldn’t work and he was tired of arguing about it. He’d done his best.
He waited for Lucinda to hug Carys goodbye and then after she’d picked up her bags and gone out of the front door, he felt the tension dissipate from himself and the house too.
Hudson had intended to give Beau a chance to calm down before he went up to knock on his door but Beau came downstairs of his own accord soon after his mum left.
Carys ran over to him and he scooped her up.
‘It’s past her bedtime,’ said Hudson. She was rubbing at her eyes as she leant against her brother’s chest and nuzzled into his neck.
Beau sat down, Carys still on his lap. ‘Mum left?’
‘You know she did or you wouldn’t have come down.’
He tried but failed to hide the little turn up at the corners of his mouth.
As Carys leaned against her brother, her eyes almost closed by now, Beau blurted out, ‘I was part of the prank because I wanted to get back at you.’
‘Get back at me?’
‘You were never here. All of a sudden, you’d gone back to working all the time, Mum left, I was angry. Like all the time.’
‘I know you were. And I understand why.’ And now it felt good that his son was finally being honest and telling him how he really felt. ‘I had no choice though, Beau. I upped my hours because I had to. Running a household and raising kids is expensive and it’ll only get more so as you two get older. There are always things to pay for – school excursions for you, uniforms, playgroups, childcare. It’ll be driving lessons for you soon enough, then university if that’s what you decide. And we’ll have to do it all over again for Carys. Don’t get me wrong, me and your mother want to do those things, but it’s hard to do when you live separately and your mum isn’t responsible for me. I have to earn my own money for the things that I need, or things that I might want.’
‘Mum always loved her job more than us.’ Beau, if it were possible, held Carys a little tighter, although Hudson suspected that was only in his imagination. ‘It made me feel as if the same would eventually happen with you.’
‘What? No way. Never, Beau. I promise. And also, it isn’t true to say your mum loves her job more than you. She does love her work, yes, and she’s always been career driven. You might not see it but if she really did love the job more than you and your sister then she’d never be here; she would’ve walked out and not looked back. I’d have let her too.
‘You know I felt like the luckiest dad alive when I got to stay home with you guys so much as your mum was happy to work. I’m not blowing my own trumpet here but parenting came more naturally to me than it did to Lucinda. So we agreed, she would work, I would be your primary carer. She does try, though; do you see that?’
Beau nodded. ‘I miss the time we used to spend together.’
‘You and your mum?’
‘Me and you.’
‘We spend a lot of time together.’
‘I don’t mean at home.’
It didn’t take long to realise what he meant. ‘You’re talking about the camping and the fishing trips.’
‘Yeah, I miss those.’
‘They were fun.’ Hudson couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen it before, that somehow those trips had dwindled away, the memories becoming just that: memories, the past. And over time, he’d got so busy, he hadn’t even thought about doing it again.
‘I couldn’t understand why we didn’t go. I knew you had work, but I thought if Mum could take Carys on a weekend, we’d still do it. But we never did.’
Hudson watched his son. ‘The divorce didn’t just affect your mother and me; I’m realising just how much it affected you and for that, I’m sorry.’
‘Someone once told me that an apology could go a long way.’ Beau began to smile and Hudson laughed.
‘Someone very wise?’
‘Old and wise.’
‘Cheek.’ Hudson had missed the banter between them. But it wasn’t too late to see the young boy hidden behind a lot of anger and fear at the world around him changing. ‘After your mum and I separated, life kind of spun around for a while and all I could focus on was survival, getting money in the bank and food on the table, making sure you two were all right.’
Beau shrugged. ‘It’s okay.’
‘No, it isn’t.’ But he did have an idea. ‘Your gran and grandad wanted to have you kids over for a barbecue tomorrow straight from school seeing as it’s Friday. They’re making those burgers you like with the homemade relish.’
‘Cool.’ Deflated, he added, ‘But I can’t go as we’re supposed to be at the airbase.’
‘You’re right, we are supposed to be there. But… do me a favour?’ He put his arms out to take Carys. ‘I’m going to put Carys to bed and while I do that, could you go out to the garage, find the tent, open it up in the back garden and we’ll check it. I’m pretty sure it’s ready to go but it’s always good to be sure.’
Confusion gave way to a smile. ‘You mean…’
‘Yeah. You can barbecue another time; your grandparents won’t mind. They’ll get Carys all to themselves, and you and me? We’re going camping. I’ll call your grandparents, see if they mind taking Carys and we can leave early evening.’
He hadn’t seen Beau smile quite so much or move quite so fast since he’d been asking Brad all about the air ambulance.
And the feeling Hudson had right now was priceless.