Free Uphill All the Way by Sue Moorcroft Page A

an unofficial basis by residents who wanted the grass mown more often than the twice a summer the council thought necessary. Tall copper beeches glowed in the sunlight, and over a series of arches Russian Vine was a creamy riot. Mile-a-Minute, some people called it.
    When she'd been married to Tom the residents had held Mile-a-Minute Sundays when they'd formed working parties to cut the vine hard back to prevent it from smothering the entire area, loud and happy occasions fuelled by glasses of wine and picnic lunches. Children, high on Mars Bars and Coca-Cola, would stuff the snaky clippings into black bags, screaming and racing and scaling stepladders no matter how often they were warned.
    Judith turned away from the memory, and clanged through the fancy, golden-tipped gates.
    It was an odd sensation to knock at the door of what used to be her home, especially since it was a different door now, with mock gothic hinges and an ornate black letter plate. She wondered what had happened to the gracious old one with the stained glass panel. Tom had probably sold it to a reclamation yard.
    Tom, when he answered the door, looked stunned to see her. He also looked dishevelled, food spots on his shirt and hair on end. The contrast between him and Giorgio struck her like a slap. Tom looked slack and pale and all of his sixty years. A cynical person might say she'd done all right for herself, exchanging this husband showing definite signs of wear and tear, his hair leeched of colour, his face becoming pouchy, for Giorgio's dark good looks and fewer years on the clock. Giorgio's body had been more solid. Firmer beneath her hands. Tom's typically English appetites for the wrong food and too much beer had combined unhappily with the effects of gravity.
    She arranged her features into a casual smile. 'Hello Tom. You look as if I woke you from a Sunday nap.'
    The familiar parade of expressions flitted across Tom's lived-in face. Pleasure to see her, then anger. Lastly, resignation, because the anger had been futile, she'd left him anyway. 'Judith! What are you doing here?'
    'I came to tell you that I'm living in Brinham again, just so you'd know. I'd hate Frankie to surprise you with the news.'
    He blinked. Rubbed his hair back over his head. She was sure she'd woken him from a nap. Perhaps he wondered whether she was part of a dream.
    'I was sorry to hear about Liza.' She congratulated herself for actually sounding sorry, rather than smug at his comeuppance.
    'Yes.' He hesitated. 'It was a bad time.' Then, ungraciously, 'Well. I suppose you can come in.'
    She stayed where she was. She'd never cared for a certain bluntness about Tom's manners.
    After a second he sighed, and amended with overdone courtesy, 'Why, Judith, how lovely to see you. Would you care to come in, perhaps for some refreshment?'
    She grinned at his exaggerated air of indulging her. 'A cup of tea would be very welcome.'
    'You know where the kitchen is.' He closed the door behind her as she stepped into the big hall with the dogleg staircase.
    She opened the door again and stepped back out onto the drive. 'You don't change much, Tom.'
    'It was a joke!' he shouted after her as she strolled up the drive. 'Judith!'
    Her hand on the large gate latch, she halted. She'd overreacted. For God's sake, couldn't she take a bit of wry humour any more? She should turn back, have a civilised cuppa with this big bluff bloke who once was her husband.
    But Tom yelled on. 'You don't have to be like that... you stroppy, awkward mare! You always were flitty! Or we'd still be together!' Flitty, from Tom, was an insult usually reserved for exasperating (women) customers who changed their minds mid-job.
    She stepped through the gate. 'I might be stroppy and awkward, but deciding not to be married to you doesn't make me flitty. It makes me sensible.'
     
     
    Chapter Seven
    For two weeks, Judith stayed in Molly's spare room and tried to get the hang of living in Brinham again.
    Brinham was a