Free Ralph’s Children by Hilary Norman Page B

so calmly with people she loved.
    She experienced another great longing to speak to Rob, but she didn’t want to sound needy, nor did she want him to think she was trying to muscle in on his time with Emmie, so having
downed a machine-bought can of Coke and a packet of crisps and used the loo, she went back to the hospital car park and settled for calling up her messages at home, in case Rob might have had a
similar urge.
    Only one message, from Bel.
    Kate sighed, got into the Mini and returned the call.
    ‘Hello?’ a voice answered.
    Not Bel.
    Sandi West.
    She was usually somewhere around her mother’s life these days, which Kate had just about come to accept was, for Bel’s sake, perhaps not entirely a bad thing.
    ‘Hello, Sandi,’ she said now, willing her hackles not to rise. ‘It’s Kate.’
    ‘How nice,’ the other woman said.
    The sarcasm made Kate grit her teeth. ‘Is Mum there?’
    ‘You really upset your mother the other day,’ Sandi told her. ‘Putting the phone down on her instead of listening to her good advice.’
    ‘Nevertheless,’ Kate said, ‘I’d like to speak to her, please.’
    ‘You can’t,’ Sandi West told her. ‘She’s gone to the chemist’s.’
    ‘Is she ill?’ Kate waited for Sandi to lay some extra guilt.
    ‘She’s gone to fill a prescription for me,’ Sandi said. ‘I have to go away for the weekend, but my pain’s worse than usual and she was kind enough to
offer.’
    Kate managed to end the call without resorting to rudeness.
    The phone rang again, startling her. She peered at the display, saw it was her father calling.
    ‘Dad?’
    ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.
    Kate was startled, wondering how he could possibly know what had happened.
    ‘Only you weren’t yourself earlier,’ Michael said.
    Just coincidence then.
    ‘Too much myself.’ Kate remembered her awful behaviour. ‘I’m so sorry, Dad, I was a real bitch. And will you tell Delia?’
    ‘No problem, sweetheart.’
    She blessed him, as she had many times before, for his forgiving nature.
    ‘Are you guys at Heathrow?’ she asked.
    ‘I’m home,’ Michael told her. ‘Alone. Delia had a crisis.’
    ‘What kind of crisis?’
    ‘Family.’
    ‘In Oz?’
    A vision of Delia boarding a Qantas jet gave her a swift rush of pleasure, which she promptly squashed because her father would miss her.
    ‘No,’ Michael said. ‘Cumbria.’
    If Kate had previously known about Delia’s UK relatives, she’d forgotten.
    ‘I just wanted to tell you I love you, Kate,’ Michael told her. ‘And that if you need to talk, I’m always here for you.’
    The warmth she felt was a reviving force.
    ‘Thank you, Dad,’ Kate said. ‘Though I’m on the way to Caisleán for the weekend.’
    ‘Just what you need,’ Michael told her.
    ‘Hope so,’ Kate said.
    ‘Drive carefully, my darling,’ her father said.
    Kate promised she would.
    ‘Don’t worry about me,’ she said.
    ‘I’m your dad,’ Michael said. ‘Goes with the territory.’

Laurie
    N ot one, but two spanners in the works as Laurie’s countdown continued.
    First, a pipe had burst beneath the first floor, resulting in half the kitchen ceiling crashing down on the Moons’ beautiful granite worktops and maple floor, electrics shorting out and
Shelly Moon pleading with her daughter to stay home and help out.
    ‘I am helping,’ Laurie said, sweeping up broken glass. ‘And I’ll go on helping as soon as I come back tomorrow evening.’
    ‘You’ll have to put off your visit till next week.’ Shelly was feeling desperate, though Pete was busy marshalling troops, and Dave and Frank from the stables were already on
their way.
    ‘I can’t put it off, Mum,’ Laurie told her.
    ‘It’s not as if it makes any real difference to him,’ her mother said.
    ‘Perhaps –’ Laurie straightened up – ‘if you hadn’t said that, I might have postponed.’
    ‘But now you won’t,’ Shelly said.
    ‘No,’ Laurie confirmed.
    ‘You wouldn’t