Seven For a Secret by Judy Astley

anxiously out of the mullioned window and searching the sky for the direction of the sun.
    â€˜Same amount as last time, Ma,’ Heather told her. ‘You said you liked it then.’
    â€˜It wasn’t high summer then. It’s been quite a time since my last visit,’ Delia countered. ‘Still, these curtains are properly lined, I expect I’ll be all right. You don’t sleep as well when you’re older. You’ll find that yourself one day,’ she predicted, not without satisfaction.
    Tom walked into the kitchen during supper, not particularly surprised that he didn’t seem to be expected. ‘I left a message on the machine,’ he told Heather as he kissed her. ‘Any lasagne left?’ he asked, suddenly starving for real home cooking. That was another thing he was tired of: flavourless hotel steak with shake-on Bar-B-Q essence. Airline dinners reminded him, even the first-class ones, of mini-portion baby food. He picked at Heather’s salad: the homegrown rocket, mange-tout and cucumber.
    â€˜You didn’t say Tom was coming home,’ Delia accused Heather, as if she might not have come to stay if she’d known.
    â€˜Well he does, you know, most weeks, if only for a couple of days,’ Heather told her patiently, just as she had many times before.
    â€˜Hong Kong and back doesn’t take that long. We’ve come a long way since eighty days was a fast time for round the world, and everyone sat in wicker chairs and got put to bed on the upper deck with pure linen sheets,’ Tom joked, unsuccessfully, at his mother-in-law who stared coolly back at him.
    â€˜Did you bring me anything Daddy?’ Suzy cut in, smiling at him, then prodded at his guilt as the constant family absentee, ‘Seeing as you missed Speech Day.’
    â€˜I heard you got a prize. Well done Suze. I’ve got a couple of those baggy silk shirts you like in my bag – you and Kate can squabble over which ones you want.’
    Heather relaxed, started to enjoy her food and let Tom take over as the centre of the family. Her mother brooded over her supper, picking the mange-tout out of her salad, saying had she meant to include a vegetable that should be served hot with butter, not cold with vinaigrette?
    â€˜Tell me about Uncle Edward. What exactly is wrong with him?’ Heather asked.
    â€˜Age, I suppose. He had a bit of a stroke and recovered quite well about a year ago. I rang and told you, remember?’ Heather did, but only vaguely. She’d have sent a get well card for more than ‘a bit of’ a stroke, so it couldn’t have been too bad. ‘And now he’s got a collection of various ailments. With leukemia on top. There’s no treatment of course, not at his age.’ Delia sighed, perhaps feeling too uncomfortably close herself to ‘his age’.
    â€˜Why not?’ Kate, who had been dreamily munching her food suddenly demanded. ‘Surely they can do something? Has he told them not to?’
    â€˜He’s not really in a position to tell them anything,’ Delia told her. ‘You aren’t, with doctors, are you? Besides he doesn’t really know what he’s got, what’s the point at . . .’ she sighed again, ‘at his age?’
    Kate was frowning, trying to work out what she’d heard, if it was as bad as she imagined. ‘He doesn’t know? Has no-one told him? Why not?
I’d
want to know.’
    â€˜Well not everyone’s like you, Kate, perhaps Uncle Edward would prefer just to slip away without a whole lot of drug side-effects to cope with,’ Tom explained to her quietly. Delia was getting twitchy, twisting her fork round and round, and her eyes flickered quickly from Tom to Kate.
    Heather felt grateful to Tom for his unusual gentleness – it had taken him years not to rise to Delia’s baiting antagonism which mostly stemmed from her being simply unaccustomed to