down in amazement at the child clinging to his leg.
‘It’s all right, Nicholas.’ Helen jumped off her chair and crouched down beside the boy. ‘He is not a nasty man,’ she said, slipping an arm around his smooth little body and turning him towards her. ‘He is Mum Delia’s brother and that makes him your uncle.’ Nicholas’ chubby arm closed around her neck and, lifting him into her arms, she stood up. ‘He is a nice man,’ she said, not believing it for an instant. ‘And he has come all the way from Greece to see you.’
‘Just to see me,’ Nicholas said, his big dark eyes, so like Delia’s, lifted up to the silent man towering over them. ‘You’re my uncle.’ Then he looked back at Helen. ‘My friend Tim has an uncle who stays with him and his mum, and sleeps in her bed. Is this uncle going to stay with you and me?’ Nicholas asked and cast a wary glance back up at Leon.
Helen felt the colour surge in her cheeks, and for a moment she was struck dumb. The fact that Nicholas at his tender age was aware of any adult’s sleeping arrangements other than her own shocked her rigid. But Aristides had no such problem.
‘Yes. I would like us to stay together,’ Leon confirmed, speaking for the first time since Nicholas had entered the kitchen. ‘If you will let me,’ he added with a smile. ‘You remind me very much of my sister Delia.’
‘You know Delia?’ Nicholas demanded.
‘Mum Delia,’ Helen prompted.
‘Mum Delia,’ Nicholas repeated. ‘She was supposed to come and see us and didn’t. But she sent me a car-shaped bed for Christmas, and lots of toys.’ He wriggled free of Helen’s hold to stand on chubby legs and glance shyly up at Leon. ‘Would you like to see them?’
Speechless with anger, Helen simply stared as Leon knelt down and took Nicholas’ hand in his. How dared he tell Nicholas he was staying with them?
‘I’d be delighted, Nicholas. May I call you Nicholas?’
‘Yes, come on.’ Nicholas tugged on his large hand impatiently.
‘Wait a minute.’ Helen finally found her voice. ‘For a start, Nicholas, what are you doing down here? I have told you not to come downstairs on your own.’
She felt guilty as hell. With the shocking revelations of the past hour she had forgotten he was no longer in his cot but in the new bed and could get out in a second, and she had also forgotten to fasten the child gate at the top of the stairs. ‘You might have fallen.’
‘I’m sure Nicholas is too big a boy to fall down the stairs,’ Leon declared rising to his feet. ‘Isn’t that right, son?’
Since when had his nephew become his son? Helen thought furiously.
‘Yes,’ Nicholas responded, and by the smile on his face he didn’t mind being called son at all. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Leon Aristides.’ The big man grinned down at the boy. ‘You can call me Uncle or Leon, or both, take your pick.’
Two minutes later she watched man and boy walk out of the kitchen to view the new bed and a sliver of fear trickled down her spine. Her protestation that Nicholas needed a drink of juice and a biscuit, their usual ritual, was brushed aside in typical male fashion by Nicholas.
‘You get it ready while I show Uncle Leon my car-bed.’
Her suggestion he needed dressing was brushed aside equally bluntly by Uncle Leon with, ‘No problem, I can mange.’
Controlling her instinct to follow the pair, she glanced around the empty kitchen with a heart as heavy as lead as the enormity of the news hit her. Delia dead and Nicholas had yet to be told.
Oh, God! She groaned and slumped down in the chair she had recently vacated. She eyed the wine bottle and for a second was tempted to drown her sorrows, but only for a second. She had to be strong for Nicholas. She owed it to her friend to make sure the boy was happy, never mind what the indomitable Leon Aristides wanted.
Rising to her feet, she picked up the glasses and washed them in the sink. No way was she going to quietly slip to the sidelines of Nicholas’ life, she silently vowed. She had dealt with enough sorrow and death in her life and she was not going to let this latest tragedy beat her.
Contrary to what Leon Aristides obviously thought with his dig about money and his patronising comment about her job at the crèche, at five feet two she was not a tiny ineffectual woman. The ‘tiny’ still rankled as she picked up the bottle from the table and put it on the back of the bench. She had a core of inner strength that had seen her through a lot of adversity that would have defeated a lesser woman.
She had nursed her grandfather for four years and continued her studies at the same time, eventually enrolling for a home-study degree. A few months after his death she had taken on the full-time care of baby Nicholas and continued her studies and last year she had obtained a degree in History of Art. Plus she was nowhere near the poor little woman Aristides thought.
Her grandfather after his first stroke at the age of sixty, had sold off the fifty acres of land that surrounded their home to an international hotel chain for development while making sure they kept the house and right of way. It was his way of ensuring there was money for his long-term care and Helen.
On inheriting her grandfather’s estate after his death, and the life insurance from her parents that had been held in trust, Helen was hardly penniless.
While she was nowhere near as wealthy as Aristides, the money she had invested assured her of a reasonably comfortable living and left her free to indulge her own interests. As a freelance illustrator she had already completed the illustrations for three best selling children’s books, and had a lucrative deal with the author and publisher to complete the illustrations on the full series of eight, her time spent at the crèche was a personal pleasure, but her greatest love was looking after Nicholas. Under the circumstances her life was as near perfect as she could have wished. Until today.
She opened the fridge and took out a carton of juice, then reached for Nicholas’favourite plastic mug from an overhead cupboard. She placed them both on the table with the biscuit tin, and straightened up, wondering what to do next.
Quietly she walked into the hall and stood at the foot of the stairs. She could hear the murmur of voices, and then childish laughter. She wanted to go upstairs and join them, but instead she walked the length of the hall and halfway back. She stopped at the hall table and picked up the post she had dropped earlier and looked through it. A couple of circulars and a letter. She turned it over in her hand and did not recognise the sender’s address but tensed as she realised it was a solicitor’s firm. She read the letter three times, and then slipped it in the table drawer.
Back in the kitchen she stared sightlessly out of the window. The finality of the situation hit her; Aristides was telling the truth. The solicitor’s letter was brief but informative, simply confirming Delia was dead and Helen was a beneficiary of her will.
Sighing, she turned. She needed something to do, something mundane so she didn’t have to think of what might lie ahead. Perhaps if she began preparing supper. They always had their meal about six, then bath and bed. Scrambled egg with crispy bacon and grilled tomatoes was a favourite of Nicholas’ and she was reaching for the china chicken that held the eggs when Nicholas and Leon walked back into the kitchen.
‘Uncle Leon likes my bed,’ Nicholas said,
