The Half Sister, page 17
‘So neither of you knew your birth parents?’ asks Kate, hoping that by making it sound more generic, Finn won’t find it an odd question.
‘No, we were both given up at birth,’ says Finn, and Kate gasps inwardly, relieved to know that if her dad is Jess’s father, he hadn’t been leading a double life. She hates herself for doubting him.
‘We went into the foster system pretty quickly and thought all our prayers had been answered when the Oakleys took us in, but it wasn’t to be.’
‘Why?’ asks Kate. ‘What happened?’
‘Our dad, Bill, got really sick about a year later. He had terminal lung cancer and when he died, his wife Patricia had a mental breakdown.’
‘I’m really sorry to hear that,’ says Kate. ‘That must have been terrible.’
Finn nods. ‘It would have been if I didn’t have Harry, but from that moment on she wouldn’t let me out of her sight. We stayed in foster care together until she was eighteen and came here.’
‘What is this place?’ asks Kate. ‘Some kind of halfway house?’
‘Yeah, it’s supposed to ease us into independent living, but once you come here, you very rarely leave.’
‘Unless you’re Harriet,’ says Kate.
Finn smiles. ‘Unless you’re Harriet,’ she says, before her face suddenly clouds over with worry. ‘But they don’t know that she’s gone. You won’t tell them, will you? They’ll throw me out if they know she’s not living here, and she’ll get into trouble.’
Kate feels genuinely sorry for her, but her sympathy doesn’t run to Jess. Why should it? When she’s turned up out of the blue, wreaking havoc on her life. Everything she’s said has been a lie and everything she’s doing seems specifically targeted to inflict as much grief and pain as she possibly can.
‘So, what dream is she chasing in London?’ Kate asks casually.
‘Oh, she’s got big plans,’ says Finn, with a smile that creases her eyes. ‘She’s got a great job, a new boyfriend . . . As you probably know, Harriet goes for what she wants . . .’
Kate smiles tightly.
‘And usually gets it,’ says Finn, laughing.
Kate shivers involuntarily at the realization that it’s her family that she’s looking to get it from. Whatever ‘it’ is.
27
Lauren
Lauren’s in the shower, with shampoo in her eyes, when she hears the ping of a text on her phone. She grabs at the towel hanging over the glass screen in an attempt to clear her vision, but the soap is still smarting as she blindly reaches out of the cubicle to where she’d left her phone balancing on the basin. She can’t find it and risks a peek to give her some perspective. It’s not there.
‘Who’s Sheila?’ asks Simon.
She ducks her head back under the water, buying time. Shit!
‘What’s that?’ she calls out, as nonchalantly as she can manage, even though her insides feel like they’ve been set alight.
‘Sheila’s asking about tomorrow night,’ says Simon, the tone of his voice loaded with cynicism.
Lauren turns the thermostat to cold in the hope that it’s going to shock her brain into working. ‘One sec,’ she says, as she rinses the final traces of shampoo out.
The extra time that she thought she had is cut short when Simon turns the shower off and hands her a towel.
‘Let’s have a look,’ she says, holding out her hand, the water still dripping from her hair.
Simon places her phone purposefully into her palm, its content weighing more than the device itself. He stands there, unmoving, watching her.
‘Oh,’ she says, seeing the two worded message of Tomorrow night? ‘That’s Sheila from work.’
‘From the hospital?’ asks Simon.
She needs to think fast, but she feels wrong-footed, and vulnerable with no clothes on.
‘Yeah, one of the girls was asking if any of us were about to cover her shift.’
‘But you’re on maternity leave,’ says Simon gruffly.
‘I know, it was just a round robin, and I guess I must still be on the list. Sheila’s obviously checking that it’s tomorrow they were talking about.’
‘I’ve not heard you mention a Sheila before,’ says Simon, eyes narrowed.
‘She came just as I was going on maternity leave,’ says Lauren, covering her face with a towel as she dries her hair. It’s easier to lie when he can’t see her eyes.
‘Did she come to your leaving drinks?’
Lauren does a quick mental scan of all the midwives sat around the table at the pub. They’re all women Simon would know, and the two he didn’t, he made a point of talking to when he came to pick her up, an hour early.
‘I don’t think so,’ she says warily.
‘Well maybe you need to let whoever needs to know that you’re not looking for any extra shifts. I’ll do it.’ He starts to thumb instructions on the screen and Lauren makes a grab for it.
‘Woah,’ says Simon, pulling it away and holding it up in the air, out of her reach. ‘What are you so tetchy about?’
She’s not, because she knows she’s deleted every single message that ‘Sheila’ has ever sent, and all of her replies. But there’s still that niggle, no matter how tiny, that she hasn’t, and the thought of Simon seeing it sends her off-kilter. She gets hotter and hotter as she runs through their most recent communication in her head:
Sheila: I need to see you
Lauren: I may be able to do Thursday night
Sheila: Seriously?
Lauren: Maybe. I’m not sure yet
Sheila: I can’t stop thinking about you
Lauren: I’ll let you know
Sheila: Don’t make me wait too long
No matter how she comes at it, whichever way she plays it out in her head, there’s no way that she could ever make it sound like an innocent conversation between two colleagues. She knows that it’s not on there, but the thought of it keeps her reaching up for her phone.
‘Give it to me,’ she says, making a grab for it.
‘Me thinks she doth protest too much,’ says Simon, lowering it to read whilst holding Lauren firmly at arm’s length. ‘What’s on here that you’re so worried about?’
‘Nothing,’ she says, as she stops fighting for it, knowing that it’s only piquing his interest. ‘It’s my phone, my property.’
‘Well, actually I’m currently paying for it, so that’s not strictly true.’
God, how she hated having to be indebted to him. The sooner she gets back to work, the better.
‘So is there anything on here that shouldn’t be?’ He waggles the phone within her reach but she forces herself not to react.
‘No,’ she says, wrapping a towel around her and walking out onto the landing. She snags her toe on an exposed floorboard, and yelps, knowing it’ll be another splinter. All Simon needs to do is lay the carpet that’s been rolled up and standing in the corner for the past six months. But now is not the time to ask again. Maybe she’ll go and buy a remnant tomorrow, just to tide them over.
‘So you won’t mind me looking then?’ he says.
Her ears are burning. ‘Not at all.’
He follows her, humming as he thumbs through her contacts and messages, her hatred for him growing with every second. The phone pings, a sign of a text coming in, and her bladder feels like it might give way. He raises his eyebrows as he reads it. ‘Interesting,’ he says.
Every fibre in her body is on high alert, as she imagines what it might say. Has Justin chosen this time to declare his undying love for her? Or has he been unusually intimate; writing in fine detail what he’d like to do to her? Lauren shudders at the thought, more out of fear than desire.
Simon’s eyes are boring into her, but she will not give him the satisfaction of knowing how intimidated she feels. She will not ask who the text is from or what it says.
‘Arrived safely in Birmingham,’ relays Simon. ‘Thanks for today. Hope you got home okay.’
Lauren feels like she might cry with relief, but any respite is short-lived as her mind jumps to the very next problem of having to explain where she’s been all day.
‘Got home okay?’ questions Simon. ‘Where have you been?’
Lauren had hoped to avoid this conversation, not least because she didn’t want to have to explain herself or justify her actions. Though she’d allowed for the possibility that Noah would tell his dad about the trains he’d been on, as he’d spent most of the journey pretending to be the Fat Controller from Thomas the Tank Engine.
‘Jess and I took the kids out for the day,’ she says.
‘Where to?’ asks Simon.
‘Harrogate – to show her where I grew up.’ She bends the truth because it’s easier. Because it means fewer questions, and that makes her life less stressful. ‘You know how Noah is with trains,’ she goes on with a forced smile. ‘He loved it.’
Simon shrugs his shoulders and begrudgingly hands her phone back. ‘You do realize that if you’re doing anything you shouldn’t, I’ll find out about it.’
The threat weighs heavy on Lauren’s shoulders. If whatever this is between her and Justin carries on, she’s going to need a different plan going forward.
There is no going forward, she argues with herself. This needs to stop. Now!
But within seconds she’s conspiring with herself – if Simon’s out working tomorrow night, she could see Justin, even if it’s just to say goodbye. It’s not until her fantasy world collides with reality a few minutes later that she realizes that without a babysitter she’s not going anywhere.
‘I’ll see you later,’ calls out Simon as he goes down the stairs. She hadn’t even realized he was going out.
‘Bye then,’ she whispers as the front door slams so hard that it makes the whole house shudder.
She quickly scoops her hair up into a top knot and pulls on a T-shirt and leggings, desperate to get back to her phone.
Maybe, she texts ‘Sheila’.
Where? comes back the speedy response.
She doesn’t want to do what they did last time; hiding in dark corners, worrying about somebody seeing them.
Your place? she offers, before deleting it and tapping on the screen, deep in thought. What is she thinking? How can she even contemplate meeting Justin again? And at his place? That’s asking for trouble. And anyway, she has no one to call on to have the children.
Yet, despite all of this, there’s still a bubbling in her tummy that’s telling her she will move heaven and earth to see him just one last time. She scrolls absently through her contacts, knowing that there are few people, if any, who she’d entrust with her children. It seems a pointless exercise, but then she sees it, and the answer suddenly dawns on her.
She types a message out, her thumb hovering perilously close to the ‘Send’ button. No one is more surprised to hear that whoosh sound of it being sent than her.
‘Come on, come on,’ she says, like a woman possessed, to the inanimate object in her hand. ‘Say something.’
I’d love that! comes Jess’s reply. What time?
Oh God. Does 8pm suit? types Lauren before she has a chance to change her mind.
Perfect! See you then x
She lets out the breath she was holding in as she stares, transfixed by the text that is slowly appearing, as if by magic, across her phone screen. Y-O-U-R is being spelt out, but it doesn’t feel like she’s typing it. It’s as if she’s outside of herself, looking in.
P-L- Every letter she types makes her feel as if she’s falling deeper into a hole, pulling her into a vortex she doesn’t want to be pulled out of. She’s still got time to change her mind, if she really wants to, but she knows she’s not going to. A-C-E she adds, before sending it and covering her eyes with her hands.
She watches the three dots running across the page, knowing that Justin’s typing his reply, desperate to know what he’s going to say. The three dots disappear and she chastises herself. She’s been too forward. He’s going to think she does this kind of thing all the time. He won’t want to know her now.
Looking forward to it flashes up his reply, and her stomach somersaults.
28
Kate
On the train back to London, Kate is buzzing. She feels more in control now that she has the proof that Jess isn’t who she says she is. She has to remind herself to keep referring to her as Jess, because calling her Harriet will only serve to prove that she knows more than she should. Though it’s how she’s going to use that information that needs the most thought. Kate looks out the window as the open plains of the New Forest are left behind, replaced by the juxtaposition of an industrial park as the train moves across the River Test towards Southampton.
Her phone vibrates in her lap and, seeing that it’s Matt, she picks up, momentarily forgetting where she is. As soon as she hears him say, ‘Hey, where are you?’ her heart sinks.
‘I’ve been trying to get hold of you,’ he continues, as she quickly looks at her watch, as if it will offer a justifiable excuse for where she’s been. ‘I called the office, but they said you hadn’t made it in. Are you okay? How are you feeling?’
The sound of the train speeding along the tracks is unmistakable, yet still she wonders if she can get away without telling him where she is.
‘Better,’ she says, answering one question that he’s asked. ‘I did a bit of work this morning and went out for a walk at lunchtime. I actually feel better this afternoon than I have in a while.’ It’s not an out-and-out lie. All of that has happened at some point today.
‘Great,’ he says, sounding enthused. ‘So where are you now? At home?’
‘I’m just on my way back now,’ she says, skirting the issue. ‘How’s your day been?’
‘Mad busy,’ he says. ‘And far from finished unfortunately. The PM’s press conference isn’t until this evening, and he’s agreed to give me a one-to-one straight afterwards.’
‘On the phone?’ asks Kate.
‘In person,’ says Matt.
Kate groans.
‘Yeah, tell me about it,’ sighs Matt. ‘So I’m on a train to Birmingham after work.’
‘Okay,’ says Kate, nonplussed. She’s used to dropping everything herself at a moment’s notice – it comes with the territory.
‘I’ll keep you posted,’ says Matt. ‘Oh, and by the way, keep your eyes peeled for our centre spread the day after tomorrow.’
‘Oh yeah,’ says Kate. ‘Why’s that?’
‘Didn’t I tell you that the new girl had a good nose for a story?’
Kate’s lungs feel like they’re being squeezed. ‘Oh yeah?’
‘She’s sniffed out something that might be of interest to you.’
‘Meaning?’ Kate presses.
‘She’s tracked down someone who’s used those genealogy websites to find their long-lost relatives.’
Kate shudders involuntarily, her blood feeling like it’s freezing over. ‘Wh-who’s she found?’
‘A woman who’s been reunited with her sister by uploading her DNA – just like Lauren and that girl.’
Kate’s jaw spasms and there’s a banging in her head as she imagines Jess and Lauren’s faces peering out at the five million people that read the Echo. Would they really be that stupid? Kate can’t take the chance.
‘My girl promises it’s a corker,’ Matt goes on.
My girl? If Kate were in a forgiving mood, she’d acknowledge that it was a phrase he’s used before, but right now it just leaves a sour taste in her mouth.
The noise in her head is getting louder, like a beating drum that’s getting closer and closer. She can see this spiralling out of control.
‘You can’t run it,’ she says.
‘What? Why not?’
‘Because . . . because we’re running a similar story tomorrow.’
‘Oh shit!’ groans Matt. ‘Are you kidding me?’
She hates lying to Matt, as they’ve always managed to give and take where work’s concerned, both of them careful not to tread on the other’s toes. But this is different. This is personal.
‘Yeah, sorry,’ she says. ‘I offered it up in conference and the news team went with it. Their story’s much stronger than your girl’s, I’m afraid.’
‘What have you got?’ he sighs, not picking up on Kate’s sarcasm.
‘Erm, I really can’t say.’
‘Seriously?’
She needs to think quickly. ‘We’ve got a relative of someone who’s been charged with an offence in the US,’ she says, biting down on her lip, hating herself. ‘A mother who the police were able to trace the criminal’s DNA back to.’
Matt lets out a long breath. ‘Is she even allowed to talk?’
‘Seemingly so,’ says Kate, praying that he’ll take the bait.
‘And you’re definitely running it tomorrow?’
‘Yep, ’fraid so.’
‘Okay, I’ll give you until then, but if it doesn’t go to press, I’m printing mine the day after.’
‘Cool,’ she says, grateful for the extra twenty-four hours she’s got to stop that from happening.
‘You’re a royal pain in my arse, d’you know that?’
Kate forces a laugh. ‘You wouldn’t want me any other way.’
By the time Kate gets off at Waterloo, she’s caught up in the after-work throng that’s spilling into the station. If she didn’t have to get somewhere else urgently, she’d go for a walk along the South Bank, the need to not waste such a lovely evening at the forefront of her mind. She’d no doubt stop off to listen to one of the many buskers, each hoping to be the next Ed Sheeran. Kate always bought the home-burnt CDs that were sold out of the musicians’ empty instrument cases, mostly because she wants to support hard-working talent, but there’s a little part of her that likes to think that maybe, one day, she’ll own a rare recording of a global superstar.
She smiles at the thought, but then reality steps in, and drags her kicking and screaming to the here and now.
