The Half Sister, page 27
‘I’m gonna kill him, then you,’ shouts Simon, as Matt pulls his arm behind his back and frogmarches him into the house.
‘Mummy,’ cries Noah from inside the car.
Lauren pulls open the door and holds the little boy to her. ‘It’s okay,’ she says with tears rolling down her face. ‘Everything’s going to be okay.’
Kate looks across the back seat to see Jude and Emmy sleeping, blissfully unaware that their parents’ marriage has just ended. Though if the truth be told, it sounds like it was over long ago.
‘You can’t stay here,’ says Kate, rubbing her hand up and down Lauren’s back.
‘I know . . . I’ll go to Mum’s for a bit – wait for the dust to settle.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ says Kate.
‘No, I’ll be fine, you need to get to work.’
‘I’m sure the front line of showbusiness can wait.’ Kate smiles.
‘Here,’ says Matt, throwing a bunch of keys at her.
‘I’m going to take everyone to Mum’s,’ says Kate, catching them. ‘Will you be all right?’
He nods. ‘Just make sure Lauren and the kids are okay.’
A warmth runs through Kate as Matt’s selflessness hits home. That’s the kind of man he is. That’s why she fell in love with him. She silently apologizes for suspecting he was anything else.
‘Be careful,’ she says to him.
‘Call me once you’re at your mum’s,’ he says.
And she would have done if Rose hadn’t answered the door to them and said, ‘What the hell have you done?’
43
Kate
The Echo is laid out on Rose’s kitchen table, with Jess’s photo peering up at them.
The similarities between her and Lauren, who sits down beside it, are striking. The blonde hair that rests on their shoulders, their perfect noses, their wide-set eyes, making them look vulnerable and aggressive all at the same time.
‘I can’t believe you’d do this,’ says Rose. ‘I mean, what were you thinking?’
Lauren swivels the paper around to face her. ‘Wow,’ she says, her voice hoarse from crying. ‘When did Jess agree to do this?’
‘A couple of days ago,’ says Kate.
Lauren looks at her with a perplexed expression.
‘It turns out she works at the Echo,’ says Kate, by way of explanation. ‘With Matt.’
Kate watches as Lauren’s eyes move frantically back and forth, trying to make sense of what she’s hearing. ‘But . . .’ she starts, before her mouth drops open.
‘She was with him in Birmingham,’ says Kate.
Lauren’s hand flies to her mouth and her eyes search Kate’s.
‘I know,’ says Kate, reading her mind. ‘But it’s not what you think.’
‘B-but she was there with her boss,’ says Lauren. ‘There’s something going on between them.’
‘She’s seeing Matt’s deputy,’ says Kate, thankful that they’d had that conversation as they’d lain in bed last night. ‘His name’s Ryan and apparently she was all over him like a cheap suit.’ She offers a weak smile, keen for the comment to come across as light-hearted.
Lauren exhales. ‘Oh my God, why didn’t you say something? When I said . . . you must have thought . . .’
‘I did,’ admits Kate. ‘But it’s okay. I jumped to conclusions and it wasn’t what I thought. Thankfully.’
‘I’m so sorry, I had no idea. If I’d have known they worked together, I would never have . . .’
‘I know,’ says Kate, instinctively touching her sister’s shoulder. She’d forgotten how good it felt to be close to her, both physically and emotionally.
‘Does she know?’ asks Lauren. ‘That Matt is your husband.’
‘We don’t think so. She’s certainly never broached the subject with him and although I’ve suspected her motives behind her being there, they’re yet to be proven. I’d like to think it’s all just a happy coincidence.’
‘What else would it be?’ asks Lauren flippantly, as if there’s no other option. Kate wishes she shared her sister’s naivety.
‘Why would you let her do something like this?’ cries Rose, coming between them. ‘What purpose can it possibly serve?’
‘We now know she’s Dad’s child,’ says Kate, each word slicing through her very being. ‘But he’s not here. So let her find her mum.’
‘I told you,’ Rose says bitterly. ‘Her mother’s dead.’
Kate’s jaw clenches involuntarily, not wanting to say what needs to be said.
‘Might there . . .’ she starts. ‘Might there have been anyone else?’
Rose looks at her open-mouthed. ‘Why would you even think to ask that?’
‘Because I ran a check on Helen Wilmington before letting Matt run the story.’
‘And?’ asks Lauren, hopefully.
‘I’ve drawn a blank. There was only one Helen Wilmington in the Harrogate area and Mum’s right; she died four years ago. I’ve checked the birth records for both Wilmington and Alexander and no babies were registered with either name around that time. That’s why I thought the article was a good idea, to see if anyone else came crawling out of the woodwork.’
‘But like this?’ says Rose scathingly, as she picks up the offending newspaper and throws it back down on the table. ‘You think that having our family’s dirty laundry aired in public is the right way to go about things?’
‘There’s nothing in there to connect her to us,’ says Kate. ‘All of our names have been changed.’
‘She says she was born in Harrogate,’ says Rose, her voice high-pitched. ‘It won’t take folk long to put two and two together.’
‘Mum . . .?’ starts Lauren, hesitantly. ‘Do you think the woman I saw him with was Helen Wilmington?’
Rose glares at her. ‘What? What woman?’
‘The woman I told you about,’ says Lauren. ‘The woman and the baby.’
Rose’s lips pull back, exposing the top line of her gums. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
Lauren looks at her, pole-axed. ‘But Mum, you must remember. I can’t imagine it’s something you’d forget. I was seventeen . . .’
‘You must be mistaken,’ says Rose emphatically. ‘As you say, I’d remember something like that, but I don’t, so . . .’
Lauren takes her mother’s hand in hers. ‘I know how hard this must be for you and I’m really sorry, but we owe it to Jess to help her. Do you remember anything else from that time? Anything at all?’
Rose shakes her head. ‘It was only ever Helen,’ she says. ‘Your father wasn’t some kind of philanderer who was sleeping with anyone who took his fancy whenever my back was turned.’ A sob escapes from deep within her chest. ‘Perhaps she registered the baby under her maiden name or maybe she passed the child off as her boyfriend’s – I’m sure she had one at the time.’
Kate can’t bear to impart the news that Matt had already spoken to a couple of Helen’s old neighbours last night, and they didn’t recall her ever having had any children either.
‘He made a mistake,’ sniffs Rose, picking at the tissue in her lap with trembling hands. ‘A moment of madness with one woman who took advantage of him. He learnt from it and vowed never to do it again, and he never did. So before you start thinking that he didn’t love us and was sowing his seed with whoever turned his head, he wasn’t.’ A tear falls onto Rose’s cheek and she quickly wipes it away. ‘That’s not the man he was.’
Ironically, it’s in that moment that Kate realizes that that’s exactly the man he was, and as she watches him topple from the pedestal she’s put him on for the past thirty-four years, her heart feels as if it’s being torn in two.
44
Lauren
‘What an almighty mess this all is,’ says Lauren with a heavy sigh, once Kate has gone. ‘I’m truly sorry.’
Rose looks at her, with tears still in her eyes. ‘Well, I hate to say it, but if it weren’t for you dredging all this up, we wouldn’t be in this situation. Everyone is entitled to have secrets, Lauren, and it’s not your place to reveal those that don’t belong to you.’
‘I couldn’t have said it better myself. So why did you feel the need to tell Kate about . . .’ Lauren coughs. As much as she tries, she still finds it so bloody hard to say the words. ‘About what happened when I was sixteen.’
Rose’s head falls into her hands. ‘I honestly don’t know,’ she says. ‘She was pushing me about your dad, and I didn’t want to hurt her any more than she was already. It just came out, I’m so sorry.’
‘I thought we’d agreed to keep it just between us three,’ says Lauren, treading carefully. ‘And Justin, of course.’
‘If he’d bothered to stick around,’ says Rose, with a pinched expression. ‘I wonder what became of him. Not much, I wouldn’t have thought, if he’s still the type to run at the first sign of trouble.’
Is her mum really going to persist with that lie. ‘Do you regret making me have an abortion?’ she asks, indignation beginning to creep into her veins.
‘Oh darling, let’s not do this now. It was a long time ago.’
‘But it was a big part of my life,’ says Lauren. ‘It’s made me who I am today.’
‘You know how your father could be. I tried to make him see sense, but he could be so obstinate sometimes.’
‘You say that, but I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately, and do you know what?’
Rose raises her eyebrows.
‘I’ve spent all these years believing that Dad forced me to do it, blaming him. But when I really think about it, I don’t once remember him telling me I had to do it.’
‘He tried to make you believe it was for the best,’ says Rose. ‘That your life would be very different if you had the baby.’
‘But he didn’t once say I had to have an abortion.’ Lauren fixes Rose with an unflinching glare. ‘I did it because Justin didn’t want to be with me anymore, and I couldn’t see a way forward. I’ve blamed Dad for all these years, thinking all our rows were about him forcing me to do something I didn’t want to do, but he was only ever trying to explain the consequences of my actions.’
‘He was an expert at coercive control,’ says Rose. ‘That’s why he was so good at his job. You wouldn’t have even known it was happening.’
‘So, you’re saying he didn’t want me to have the baby?’ asks Lauren.
‘Good grief no,’ exclaims Rose. ‘You were too young. You had your whole life ahead of you. Why would you want to tie yourself to a commitment like that at that age?’
‘Is this Dad talking, or you?’
‘Darling, you know I’ve only ever wanted you to be happy, and if having a baby at sixteen was your happiness, then I would have supported you. I did everything I could to make your father see, but with hindsight, he was probably right.’
‘Meaning?’ says Lauren coldly.
‘Well, look how quickly Justin ducked out of his responsibilities. As soon as the going got tough, he was gone. Would you really have wanted a life with someone like that?’
‘But I loved him.’
‘You thought you loved him,’ says Rose, patronizingly. ‘But you were young – you both were. You didn’t know what love was.’
Lauren remembers how she felt last night, with Justin’s arms wrapped around her as she lay on his chest. How she knew she shouldn’t be there but couldn’t bear to tear herself away. How the intensity in his eyes as he’d made love to her had made her cry. How her heart races at the mere thought of him. It may be twenty-two years later, but nothing has changed. That’s what love feels like, whether you’re sixteen or thirty-eight.
‘I saw him,’ says Lauren quietly, almost to herself.
‘What’s that, darling?’
Lauren takes a deep breath in an effort to stop the words that are threatening to tumble out. ‘I saw Justin,’ she says.
Rose’s eyes blink too many times. ‘Oh,’ she says through a fixed grin. ‘Didn’t he go abroad?’
Lauren nods.
‘So, what did he make of his life?’ asks Rose. ‘I assume not very much.’
‘He got married, had two children and is an executive at an American company.’ She refuses to give her mother the satisfaction of knowing that he’s now divorced, and his sons live halfway across the world.
‘Well imagine that,’ Rose says almost triumphantly. ‘If you’d stayed with him, you could have ended up all the way over in America. You wouldn’t have met your wonderful husband; you wouldn’t have your three beautiful children—’
‘I’m leaving Simon,’ says Lauren, matter-of-factly. She didn’t even know she’d made the decision until she said it.
Rose’s face freezes, as if unable to compute what she’s just heard. ‘Wh-what?’
‘I’m leaving Simon,’ she says again.
‘But . . . but why?’ gasps Rose. ‘I thought . . . I mean, you’re so good together.’
Were they? Perhaps they were from an outsider’s viewpoint. It’s funny what people choose to see and the assumptions they make when they have no idea what goes on behind closed doors. They may mistake the look in her eye as pride in her husband, instead of the desperate need to please him. They may hear her agreeable voice as one half of an equal partnership, instead of the conciliatory tone of someone who’s learnt to be submissive.
‘It’s . . . not working,’ says Lauren.
‘It didn’t occur to me that anything was wrong,’ cries Rose. ‘I honestly thought you were happy.’
Well, clearly you don’t know me as well as you thought you did, Lauren wants to scream. Because Justin made me happy. Justin still makes me happy.
Rose clasps her hands over Lauren’s. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she says. ‘What can I do to help?’
Lauren remembers a night long ago when her mother had held her, asking her the same question. ‘Just tell me what I can do to help you,’ she’d said, as Lauren cried into her arms.
‘Make Justin come back to me.’
‘I’m sorry, darling, but I can’t make him do something he doesn’t want to do.’
‘But he said he loved me,’ Lauren had wept. ‘He said that he’d stand by me and we’d do this together.’
‘I’m afraid you’ll learn that boys say a lot of things they don’t mean.’
Lauren’s chest had convulsed, her shoulders caving in. ‘I can’t do it without him,’ she’d sobbed.
‘Well I think you have your answer,’ said Rose. ‘But don’t worry, because I’ll be there every step of the way.’
And she had been, Lauren couldn’t fault her for that. Her mother had been the glue that had kept them all together, though the bond between her and her father was never very tight after that. The thought that, for all these years, she’d blamed him for something he didn’t do, makes Lauren feel physically sick.
‘There is something you can do to help me,’ says Lauren now.
Rose tilts her head, raising her eyebrows expectantly.
‘Can you watch the children?’
Rose’s shoulders visibly relax. ‘Of course, darling. Are you going to see Simon? You mustn’t let all these years go to waste. He’s a good man.’
Lauren smiles and shakes her head. ‘You’re not a very good judge of character, are you?’
‘What do you mean?’ asks Rose, clearly affronted.
‘You backed the wrong horse,’ says Lauren, getting up and walking out.
‘Wait! Where are you going?’
‘I’m going to see Justin,’ says Lauren. ‘The man I should have been with for all these years. The man you took away from me.’
45
Kate
‘Kate, it’s me,’ says Matt. His voice is heavy down the phone.
‘Hey,’ she says, wearily.
It has been an exhausting few days and she feels like she could sleep standing up, yet oddly when sleep has been available, she’s not been able to take it, her mind keeping her awake as it frantically searched for an excuse for her father. But now, it seems that he doesn’t need one. He’d been the man Lauren had accused him of all along. She coughs to clear the overwhelming hurt that is stuck in her throat.
‘Have you got a minute?’ asks Matt.
‘Yeah, sure, fire away.’
‘No, I mean, can you come down here? To my office.’
Kate pulls herself up, immediately on the defence. ‘Why?’ she asks.
‘It’s about Jess’s story,’ says Matt. ‘There’s somebody here I think you need to talk to. I’ll explain when you get here.’
‘Okay, I’m on my way,’ she says, grabbing her handbag and heading for the door.
In the two minutes it takes for her to walk to Matt’s offices, she runs through who it might be. She groans at the thought of it being a ne’er-do-well, who fancies having a go at passing themselves off as Jess’s mum. They’d probably spent half the morning concocting an elaborate backstory in the hope that it would make them sound plausible. But Matt had seen enough fame-hungry story chasers to know one when he saw one. She can’t imagine he’d drag her down here for that.
She sees him, with his back to her in the lobby, talking to a man and a woman. She stops dead in her tracks for a moment as she quickly deduces that they look like police officers. The man, slightly smaller than Matt, and dressed in navy chinos and a white shirt, looks up, prompting her to carry on walking. She’s just a few feet away when his female companion sees her, and looks her up and down.
‘Er, Kate, this is Detective Sergeant Connolly,’ says Matt awkwardly. Kate leans across to shake the woman’s hand.
‘Detective Constable Stephens,’ says the man, extending his.
‘Pleased to meet you,’ she says, shaking it.
Her mouth has instantaneously dried up, her lips sticking to her gums. She throws Matt a cautious look, silently asking what they’re doing here and what it’s got to do with Jess. DS Connolly is the one to answer.
