The Half Sister, page 3
Although, if the truth be known, sleeping alone, even if it is on a second-hand couch, where no matter how she lies a spring sticks into her ribcage, is preferable to lying beside her husband right now. The admission saddens her, but these past few months it’s felt like every night has been a war zone which she’s had to navigate her way through, judiciously avoiding the grenades that Simon throws at her.
‘What is it you do all day exactly?’ he had tactlessly said when he came in from work the other night to find Lego on the living room floor and a pile of dirty laundry on the landing.
She used to wonder that herself, especially when she’d only had one baby to get up, change, feed and put back to sleep again. Some days, she’d not had time to shower, or even get dinner ready for when Simon got home.
But ironically, the more children they’d had, the more efficient Lauren had become with her time and Simon’s money, as she learnt to stretch both to their full capacity. She’d mastered multi-tasking, and had become a wise shopper, searching out the best deals on meat and vegetables and eking the most out of every meal.
When Simon was working, the pressure eased off a little, as Lauren didn’t need to worry so much about where the next penny was coming from. But on the occasions he was laid off, which as a labourer on a building site were often, both their purse strings and Simon’s moods, Lauren noticed, were more difficult to manage.
‘I cannot wait to see how this all plays out,’ says Simon, still grinning, although his eyes are fixed firmly on the road. ‘It’s almost a shame that he’s not here to repent his sins. I’d love to see how he’d wriggle his way out of this one.’
Lauren’s chest tightens. She’s not going to respond, but she doesn’t suppose that’s going to stop him saying what he wants to say.
‘Can you imagine your mum?’ he goes on. ‘She’s going to go fucking ballistic if this all turns out to be true.’
‘Don’t use that language in front of the children,’ says Lauren, although what she really wants to say is, Don’t you dare talk about my family as if we’re just some sideshow put on for your own amusement.
‘They’re asleep,’ snaps Simon, without checking.
A car pulls out in front of them. ‘Careful,’ calls out Lauren, dramatically slamming her hand onto the dashboard, hoping that the diversion will dispel the increasingly uneasy atmosphere. Simon honks his horn unnecessarily, but it doesn’t distract him from his train of thought.
‘Either way, I think we should all take some time out,’ he says.
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning,’ says Simon, turning to look at her for far longer than feels comfortable, ‘that we should take this opportunity to back off a bit.’
‘Back off what?’ says Lauren, her patience wearing thin.
‘From your family!’ he exclaims. ‘With all this going on, there’s really no need for us to be getting together every Sunday. We should wait for all this to calm down.’
Lauren can’t believe what she’s hearing. ‘Are you serious?’
‘Of course I’m serious. We only go through this farce every week to appease your mother, so that she can fawn over the kids and play the doting grandmother. But it seems that there’s one or two bad apples in your family and until we find out exactly how rotten they are, it’s probably best if we keep the kids out of it.’
‘This has got nothing to do with the kids,’ Lauren snaps, knowing that he’s probably only saying it to rile her and get a reaction. She wishes she were strong enough not to give him one.
‘I don’t want them in a toxic environment,’ he says.
Lauren lets out an involuntary snort of disbelief. Can he hear himself? Does he honestly believe that being with her family for Sunday lunch is more damaging to their children than the ominous black cloud that is hanging over their parents’ marriage?
‘You’re being ridiculous,’ she says, as forthrightly as she dares. ‘The children enjoy seeing everyone and it’s important to give them a sense of family.’ She refrains from adding that between his own alcoholic father and his mother’s penchant for corresponding with prisoners, her family is, by far, the least dysfunctional, even in light of Jess’s appearance.
He grunts derisorily. ‘Who are you trying to kid? You can cut the atmosphere between you and Kate with a knife. You honestly think that gives the kids a true semblance of family?’
‘But—’ she starts defensively.
‘I don’t know why you bother,’ Simon says over her. ‘There’s not exactly much love lost between you two, is there?’
As much as it hurts to hear the words out loud, maybe he’s right. Why do she and Kate keep up the pretence that they get on? That they have things in common?
‘She’s my sister,’ says Lauren.
‘Well, now you have another one,’ says Simon snidely. ‘Maybe you’ll get along a bit better with her.’
Lauren’s stomach turns over as she thinks back to the events of the past hour. When Jess had walked into the dining room of her parents’ house, she’d known instantly who she was. She’d been rooted to the spot as she looked into eyes that were so like her own. She’d felt the air being sucked out of her as she watched the way Jess, startled like a rabbit in headlights, had overused her hands to combat her nervousness; a mannerism so like her own.
She’d wanted to go to her, to tell her the truth; instead of sending her on a wild goose chase, looking for a man who doesn’t exist, but Kate had stepped in. As Kate always does, looking to take control.
For the first time, it occurs to Lauren how Jess’s appearance will have affected her mother. She’d seemed shocked, as if it was so far removed from reality that it couldn’t possibly be true, but surely she can’t be that naive? You can’t live with someone for all those years and not know them. She chooses to ignore the voice in her head that says, Isn’t that exactly what you’re guilty of?
When they pull up outside their terraced house, Lauren lifts Emmy out and deftly unclips baby Jude’s car seat, whilst Simon goes ahead carrying a sleeping Noah. She watches as he disappears up the narrow staircase, his shoulder knocking off a chip of peeling paint. She instinctively climbs the four steps to retrieve it from the threadbare carpet. Maybe, when he’s in a better mood, she’ll ask him again when he might be able to redecorate. The last four times she’s asked, his stock answer has been ‘when I get round to it’, but the paint chips are sharp and she worries about one of the children hurting themselves, especially Noah, who’s taken to sliding down the stairs on his stomach.
‘Right, I’m going to the pub,’ says Simon, as he comes back down the stairs a little while later.
‘What, now?’ asks Lauren from the sofa, where she’s giving Jude his bedtime feed.
He looks at her. ‘I assume you haven’t got a problem with that.’
It’s a statement rather than a question. There used to be a time, before the children, when they’d run something like that by each other first, not to ask permission exactly, but as a common courtesy. Now, on the rare occasion that she wants to go out, she has to clear it with him weeks in advance. When it gets to the event itself, the children’s food, bath and bedtime are planned with precision so that Simon doesn’t have to do anything. He then proceeds to call her at least three times, to ask questions that fully grown men should really know the answer to, resulting in Lauren coming back home sober, and earlier than intended. She’d end up thinking that it really wasn’t worth her while going out in the first place, and then she’d wonder if that was actually Simon’s intention.
She watches as he walks into the kitchen, opens the fridge and drinks the milk from the carton. God, how she hates him doing that. Why can’t he get a glass, like everyone else? He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.
‘Right, I’m off,’ he says, coming back into the living room with his car keys in his hand.
‘Why don’t you leave the car?’ braves Lauren. ‘Get a taxi. You’ve already had a couple of drinks.’
‘I didn’t know you were counting.’
‘I’m just saying . . .’
He leans over her, with one hand on the arm of the sofa and the other behind her head. She instinctively holds Jude tighter to her as she feels his hot breath on her face.
‘Why don’t you worry about women’s stuff and leave me to deal with the men’s?’ he whispers.
She could take the comment as an attempt by her husband to divvy up their responsibilities, albeit chauvinistically. Certainly a few years ago, that was all it would have meant. But things have changed, and Lauren knows that Simon’s words are loaded; specifically chosen to intimidate her.
‘I’m the man!’ she remembers him shouting eighteen months ago as he pinned her up against a wall, smashing his fist into the door beside her head. Her legs had threatened to give way as wood splintered around her. ‘I’m the provider,’ he’d gone on. ‘That’s my job – not your fucking father’s.’
She’d naively thought Simon would be happy that her dad had discreetly deposited five thousand pounds into their joint account. He’d obviously known they were struggling to make ends meet after Simon had been laid off work two months before. She, for one, had been grateful. It meant that she could do a food shop without worrying and not have to constantly justify the need to use the car instead of walking. But Simon hadn’t quite seen it like that, choosing instead to see it as Harry undermining his alpha-male status; wounding his fragile ego.
‘If I’d wanted your parents’ money, I would have asked for it,’ he’d yelled, his face turning a putrid shade of red. ‘But yet again, your father has seen fit to wield his almighty sense of self-worth.’
‘He’s only trying to help,’ Lauren had offered, desperate to diffuse the hostile situation she found herself in.
‘So you asked him?’ he’d said accusingly. ‘You went to your parents with your begging bowl?’ Bubbles of anger had formed on his lip and Lauren could see the vivid red marks on his knuckles as his arms flailed in fury.
‘No!’ she’d said, though it sounded more like a yelp. ‘I would never ask them for money.’
‘So, he just used his initiative, did he?’ Simon had sneered, his face still too close to hers. ‘He decided out of the goodness of his heart to help us, without you saying a word?’
Lauren had nodded feverishly. ‘Yes, yes. I swear I had no idea he would do that.’
Simon had hit the door with his open palm one more time before turning away. If the wall wasn’t there to support her, Lauren might well have fallen to the floor in a heap; drained of nervous energy.
‘It doesn’t have to be a bad thing,’ she’d chanced, after a minute or two of silence. ‘It will take the pressure off you – off us.’
Simon had laughed and shaken his head in apparent derision. ‘You think that’s why he did it?’
‘Well, yes,’ she’d said, confused. ‘Why else would he . . .?’
‘It’s not done to help us,’ he said. ‘It’s done with the sole intention of making me look stupid – making me look less of a man.’
‘But . . .’ started Lauren.
‘Don’t you see?’ he’d said, grabbing hold of her arms. She’d instinctively flinched, but something in his eyes had changed. They had a look of what she’d fallen in love with all those years ago.
‘This is what your dad does,’ he’d said softly. ‘He makes you think he’s doing you a favour, but it’s all about making himself feel superior.’
Was it? Lauren had thought about the man she’d grown up with and couldn’t help but wonder if Simon might be right. Was her father’s incessant need to help everyone that crossed his path, always keen to champion the underdog, a pretence? She certainly remembered a time when he’d pretended to help her.
‘You’re right,’ she’d said. ‘We’ll give it back – tell him we don’t need it.’
She’d hated herself for sounding so conciliatory, but she learnt that night that if that’s what she needed to do to keep the peace and create a happy home for her children, then so be it. It was a relatively small price to pay.
‘I won’t be too late,’ Simon says now, leaning in for a kiss. She can’t help but recoil at his ability to switch between Jekyll and Hyde in an instant.
‘Okay,’ she says quietly, suddenly desperate to get him out of the house.
As soon as she hears the front door close, her shoulders slump forwards, the pent-up nerves and tension flooding out. How had this happened? When had their marriage become so fraught with anxiety?
Lauren thinks back to when they first met eight years ago, at a bar close to King’s College Hospital, where Lauren worked on the labour ward. Simon was on a job in nearby Lordship Lane and was obviously the joker in his crowd. He was charming and made her laugh which, after years of dating self-obsessed numbnuts, was a breath of fresh air. He also happened to be in the right place at the right time, as with her thirtieth birthday behind her, the old biological clock was ticking loudly in her ears.
She’d thought she loved him, or had at least convinced herself that she could. Yet gradually, as each year had passed, his ambivalence towards her had driven her insane. One day she was his be-all and end-all, the next he would casually cast her aside, as if she meant nothing to him. It was the not knowing which Simon would walk through the door each night that gave her the most anxiety. And despite being together for all this time, she is no nearer knowing what triggers him one way or another. The realization that she doesn’t know what makes her husband tick, and even more importantly, what makes him stop, shames her.
5
Lauren
Lauren’s hand hovers over her phone. She should call her mother, just to make sure she’s okay, but as she’s about to press a thumb on Mum in her contact list, the front doorbell rings. Lauren instinctively looks at the time on the screen and relaxes when she realizes it’s not as late as she thought it was.
She imagines the momentary awkwardness that will hang between her and Kate, who she’s sure will be standing on the other side of the door. They’ll eye one another warily, sussing out each other’s moods, trying to pre-empt their reaction to the bombshell that’s just befallen their family. Lauren will invite her in, and Kate will make a show of checking her watch and saying, ‘Okay, but just for a minute.’ As if she’s the only one of them who is constantly chasing time.
‘Jess!’ Lauren blurts out as she swings the door open.
‘Lauren,’ says Jess softly. ‘Or is it Kate?’
‘What . . .? I mean . . . how did you know where I lived?’
‘I followed you from Rose’s house,’ says Jess matter-of-factly, as if it’s completely normal. ‘Can I come in?’
‘Well, I don’t know if that’s a good idea . . .’ starts Lauren. ‘What . . . what if someone sees you?’
‘Your mother or your sister, you mean?’
Lauren nods, as her mouth dries out. She swallows in an attempt to summon the ability to talk.
‘So, can I come in?’
Lauren nods numbly again and steps aside, peering up and down the road before she closes the door.
‘S-so what do you want?’ asks Lauren.
‘Answers,’ says Jess, looking around the small living room.
A heat rises up from Lauren’s toes, making every blood cell that is circulating around her body feel like it’s on fire. She falls down onto the sofa, more out of necessity than choice, and silently signals to Jess to take a seat on the armchair opposite. I wish Kate was here, she thinks, before pulling herself up, surprised by her own admission.
‘So, what do you want to know?’ she asks, as she runs through the million and one questions of her own that are flying around her head.
‘Everything,’ says Jess, taking a seat.
Lauren feels winded as she sits there, opposite Jess, without any other distractions. The similarity between them is uncanny and the juxtaposition of how close they are, but yet so far apart, makes Lauren shudder involuntarily.
‘You didn’t seem that surprised to see me,’ says Jess. ‘At least, not as surprised as your sister or your mother.’
Lauren can’t pull her eyes away from Jess, transfixed by her every move and idiosyncrasy. ‘I don’t know what you want me to say,’ she says, when she eventually finds her voice.
‘I want to know where my father is,’ says Jess. ‘Because it felt like you were all hiding something.’
Lauren coughs, clearing her throat. ‘I . . . I’m afraid that my father . . .’
Jess looks at her expectantly, her blue eyes, so like Lauren’s, wide and hopeful.
‘My father . . .’ she starts, ‘. . . passed away.’
Jess’s mouth falls open. ‘But . . . but . . .’ she stutters as tears pool in her eyes. She bows her head as they fall silently onto her cheeks.
Lauren’s chest caves in as she fights the instinct to get up and go to her. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Wh-when?’ croaks Jess.
Lauren looks down at her hands, visibly shaking in her lap. ‘Ten months ago,’ she says quietly. ‘He had a heart attack. It was very sudden.’
‘Was he at home? Who was with him? Did he say anything? Anything at all to the people who were with him?’
Lauren looks at her, taken aback. ‘No . . . no . . . I don’t think so. He was at a client’s house when it happened.’
‘Who was it? Do you know who it was?’
‘It was a woman who he’d been helping with a divorce,’ says Lauren, confused by the line of questioning. ‘I don’t remember her name – she was just a client.’
‘I need to speak with her,’ says Jess abruptly. ‘I need to know who she is.’
‘What for?’ asks Lauren, suddenly going on the defensive.
‘Did he say anything to her?’ asks Jess frantically. ‘Anything at all?’
‘About what?’
‘Me!’ exclaims Jess. ‘Did he say anything about me?’
Lauren lets out a derisory laugh. ‘Do you honestly believe that your name would be the first to leave his lips when he was dying? Before his wife and the two daughters he brought up?’
