The Half Sister, page 9
Kate refrained from saying that only a bad workman blamed his tools. She’d had enough blood tests to know that she wasn’t the problem.
It had only been two weeks since the embryo transfer, but it had felt like a month – a year even, as she’d spent every second wondering whether she might be pregnant. Yet in just a few short hours, Kate will find out one way or another, and whatever the outcome, she knows that she’s in this moment, the right here and now, for the last time. Because whether she is or isn’t, she’s not going through this again.
‘Nice of you to join us,’ Lee, her editor, calls out, as she walks into the open-plan office twenty minutes later. ‘We’re going into conference in five.’
She waves a nonchalant hand in the air. ‘Okay guys,’ she says, in a hushed tone to the three reporters on the desks facing hers. ‘What have we got?’
Her team run through some potential stories, but it’s all pretty thin gruel: a sacked manager; a couple of film premieres that evening; a soap star walking their dog. Daisy, the intern, has picked up on an interview in an American magazine, where an A-list actress admits to having had cosmetic surgery.
‘Mmm,’ says Kate, thinking on her feet. ‘So let’s pull the article, rewrite it and get some photos through the years? I’ll offer it up as a picture-led spread.’
‘Sure,’ says Daisy, all too eagerly, and Kate can’t help but love her for it.
‘Two minutes!’ barks Lee.
Kate hastily collects today’s celebrity magazine spreads that are strewn across her desk and flicks through them as she makes her way to the boardroom. In the absence of a strong lead story, she’s got one more option up her sleeve.
‘So, what have you got, Kate?’ asks Lee, once they’ve decided that a surprise announcement from the Home Secretary isn’t enough for a front page of its own.
‘Well, it’s a bit left field and it might be something the features team want to take up, but police in the States are using a new tactic to catch criminals.’
‘Is this where they’re uploading a suspect’s DNA to genealogy websites?’ questions Lee.
‘Yeah, that’s the one,’ says Kate.
‘I like the story, but it doesn’t work for the front page, unless your desk has found a celebrity element to it? Any of the crimes in or around LA?’
Kate nods. ‘I can look into it.’
‘Great, if we can find a celebrity connection, it might make a splash. Do we know of anyone famous who was almost a victim in one of these crimes? Maybe a celebrity’s parent knows one of the guys they’ve caught using this method? Were friends with him? Maybe their kid played with his kid – that kind of thing.’
Kate’s heart drops, not just at the enormity of the task, but because she just doesn’t have the appetite for this kind of journalism anymore. She wants to report on stories that matter, not the tenuous links between a suspected murderer and the parents of someone who was once on The Voice.
She feels a bubbling sensation in the pit of her tummy and smiles knowingly to herself, hoping that maybe it won’t be too long before she can take a break from both.
‘Okay, so follow the celebrity lead, Kate, and Lara, maybe you can run alongside to develop the true crime element or see if you can find a strong real-life example of how Joe Bloggs is using an ancestry website to find his long-lost mother or something.’
Kate can’t help but flinch as Lara, the features editor, nods enthusiastically and jots a note down on her pad.
‘That’s all,’ says Lee, standing up. ‘Back to work.’
Despite having tons to do, Kate finds herself daydreaming for the rest of the day, unable to concentrate on the simplest of things. Even Karen, her deputy, telling her about a Tinder date she had last night, which Kate is usually keen to hear about, leaves her bored and uninterested. The minutes feel like hours as the clock ticks slowly towards four o’clock, the time she can ring the clinic for the results. Yet as soon as her phone displays 16.00, she suddenly feels reluctant to call, knowing that once she does, she will no longer be in limbo. If she doesn’t get the answer she wants, she’d now almost prefer to be in this state of uncertainty, where there’s still a chance that her life is about to change. Where she can dare to believe that this time next year, she’ll be out of this job, holding her longed-for baby with another twelve months separating her from her father’s passing.
She knows that the pain of losing him will never leave her, but as each week comes and goes, a tiny part of her starts to heal. Sometimes she can almost feel herself being sewn back together again – as if a needle is darning the holes that have been left by his death. Yet now, with Jess turning up, it feels as if they’re all about to be unpicked again.
Kate takes her phone and grabs a tissue from her handbag, knowing that whichever way this phone call goes, she will probably need one. She walks through the office painstakingly slowly, almost willing someone to stop and talk to her – anything to hold off the inevitable for a few more minutes. Even Stan, the normally-chatty post guy, who she bumps into on the way out of the building, lets her pass without comment.
‘Bloody typical,’ she says out loud, as she walks through a throng of smokers adding to the already polluted streets of E14. She holds her breath as the clouds of smoke billow around her, forcing her to step off the kerb. A black cab toots its horn and she holds up an apologetic hand. She has to apologize again when the cabbie pulls over next to her, thinking she’s hailed him.
‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘I don’t need . . . I was just . . .’ He tuts and joins the line of traffic again.
She hopes that once she’s made this call, her brain will return to its usual levels of awareness.
Her fingers fumble for the numbers on the keypad and she waits for the familiar options to present themselves:
‘Welcome to Women’s Health at Woolwich Hospital.
Press one for appointments.
Press two for test results.
Press three to speak to a doctor.
Press four for anything else.’
Kate’s hand hovers over the phone and she takes a deep breath before pressing two.
‘Women’s Health, can I help you?’ asks a monotone voice.
Kate wonders how you can sound so miserable when your job is to relay good news. But then she catches herself as she realizes that more often than not, it’s bad news this woman has to dispense. Kate wonders where she’s going to feature in the stats.
‘Oh hi,’ she says, cheerily, as if it will make a difference to the outcome of the conversation. ‘I’m calling for pregnancy test results.’
‘What’s the name?’ asks the woman.
‘Kate Walker.’
‘Date of birth?’
‘Fourth of August 1984.’
‘Hold on,’ says the woman, sounding as if it’s like every other call she’s received today.
What you’re about to say next will dictate my future, Kate wants to scream down the line. She thinks of Matt and feels a flutter in her chest. Our future.
She chews on her lip as she listens to a piped version of Beethoven, watching the people in Costa Coffee on the other side of the street as they go about their everyday lives. None of them knowing what’s happening to her, none of them aware that her life may be about to change forever.
Her eyes are drawn to a young woman working on a laptop, and she allows her imagination to build a world around the girl she names Bryony. She’s working on her dissertation in the coffee shop because she can’t bear the mess in the kitchen she shares with her lazy flatmate Ned. It drains her inspiration, yet she refuses to clean up someone else’s debris.
When she gets her 2:1 degree in politics and international relations, she wants to work for local government because she’s still naive enough to believe she can make a difference.
What a waste, Kate says to herself, cynically writing the girl’s aspirations off, even before she’s started.
The girl looks up out of the window and across the street to where she’s standing. Kate pulls her jacket around her to keep out the chill of the cold wind that whistles through the shadows of Dockland’s skyscrapers. Their eyes momentarily lock, and Kate is struck by the fact that this woman has seen her and is, no doubt, wondering what her story is. She can’t possibly begin to imagine the momentous occasion she might be about to witness. Kate smiles at her and the woman, seemingly embarrassed, returns to the screen in front of her. When did it become more awkward to smile at someone than pretend to ignore them? Kate wonders. She will never see this woman again, never give her another moment’s thought, yet whilst Kate goes about her life, so will this young woman, neither of them aware of each other’s existence and how important each of their lives are – to them at least.
‘Mrs Walker?’ says the woman down the phone, cutting off Beethoven just as he was about to reach his crescendo.
‘Erm, yes,’ says Kate, her mouth suddenly dry.
‘Your test came back positive.’
That was it. No gentle build-up. No advance warning. Just that.
‘What?’ cries Kate, steadying herself against a wall for fear that her knees will give way. ‘I’m pregnant? Are you sure?’
‘Well, that’s what the results say,’ says the woman, with not an iota of understanding of how big this moment is. ‘Kate Walker. Fourth of August 1984.’
‘Yes, that’s me,’ says Kate in barely more than a whisper.
‘Well, if that’s definitely you, then you’re definitely pregnant.’ The woman gives a little laugh, making her suddenly sound like a human being rather than a robotic voice on the end of an automated line.
Kate clamps a hand to her mouth and tears spring to her eyes. ‘I am?’ she says, still waiting to be told it’s a mistake.
‘Congratulations!’ the woman says warmly, and Kate wishes she could leap down the telephone to give her a kiss.
‘Oh my God, I’m pregnant!’ she says under her breath as she paces up and down the same five-metre stretch of pavement. Back and forth she goes, wiping her tears, only stopping when she momentarily forgets how to put one foot in front of another. Her chest feels as if it’s about to burst open as she thinks of Matt and how she’s going to tell him, but then she immediately pictures her dad, who she’d always imagined giving a ‘Congratulations Grandad’ card with an ultrasound scan of his new grandchild inside. He would have cried, she knows he would, and he’d have hugged her tight, not wanting to ever let her go. I knew you’d do it, kid, he’d say to her, letting on that he’d instinctively known what her and Matt had been going through all this time. She wouldn’t have been surprised if he had; he was so intuitive of her feelings that he often knew she was unhappy even before she did. And he was always there when she was. An invisible support system that held her up, whenever she needed him.
‘I need you now, Dad,’ she cries, floored by the unexpected grief that washes over her. She’d always known how proud of her he was; he’d shout it from the rooftops whenever he was given half a chance. But this . . . this would have made him so happy. His little girl finally getting the one thing that will make her feel complete. Her heart breaks that he’s not here to see it. ‘He’ll never be here to see it,’ she whispers, wiping a tear away.
‘Excuse me,’ says a voice, interrupting her thoughts. She instinctively moves aside, imagining that she’s holding someone up from where they want to go. What other reason would there be for unsolicited interaction between strangers in London?
‘Er, hi, excuse me,’ says the voice again.
Kate sniffs and drags a tissue under her eyes.
‘I’m really sorry to intrude, but you look upset and I just wanted to make sure you were all right.’
Kate looks from the girl to the empty place in the coffee shop window and back again.
‘Are you okay?’ asks the girl, with a sympathetic smile.
‘I’m pregnant!’ says Kate, feeling a warmth wrap itself around her, though she’s not sure if it’s the knowledge that she has a baby inside her or that her faith in human nature has been restored.
‘Congratulations?’ says the girl hesitantly, as if waiting for confirmation that it is, indeed, good news.
Kate instinctively pulls the girl into her, hugging her tight. ‘Thank you,’ she says.
‘For what?’
‘For not being afraid to show you care.’
15
Lauren
Lauren had cited an unnecessary food shop to her mother to get a child-free half an hour to make the call. Now, she sits in the car outside her own house, staring blankly at her phone, as if willing it to ring. But she doesn’t suppose Justin’s telepathic, and anyway, that wasn’t the agreement. She’s supposed to call him. If she’s brave enough.
Her hands are shaking as she looks at ‘Sheila’, unable to believe that just eleven digits separate her from a past she never imagined she’d have to face again. When Justin dumped her, it was the start of a downward spiral that she feels she never truly escaped from. She’d got in with the wrong crowd when they moved to London and started experimenting with drugs. She lost all sense of self-respect, sleeping with anyone who showed an interest, in the misguided belief that sex was love. And when she’d run out of ways to punish herself, she decided to get control back over her life, in the only way she knew how; by limiting the food she allowed herself. She thought she was being clever, that nobody would notice, so when her dad put her into hospital for two weeks, it only made her hate him even more.
But he’s gone now, she says to herself, with her thumb hovering shakily over ‘Sheila’. And I’m an adult. But even as she’s saying it, she knows that no matter how old you are, you’re still your parents’ child.
She’s almost surprised when she presses the number, as if somebody else has done it on her behalf.
‘I didn’t think you’d call,’ says Justin, before Lauren even hears it ring.
‘Hi,’ she says, not knowing what else to say, before adding unnecessarily, ‘it’s me.’
‘How are you?’
‘I’m good,’ she says. ‘You?’
‘Better now,’ he says. ‘I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since the other day.’
I haven’t stopped thinking about you for the last twenty years, thinks Lauren.
‘I want to see you again,’ he says.
Lauren feels like she can’t breathe. How can this be happening? After all this time. And why now? It’s as if it’s a sign.
‘I’d like that,’ she says, hesitantly.
‘When?’ he asks. ‘What about tonight?’
‘No, I can’t, not tonight.’
‘Tomorrow?’
She suddenly feels claustrophobic, as if he’s crowding her, demanding something she can’t give. But then she reminds herself that he doesn’t know any different. Why wouldn’t he think she might be available tonight or tomorrow? That’s the short notice that single, unencumbered people can work to.
‘I might be able to do something tomorrow,’ she says, though her brain’s already registering how unfeasible that is. If Simon’s working, he’ll go to the pub straight from the job. If he’s not got any work, he might stay at home. She panics when she realizes that it doesn’t matter, as either way she can’t go anywhere.
‘When will you know?’ he asks.
‘I, er . . . I don’t know. I’ll need some time to sort things out.’ She imagines him asking what there is to sort out and her telling him that it’s just the small problem of getting rid of her controlling husband and drafting in her mother to look after the three children she’s denied having.
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ she says. ‘I’ll call you later.’
‘Okay,’ he says. ‘But Lauren . . .’
‘Yes?’ she says, feeling as if every word she utters is catching in her throat.
‘Do your best.’
She puts the phone down, his urgency resounding in her ears, not knowing whether it’s that which is causing her stomach to flip or the nostalgia that hearing his voice evokes. They were so young, too young to be able to cope with the responsibilities that came with a teenage relationship turning into an adult one. If only they’d met later, when they both knew who they were and what they wanted.
‘Mum, can you do me a favour tomorrow night?’ she says as she walks into the house. She puts the solitary bag of shopping on the counter and absently clicks the kettle on.
‘Is that it?’ Rose asks, nodding towards the half-full bag.
Lauren can barely remember being in the supermarket, let alone what she’d bought.
She nods. ‘I might nip out and if Simon’s not about, I wondered if you would mind the kids for a bit.’
‘Of course,’ says Rose. ‘What are you up to?’
The words are accusing, but the tone in which she says them tells Lauren they’re not meant to be. Nevertheless, Lauren can feel her cheeks going red and she turns to put a jar of coffee in a cupboard already over-stocked with caffeine.
‘Erm . . . I’m going to try and get Kate out.’ It’s the first thing she can think of.
‘Oh, that would be lovely,’ enthuses Rose. ‘It would do you two the power of good to get together and sort out your differences.’
‘I’m sorry for the trouble this has all caused,’ says Lauren.
‘It can’t be helped,’ says Rose, in the sing-song voice she puts on when she means the exact opposite. ‘But you would have been wise to have thought about the consequences beforehand.’
‘I hate him,’ says Lauren, with such vitriol that she surprises even herself.
‘Don’t say that, darling,’ says Rose, sidling up beside her. ‘It would break his heart. He was your father and he loved you so very much.’
‘If he loved me, he’d never have done what he did,’ she cries. ‘How could he have had a baby with someone else, when all the time . . . he . . . he . . .?’ Her shoulders convulse and a sob escapes from her chest.
‘Lauren,’ implores Rose, taking her daughter’s hands in her own. ‘You have to leave this alone. You need to leave this in the past where it belongs. You can’t continue punishing yourself like this.’
