We Are Family

by Nicola Gill

  Twenty-five years ago. Laura turned her back on Jess.

  ‘Laura!’

  The pulse in Laura’s ears was deafening. With trembling hands, she wrenched her coat from the hook in the hall and tried to pull it on, unable to find the arm holes.

  Jess was behind her, trying to pull her back. ‘Mum didn’t even tell me. I found out by accident. It was the night of Dad’s funeral and I was coming down the stairs because I couldn’t sleep and I was thirsty suddenly …’

  Get to the point, Laura felt like screaming. This is no time to amble around the houses.

  ‘… I heard Mum saying something to Auntie Sheila about how it was such an irony that you were so upset about Dad. Do you know how many times I’ve wished that I never heard that, Laura? Wished that I hadn’t decided to go downstairs and get a glass of water just at that moment?’

  Jess was crying now, really crying, so it was hard for her to get the words out. But Laura didn’t feel sympathy, she felt rage. Stop feeling sorry for you. This is about me. I’m the one who has just had my whole world tipped upside down.

  A memory jagged at Laura’s consciousness: Her mother’s incredulity when she had said Billy looked a bit like her dad. Evie’s smile – did she find it funny?

  Laura’s skin was clammy and her whole body was shaking. She headed towards the front door.

  ‘Laura,’ Jess wailed. ‘Please don’t go. Let’s talk about this.’

  ‘Bit late for talking, don’t you think?’

  ‘When Mum died, I realized that it would have to be me who told you,’ Jess said. ‘But I just couldn’t. I didn’t want to do it straightaway because it seemed like too many shocks in one go. Recently, I’ve psyched myself up to tell you a few times but then I always bottled out. When we weren’t getting on, I was terrified you’d think I was telling you out of spite and when we were getting on I was terrified of destroying that.’

  Laura’s legs felt as if she couldn’t trust them to keep her upright. She stared at her sister. She suddenly remembered Jess messaging her that time saying there was something she wanted to tell her. And there were other occasions too, when she could recall Jess seeming as if she was on the verge of saying something and then pulling herself back.

  Still, Jess had known the truth for twenty-five years.

  She couldn’t have tried that hard to fill Laura in.

  Chapter One Hundred and Six

  All Laura wanted to do was run (well, look at that, Jess, you actually did get me running).

  Thoughts clamoured for position in her mind, shoving each other out of the way.

  Her breath was coming in big, hiccupping gulps and her eyes were blurry with unchecked tears.

  How could they all have lied to her for so long?

  People were staring at her as she careered along, moving their children out of the path of the crazy lady. Laura didn’t care.

  She ran across the road and cars screeched their horns in angry protest. A man in a Prius rolled down his window and screamed, ‘You’re going to get yourself killed, lady!’

  Laura pounded along the pavement.

  So much made sense now.

  Nothing made sense now.

  Laura came to a main road, ran straight into the path of the oncoming traffic without stopping.

  On her left, a bus was coming towards her.

  But Laura didn’t see the bus.

  Because all Laura could see was her birth certificate.

  Chapter One Hundred and Seven

  Then

  ‘Who do you prefer, Dad – me or Jess?’

  ‘That’s a silly question,’ he said, laughing. ‘You can’t pick between your kids.’

  The two of them were in the car. Dad was taking her to a sleepover party at Beth’s and, although Laura had been looking forward to it for weeks, right now she just wanted her and her dad to keep driving forever. She loved it when it was just the two of them, and the car was like their own little bubble. ‘You said there were no silly questions.’

  Dad laughed even harder. ‘I did say that. But I guess that was the exception to prove the rule.’

  ‘Mum prefers Jess.’

  ‘No she doesn’t.’

  ‘She does. So, if you preferred me, that would be fair.’

  He grinned and rolled his eyes. ‘The thing is, Scout, I couldn’t love you or your sister any more than I do. It’s “infinity love”. So there is no “more”.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Laura said, not entirely satisfied with that answer. She looked out of the window. It was raining heavily and the pavements were black and shiny. People were scuttling around with their heads down.

  The news came on the radio and Dad reached out and turned up the volume. He loved the news, couldn’t get enough of it. Laura didn’t understand why – it was boring with a capital B. She zoned out and let her mind wander. Sarah Baxter had a boyfriend, Jessie Makin had a bra, and not just some pretend training number but a proper bra like grown-ups wore. Laura was getting left behind.

  She tuned back into the present to hear the man on the radio saying that in America someone called OJ Simpson had been arrested for the murder of his wife. ‘Dad,’ she said. ‘You know how you always say that if you really love someone, there’s nothing they can do to change that? Well, would you love me if I murdered someone?’

  That made him laugh again. ‘Why – are you planning on it?’

  ‘No,’ Laura said. If she was going to murder someone, it would definitely be those boys on the bus who teased her and Beth all the time, but she didn’t actually want them dead, just not on the number thirteen.

  ‘Love is All Around’ came on the radio and now it was Laura’s turn to crank up the volume. ‘I love this song.’

  ‘I don’t,’ Dad said. ‘I think it’s wet, wet, wet.’

  ‘Your jokes are the worst,’ Laura said, groaning.

  Dad grinned. ‘It’s not even an original song, you know. It was first recorded by The Troggs.’

  Why did grown-ups tell you stuff like this? Or even care about it? Maybe when you got old you suddenly started being interested in random facts? And the news.

  Laura looked out of the window at a couple of little boys who were splashing in a puddle like it was the most exciting thing ever. A memory rose up of her and Jess doing the same thing when they were little. They were in the garden of their old house and the two of them were laughing as if splashing in that puddle was the best thing in the whole world. That had been when the two of them still liked each other. Actually, in truth, sometimes Laura still liked her sister. It was just that Jess could be so annoying, going around thinking she was ‘it’ all the time just because she was fourteen and she had periods now. She was such a huge suck-up to Mum all the time too – yes, Mum, no, Mum, three bags full, Mum. Shut up, Jess, Mum already thinks you’re perfect.

  They drove past a poster advertising the yoghurts that Julie Marshall always had in her lunch box and Laura suddenly thought about how sad Julie must be right now; probably too sad to even eat yoghurt. She hadn’t been in school for weeks. ‘Julie Marshall’s dad died of cancer.’

  ‘That’s terrible,’ Dad said, turning left. ‘Poor people.’

  ‘I couldn’t bear it if you died.’

  Her dad reached over and squeezed her hand. ‘Don’t worry, I’m going to live until I’m a hundred and be super grumpy and annoying.’

  They stopped at some traffic lights. A woman who was pushing a pram with one hand and holding a toddler’s hand with the other crossed the road. The baby was under a rainproof pram cover and the toddler had a tiny bumble bee umbrella, but the mother’s hair was soaked through and slicked to her head. Laura supposed she just didn’t have enough arms for an umbrella of her own.

  ‘I can’t wait to learn to drive,’ Laura said as they got going again.

  ‘And I can’t wait to teach you.’

  ‘Yeah, I don’t want Mum teaching me. She’s a rubbish driver.’

  ‘Laura!’ Dad said, but he was smiling. He alw
ays defended Mum, but even he couldn’t say she was a good driver. A couple of weeks ago she’d crashed into a skip and still claimed it wasn’t her fault.

  ‘Sarah Baxter has got a boyfriend,’ Laura said.

  ‘Oh,’ her dad said. ‘Twelve is quite young to have a boyfriend.’

  Laura shrugged.

  ‘You’re going to have all the boys in the world queueing up to take you out when you’re older, Scout. And then, one day when you’re much older, you’ll choose one of them who will be lucky enough to marry you. And I’ll walk you down the aisle and it will be the proudest, happiest day of my whole life.’

  ‘You said proudest, happiest day of your life,’ Laura said, bouncing up and down in her seat. ‘What about when you walk Jess down the aisle? See, I am your favourite!’

  Dad laughed and Laura suddenly thought how it was a sound that made her ridiculously happy.

  Chapter One Hundred and Eight

  Later, Laura wouldn’t remember exactly how she got home, although she’d never forget the stricken face of the bus driver and the high-pitched squeal of the brakes as the bus stopped just inches away from her.

  Outside her front door, she fought to compose herself so that Billy wouldn’t see her like this, but luckily it turned out that Billy was transfixed by whatever he was watching on YouTube.

  Jon took one look at her face, led her into the bedroom and shut the door. Laura promptly collapsed into a fresh wave of sobs. ‘My father was not my father,’ she told him. ‘They all knew.’ (Nearly getting herself killed didn’t even make the cut for ‘traumatic events of the last hour’.)

  Somehow Jon managed to get Billy to accept that Mummy had a bit of a headache and, no, it was best not to go in and say goodnight, that Daddy would say it for him just this once.

  Laura and Jon lay on the bed, him holding her tightly while she sobbed. They had long since stopped talking. What was there to say? Her whole life had been a lie and her whole family had been complicit in it: Mum, Jess, Dad – well, the man she’d called ‘Dad’.

  Jon stroked her hair.

  Who the hell was Arthur Robert Keele? Had her mother been in love with him or was he just a shag? Did he know about her or had he been lied to as well? Was he alive? Did he have children? (Other children.)

  So. Many. Questions.

  ‘Do you want anything?’ Jon said. ‘Water? Tea? Wine?’

  She shook her head. It was unfathomable that Jess knew. Had she and Mum talked about it behind Laura’s back? Laughed at her? She had a sudden, sickening memory of always telling Jess that she’d been their dad’s favourite. No wonder Jess had never seemed to mind that much. ‘Actually, can you pass me the Gaviscon?’

  Jon handed her the bottle and she took a greedy swig. As if it might help with heartache and not just heartburn. ‘I’m probably not even an orphan,’ she said flatly.

  Jon nodded. ‘Will you try to find him?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She guessed she should at some point, if only to find out about his medical history. Those were questions doctors always asked you, weren’t they? Have any of your close family ever had cancer, heart disease, diabetes? Wait, do you mean my actual family or the people pretending to be my family?

  ‘You don’t need to decide now,’ Jon said. He rolled over on his back, adjusted her body against his. ‘You should eat some dinner.’

  ‘I can’t.’ It was one of those rare moments when she had absolutely no appetite whatsoever, where the idea of food repelled her. Perhaps she would lose a few pounds? She could market this as a new diet: Find out your father is not your father and shed that belly fat forever!

  She had this sudden memory of going into her dad’s office with him one day and this woman saying that she didn’t look anything like him. And he had been uncharacteristically snappy. ‘She has just got different colouring, that’s all.’ Now it all made sense.

  Maybe this was why her mother had never seemed to like her that much? Laura had spent her whole life chasing her mother’s approval, feeling as if there must be something very wrong with her – what kind of person isn’t liked by their mother – but maybe it was nothing to do with her? Maybe she was just a painful reminder of a mistake that Evie had made? A mistake that could have cost her her marriage and she’d have to live with for the rest of her days. Maybe Evie hated Arthur Robert Keele? Or worse still, maybe she really loved him? Either way, she didn’t want him gazing back at her every time she looked at Laura.

  She was crying again. She hadn’t even realized until Jon handed her a tissue. ‘I’ve lost my dad twice,’ she whispered.

  Jon wiped a tear from her cheek with his thumb, kissed the top of her head and told her that everything would be okay.

  And she reached across and kissed him hard on the mouth.

  ‘No,’ he said, pulling away.

  ‘Yes,’ Laura said, pulling him back and reaching down to undo his belt.

  She could hear her sister’s voice admonishing her in her head: Don’t do this. You know you and Jon aren’t right. You can’t have casual sex with the father of your child.

  Well, fuck you, Jess.

  Chapter One Hundred and Nine

  Eight months later

  ‘Remind me why you got us here three hours early?’ Laura said as they cleared airport security.

  Jess shrugged. ‘It’s just such a treat to have lots of time, don’t you think?’

  Laura looked around Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 3. A group of sweaty-looking teenagers were stretched across a bank of hard plastic chairs trying to sleep, a toddler was having a full-on tantrum in duty-free and a cleaner was uninterestedly mopping at an unpleasant-looking puddle. ‘If you say so.’

  ‘I just love getting to the airport early,’ Jess said, looking much like a small child on Christmas Eve. ‘We can do a bit of shopping, grab a coffee …’

  ‘You’re insane,’ Laura said to Jess’ back as her sister headed towards WHSmith.

  Laura stood looking at the travel adaptors and neck pillows. End the nightmare of trying to sleep on an uncomfortable aeroplane, it said on the packaging for the neck pillow, which Laura thought a tad over-dramatic.

  ‘Oh, don’t buy those,’ Jess said, patting her rucksack. ‘I’ve already got some.’

  A woman with a bright red wheelie case dragged it over Laura’s foot just as her phone started vibrating in her pocket. Jon would like to FaceTime.

  Laura stepped outside of the newsagent and pressed ‘accept’ to see Billy and Jon, the latter of whom was in full Elvis gear, appear on her phone screen.

  ‘Are you at the airport already?’ Jon said.

  ‘Yup,’ Laura said. ‘That’s what happens when you travel with my sister. Billy, do you think you could turn off your Switch long enough to talk to Mummy?’

  Billy reluctantly looked up. Jess had bought him the Switch for Christmas and it seemed to have been permanently welded to his hand for the two weeks ever since. Laura stared at Billy’s sulky little face on the screen and felt a wave of maternal love so strong it almost seemed as if it would knock her over. She had been so worried about him at one stage but now she could say – if it wasn’t tempting fate – he seemed happier than he had in a long time.

  ‘So Vegas, eh?’ Jon said.

  Laura grinned. ‘Yeah, baby.’

  ‘Just don’t lose everything on the roulette table,’ Jon said.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Laura said. ‘I’ve hardly got anything to lose.’ Jon laughed. ‘So what are your plans for your boys’ weekend?’

  ‘Well,’ Jon said. ‘This morning Billy is going to come with me while I get my new headshots taken and then, this afternoon, once I’ve de-Elvis-ed I’m going to whup this young man’s bum at football.’

  Billy made squeals of protest and Laura laughed. ‘Do you think it’s normal to be quite so competitive with someone who isn’t even six yet?’

  ‘I’m nearly six,’ Billy protested.

  ‘It’s absolutely normal,’ Jon said. ‘It’s just as much f
un to nutmeg a small child as it is a fourteen-stone IT consultant.’

  Laura grinned and rolled her eyes.

  ‘Tomorrow we’re going to go to the London Aquarium,’ Billy said, ‘and we’re going to see REAL crocodiles and sharks.’

  Laura said she looked forward to hearing all about it.

  When she went back into the newsagent’s, Jess was ensconced in the Richard and Judy Book Club section. ‘Which one do you think I should go for?’ she asked, holding up a thriller with a dark grey cover and a drip of blood running through the title, and a novel with a purple cover that The Times described as ‘A big, clever, tender, love story’.

  ‘I’d go for the thriller on account of you having no soul.’

  Jess poked her tongue out and joined the queue, the thriller in hand.

  As they walked past a boutique, Jess saw a pink dress in the window that she insisted would look amazing on Laura. Laura told her there was no way she was spending that much on a dress she’d hardly ever wear, but Jess said it would show off her new look perfectly and, anyway, why would she hardly wear it?

  In the changing room (Laura had tried on the dress just to appease her sister and because how else were they going to fill the nearly three hours until take off) Laura was distressed to admit the dress did in fact look good. She turned this way and that, convinced the store must have installed some fairground mirrors that were offering up an unrealistically flattering reflection. She knew she’d lost a bit of weight recently, but not that much. Hell, in this light she didn’t even appear to have a mum tum.

  ‘Can I see?’ Jess said, wrenching back the curtain without waiting for an answer. ‘Wow! You have to buy that.’

  ‘Is it approved by one of the UK’s top ten influencers?’ Laura was almost surprised that the last comment came out without so much as a hint of bitterness. In fact, if she hadn’t known better, she’d have said she was actually pleased for her sister.

  ‘I can’t believe you persuaded me to drop seventy-five quid on a dress,’ Laura said as they walked out of the shop.