He looked pained, but at least he wasn’t yelling any more. ‘It’s brown, plain brown leather, and it’s got my name tag, for Chri— for Pete’s sake: Larry Kawalski.’
‘Actually,’ the girl said quietly, ‘I have no idea where this gentleman’s case is.’
Australian, the accent sounded like, or maybe New Zealand – Laura could never tell the difference. She shifted Poppy from one hip to the other, thinking of the turkey that should be going into the oven around now.
‘So,’ she said, ‘you’ll let us know when you locate Mr Karpotski’s luggage.’
‘Kawalski,’ he growled.
Laura ignored him. ‘Brown leather,’ she said to the girl. ‘Name tag. Thanks so much.’ She made to close the door.
‘But this is my suitcase.’ The same soft voice. ‘I haven’t … I don’t know anything about the gentleman’s.’
Laura halted. ‘You’re not employed by the hotel?’
‘No.’
‘Are you looking for a place to stay then, is that it?’ Was she to be inundated with all of Roone’s waifs and strays today? It wasn’t on, really it wasn’t.
The girl’s pale face turned pink. Was she going to burst into tears?
But no tears came. ‘Are you … Laura? Laura Connolly?’
‘I am.’ Henry must have sent her, afraid to come himself in case Laura said no this time. ‘You need a bed, is that it?’
‘Well …’
‘Come in,’ Laura said. What else could she say? It was one more, and they had the room, and she didn’t look like she’d be any trouble. Talk about opening her doors at Christmas though: at this rate she might as well be running the B&B properly.
Henry would owe them, big-time.
Out of the corner of her eye Laura saw Mr Katorski slink back into the sitting room – good. Let him cool his heels, or whatever he needed to cool. Let Gladys and himself have a good old moan, if that’s what he wanted.
The girl was still hovering uncertainly on the doorstep. ‘I’m not exactly … that is, I haven’t just come looking for a place to stay—’
But Laura could hear a commotion in the kitchen. ‘Sorry, I need to— Look, come with me, will you? Leave your case and follow me. And close the front door.’ At least Henry hadn’t landed Laura with two crosspatches – and this one might even be of some use.
A cacophony met them in the kitchen.
‘Mum, Ben won’t hold the board straight. He’s doin’ it on purpose, so all my rings drop off.’
‘Am not!’
‘Are so!’
‘Mum, Challie ate my—’
‘Stop,’ Laura ordered. ‘Behave yourselves: we have company.’
They all stared at the newcomer, who gave them a small weary smile. She looked as tired as Laura felt. She looked like she could do with a week of sleep.
‘What’s your name?’ Laura asked.
‘Tilly. Short for Matilda.’
‘And you need a place to stay.’
‘Well, I—’ She broke off, biting her lip, her glance darting from the silently watching children to Laura. ‘Yes please,’ she said then, ‘if you have space.’
‘As it happens, I’m officially closed,’ Laura replied, ‘and I’ve already taken in one hotel guest – that delightful man you just met – but I can’t very well turn you away on Christmas Day. I’m wondering why Henry didn’t bring you in person, though.’
‘I don’t know who Henry is,’ the girl said apologetically.
‘The hotel owner.’ This was becoming confusing. ‘Aren’t you here because the roof fell in?’
‘Actually, I … I haven’t come from the hotel. I’ve just … arrived on Roone.’
Laura’s eye caught the clock just then: the explanation would have to wait. ‘Could you take the baby for a minute? I have to get the turkey into the oven, or we’ll have no Christmas dinner.’
The girl took Poppy, who regarded her warily. ‘Shall I take her jacket off?’
‘Do, please – you can sit on that bench.’
Yes, she might turn out to be quite useful. Laura took the stuffed turkey from the fridge and shoved it into the oven. She removed the bundle of coats from their hook on the back of the door to the scullery and hung the boys’ rings board there: that would keep them quiet for a while. She changed the water in the saucepan that held the ham.
And as she worked, she listened.
‘What are your names?’
‘Ewie.’
‘Mawian.’
‘Those are pretty princess dresses. Did Santa bring them?’
‘Yeth.’
‘And what’s the baby’s name?’
‘Poppy.’
‘That’s a pretty name, like a flower.’
‘Poppy dot a dweth too.’
‘She did, I can see that.’
‘Not a pwintheth one.’
‘No, but it’s still lovely.’
‘Right.’ Laura turned from the cooker. ‘Boys, be good while we’re upstairs, OK?’
‘OK.’ The rubber rings thwacked against the board. Clever Nell, finding a game that was relatively quiet, and needed no electricity to function.
‘Girls, come with us while we find a room for … Tilly.’
They trooped upstairs, Evie and Marian hopping on ahead, Poppy back in Laura’s arms, the girl carrying her suitcase. A low murmur from the sitting room as they passed – Mr Kamalski moaning about his case to Gladys, no doubt, and the abuse he’d suffered at the hands of his landlady.
Have to apologise to him later for the sharp words, in the interests of diplomacy. Not that he hadn’t deserved them: ignorant man. Hopefully the brown suitcase would show up before long, might thaw him out a bit.
She brought her new guest to the third-best room. No sea view, overlooking the hills of Roone instead, which did look pretty spectacular in today’s frosty brightness. ‘Girls, show Tilly her bathroom,’ she instructed, while she went to the airing cupboard for more clean sheets and pillowcases and towels.
‘I’ll do it,’ Tilly offered, when Laura returned. ‘I’m sure the girls will help – could you put the pillowcases on for me?’
She was used to children; maybe had younger siblings at home, wherever home was. Laura sat with Poppy on the armchair by the window and watched Marian and Evie pushing pillows into cases.
‘Australia or New Zealand?’ she asked, and again the teen’s face flushed lightly as she tucked in the bottom sheet.
‘Australia – Queensland. A small town near Brisbane.’
Brisbane was where her mother lived; that was the sum total of what Laura knew about it.
‘What brings you to Ireland? Do you have family here?’
The questions seemed to fluster the girl. ‘I …’ She stopped what she was doing, the colour deepening in her cheeks. ‘Yes, I …’ she tried again, and failed again. Family skeletons, maybe.
‘Forget it,’ Laura said. ‘None of my business. We’re a very nosy lot round here.’
‘Look,’ Tilly said, crossing her arms, uncrossing them, ‘I didn’t mean to … that is, I wasn’t trying to mislead you downstairs …’ She stopped, darting a look at the girls, who were paying them no attention. ‘You just,’ she went on, ‘I mean, that man just threw me, and I didn’t know … and then you brought me into the kitchen, and I couldn’t—’ She broke off again, clearly very ill at ease. What on earth was up with her?
‘Hey,’ Laura said, ‘forget I asked. It doesn’t matter.’
But the girl said, ‘No, no, it does, I must tell you,’ giving another quick look at the girls. ‘I mean, I have to, I had it all – but maybe we could do it in private? I – I mean, I think it might be—’ She broke off again, her eyes filling with sudden tears.
There was more to this than someone looking for a bed for the night. It was beginning to look like the girl hadn’t happened accidentally on Walter’s Place, although Laura still couldn’t for the life of her imagine what was going on.
She got to her feet. �
��You’ll find tissues in the bathroom,’ she said, and the girl fled. Laura turned to the twins. ‘Marian, Evie, I just remembered that Granny never saw your beautiful swans – would you go down and show them to her? I know she’d love to see them.’
Off they scampered, so easily distracted. ‘Careful on the stairs,’ Laura called automatically. ‘Down on your bottoms’ – and as she turned back Tilly was emerging from the en-suite, looking a little more composed.
‘Sorry,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m making such a mess of this … and I’d planned it over and over, what I’d say to you. I’d practised it, and then—’
She was several inches taller than Laura. Her hair was the colour of pale straw, her skin as freckly as an Irish person’s. Her green scarf had come undone, half of it trailing down the back of the jacket that she was still wearing. Deep shadows darkened the skin under her blue-green eyes.
Her eyes.
Inside Laura, something stirred. She felt the scratch of a premonition, or maybe it was the tug of a memory. Something reached for her, but didn’t quite make it. She was grateful, all of a sudden, to have the comfort of Poppy’s warm little body nestling into her.
They stood facing one another, watching one another, six or seven feet apart.
‘Who are you?’ Laura asked.
She waited, listening to the girls’ excited Gwanny! Gwanny! as they thumped with little fists on the sitting-room door.
Her sister had pale brown hair, cut short as a boy’s. Pretty face, blue eyes, a lighter colour than Tilly’s, the whites shot with fine red lines. Short, only about Lien’s height, or maybe an inch or so taller. Slim probably, hard to be sure under the bulky orange sweater that came to the middle of her thighs and looked more like a man’s.
An accent different from the people in Kilmally, different from the couple who’d given them the lift from the pier. More like Colette’s accent, but not quite the same.
Her sister was a mother with five children. Two sets of twins, it looked like. A pair of red-headed freckle-faced boys, another of blonde curly-headed girls, and one plump cherub called Poppy. Tilly hadn’t known that about her: children hadn’t been mentioned. She’d been told so little about her sister.
Married, their mother had said. She’s Laura Connolly now. Living on a small island called Roone, off the west coast of Ireland. She’ll be thirty on the first of August. And that had been all, and Tilly hadn’t asked any more, still trying to absorb the fact that she had a sister.
Five children. Tilly had three nieces and two nephews.
A big old house, a bed and breakfast business. A husband Tilly had yet to meet.
The angry man who’d opened the front door had been so unexpected, so shocking. He’d sent the words she’d been rehearsing flying right out of her head, leaving her completely thrown. And then the door opened again and Laura was suddenly there: Laura Connolly was suddenly standing there. Tilly knew immediately who she was, who she had to be.
Laura, her sister, who still didn’t know, but who was beginning to realise, who must realise, that Tilly – stuttering and stammering and making a total mess of it, because now that they were face to face, it was the hardest thing in the world to say – Laura must realise at this stage that Tilly wasn’t just a stranger looking for a place to stay.
‘Who are you?’ she asked, eyes narrowing.
Say it. Say it. Just say it.
‘I’m your sister,’ Tilly said.
‘We’re sisters,’ she said.
‘You’re my sister,’ she said.
Three times she said it, in case once wasn’t enough.
The news was greeted with dead silence, apart from the baby’s rapid little breaths as she gawped, from the safety of her mother’s arms, at the person who was in fact her aunt.
Then Laura began to shake her head slowly. ‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, I’m afraid you’ve made a mistake. I don’t have a sister, I’m an only child. My parents separated when I was twelve and my mother went to—’
She stopped dead. She blinked a few times.
‘Australia,’ Tilly finished. ‘She went to Australia.’
The skin between her sister’s eyes pleated.
‘Her name is Diane Potter,’ Tilly went on. ‘I met her last June, in Brisbane. I was adopted. She put me up for adoption.’
‘No,’ Laura said, shaking her head again, more decisively. ‘I mean, no, sorry, you can’t be. My parents separated a long time ago, they’re divorced now, they didn’t have any more children. She left him.’
‘She didn’t know,’ Tilly said. ‘She didn’t know when she was going away, she didn’t know she was pregnant.’
More silence. Laura’s face impassive now. Impossible to know what she was thinking, how she was taking it.
Tilly combed through her memory, trying to drag out what little information her mother had given her. ‘She came to Australia with a woman. She said she knew her through her work. She said her name was … Trudi. I didn’t meet her.’
At the mention of the name, something changed in Laura’s face. She stepped back until her calves bumped against the chair she’d been sitting in. She sank onto it again, her gaze never leaving Tilly’s face. She adjusted Poppy to sit on her lap. Mother and daughter observed Tilly with the same grave expression.
‘I didn’t know,’ Tilly said. ‘I didn’t know I was adopted until a few years ago. I didn’t know anything. I hadn’t a clue. My parents, I mean my adoptive parents …’ she hesitated, wanting to be kind to them ‘… they did what they thought was best. I asked them about our family tree – we were doing a school project, I was twelve or thirteen – so they told me then … They’re good people, they’re decent and hardworking. They took me when they thought they couldn’t have their own children, but then they had two.’
Still not a word from Laura, one thumb absently stroking the back of her daughter’s pudgy hand as she listened.
‘My real mother,’ Tilly began, wanting to say our, but maybe it was too soon for that, ‘she didn’t do it officially, the adoption I mean. It was arranged through my uncle and aunt – she lived beside them when she came to Australia. Last June I told Ma, my adoptive mother, that I wanted to meet her. I just, I don’t know, I just wanted to, and … my aunt and uncle arranged it, and I met her in a café in Brisbane—’
Her mother’s white face flashed for an instant in her head, throwing her off-course. Unnerved by Laura’s continuing scrutiny she dropped her gaze to the floor. Old wooden boards, polished to a mellow nut-brown sheen. ‘It wasn’t … what I hoped, when I met her. We didn’t really … connect.’ When the silence stretched she glanced up again. Laura hadn’t moved, hadn’t taken her eyes off her.
‘I haven’t met her since,’ she said. ‘We didn’t make any arrangement. But she did tell me about you. I was … amazed to learn that I had a sister, in Ireland.’
Still no reaction, no word from Laura. Why didn’t she say something?
‘She told me that my father … She said he doesn’t know about me, that she didn’t tell him. She said … he wouldn’t want to know. She didn’t tell me much of anything about him, except that he’s still alive. And that he’s successful at whatever he does. She didn’t name him on my birth cert. It says “unknown” for the father.’
She halted again, out of words. She wanted to sit down. She wanted a drink of water. She wanted Laura to stop staring at her.
At last, a response came. ‘You have your birth cert?’
‘Yes, I made a copy.’ She tugged at the zip on her case, her fingers made clumsy by Laura’s silent scrutiny. After an eternity she found the envelope and pulled out the cert and handed it over. Laura studied it, her expression unchanged.
She looked up. ‘How old are you?’
‘Seventeen. My birthday is December the seventh.’ It was there on the cert. Laura didn’t believe her; she was testing her.
‘What year were you born?’
‘’Ninety-eight.’
I
t felt like an interrogation. Poppy’s mouth stretched in a yawn.
‘Your mother. What was she like?’
Your mother, not ours. Still not convinced. Still not able – or not willing – to accept that they were related.
‘She was small and thin. Her hair was gold – I mean, sort of … blonde.’
Laura shook her head, mouth tight. ‘How did she seem? How did she come across?’
Tilly thought back to the café, remembered the fluttering movements, the jerked-out sentences. Recalled wondering if her mother was on medication of some sort. ‘She was a bit … highly strung. She seemed … vulnerable. On edge.’
Laura sighed, but didn’t comment. A long silence followed, during which Tilly couldn’t think of anything else to say that wouldn’t sound pathetic: please believe me, I’m telling the truth, I’ve come so far to find you. I need you.
Poppy had fallen asleep, her lips slightly parted, her cheek squashed against her mother’s breast. Watching her, Tilly became aware of feeling unaccountably tired herself. She remembered her night of little sleep in the small attic room while the storm raged outside.
Eventually Laura got to her feet, shifting Poppy to settle against her shoulder, leaving Tilly’s birth cert on the chair. ‘It’s a lot to take in,’ she said, ‘what you’ve just told me. It sounds like it’s true, but it’s a lot to get my head around. And to be honest, you could have chosen a better time to arrive unannounced.’
Tilly’s heart sank. ‘I’m sorry, I should have let you know.’
‘Yes, you should.’ There was no anger in the words, more a weary resignation. ‘But you’re here now, and I can’t very well turn you away.’ She stopped. ‘How did you get here on Christmas Day?’
Tilly told her as briefly as she could about missing the ferry and meeting Colette and staying in the bar. ‘We came across together,’ she said. ‘A man brought us in his boat.’
‘Did you tell Colette who you were?’
‘Yes,’ Tilly replied, her face hot. ‘I didn’t know she knew you. I just – it just came out.’
It had been a mistake to confide in Colette, she could see that now. She shouldn’t have told anyone before telling Laura. She should have kept the reason for her trip to herself, until she saw how the news was received. Another blunder.
I’ll be home for Christmas Page 21