No Sister of Mine

by Vivien Brown

  ‘I’m not sure I believe her anymore,’ she said quietly, as Janey went off to say goodbye to her grandad. ‘I bet she’s off to her dad’s. That’s why she’s trying to stop me going over to her friend’s place to collect her in the morning, because she won’t be there. Just won’t admit where she’s really going in case I try to stop her. I swear she loves him a lot more than she’s ever loved me.’

  ‘Rubbish! She adores you.’

  ‘If you say so. Now, let’s find some tinfoil and wrap up a chunk of that cake. If I’m about to spend another Saturday night on my own, I might as well have something wicked to look forward to, even if it’s just a bloody great pile of calories! And who cares if I get fat? It’s not like anyone’s going to see me naked, is it?’

  Chapter 28

  SARAH

  They say kids can go off the rails a bit, don’t they? If things change at home, if they feel their world is tilting and there’s nothing they can do to right it. They start to stay out late, drink, hang about with the wrong crowd, tell lies. Pushing the boundaries, I suppose, trying to get some sort of revenge or control, asserting their own right to choose. When it happened to us – to Janey and me – I knew exactly why she was doing it. It was to punish me for throwing her precious dad out of the house, for not doing everything possible to keep our little family together. It would never occur to her to blame him, or to look beyond our separation for its reasons. Josh was living alone in a tiny flat while I kept the house. Josh didn’t want any of this, Josh was happy to come home if only I would let him. Josh, in other words, could do no wrong.

  I remembered only too well how Tilly and I had sneaked about, and Eve too probably, changing our clothes after we’d left the house, hiding alcohol in our rooms and our handbags, going to parties that Mum and Dad would never have wanted us to go to, experimenting with boys – or girls in Tilly’s case. And look where that kind of behaviour had got me …

  I didn’t want that for Janey. Yes, she was growing up fast, but she was still my little girl. I wanted her to trust me, to talk to me, to love me enough to tell me what she was thinking, feeling, doing …

  ‘No, Sarah. She’s not here. Why would she be? It’s not my turn.’ Josh stood at the open door to his flat, his crumpled pyjamas and equally crumpled hair making it pretty obvious I had just got him out of bed. It was eleven o’clock on a Sunday morning and the little backstreet florist’s shop that Josh lived above was closed, its blinds down, the peeling blue paint around its windows matching that on Josh’s door.

  I’d had a sudden urge to go clothes shopping at one of the big malls, and to take Janey with me, splash out on something to cheer ourselves up, have a nice lunch out. I didn’t think Josh would mind. He’d had her all day Saturday, and had no doubt filled her up with takeaways and too many biscuits and let her stay up late. That’s what dads did, and it was time I balanced things up a bit and showed her she could have a good time with me too. But she wasn’t there.

  ‘So where is she? You’ve surely not let her set off for home by herself this morning? Without even getting up to make her any breakfast?’

  ‘Sarah, she’s not here. She hasn’t been here. I told you, it’s not my turn.’

  ‘I thought we’d given up on turns a long time ago. If she wants to come here, I let her.’

  ‘Well, she didn’t come here, okay? I’ve not seen her since last weekend.’

  I felt a cold fear rush up and over me. ‘But … she said she was staying here last night. She took a bag, her night things, I gave her a fiver …’

  Josh turned and ran back up to the flat, coming back within seconds clutching his mobile. ‘We’d better call her then, hadn’t we? For fuck’s sake, Sarah, how could you let her just disappear? And she’s been out all night? She could be lying in a ditch somewhere for all we know.’

  ‘But she said—’

  ‘Call yourself a mother? No wonder she wants to spend so much time with me.’

  ‘So where is she then, Mister Perfect Father? Because she doesn’t seem to be spending time with you, does she?’ I knew I was starting to shout. ‘Looks to me more like you’re providing a very convenient alibi for whatever she’s really up to.’

  ‘She’s not answering.’ He took the phone away from his ear and shook his head. ‘Should we call the police? And what do you mean about an alibi? Where do you think she is?’

  ‘I don’t know. At a party, or with some boy? She’s a teenaged girl, Josh. It’s what teenaged girls do. Sneak about, cover their tracks, lie … And no, I don’t think she’s in a ditch, or that this is something for the police to worry about. It’s for us to worry about. Both of us. Because she’s playing us, and if you hadn’t split this family, she wouldn’t be up to these sorts of tricks.’

  ‘Oh, here we go again. Right, if you’re so bloody clever, tell me what we’re meant to do next. Send out a search party?’

  ‘Well, we should look for her, if that’s what you mean. And I know exactly where we should start. At the O’Connors’. She spends half her time there these days, and if anyone will know where she is it’s that Becky girl. In fact, I’d bet any money that wherever Janey is, she is too.’

  ‘We’ll start there then. I assume you know the address?’

  ‘Yes, I do. I’m not in the habit of letting her go to strange houses. I always know where she is.’

  ‘Not this time.’ He stared at me, angrily, then shook his head again. ‘Okay, a bit below the belt that. Give me a minute to get dressed and I’ll come with you.’

  ‘Too right you will.’ I followed him inside. It was the first time I had seen beyond the doorway, which opened straight out onto the pavement. Janey was right. Upstairs was cramped and bare and incredibly lacking in homeliness. Her sleeping bag, the one we had chosen together, was rolled up in the corner of the sofa and there was one solitary photo, of her and Josh together, on the windowsill. He must have taken it from the house when he left, although all the others were still there, on my mantelpiece, where they had always been. The remains of a meal and two used cups sat on the table in the window, his work shoes lying on their sides underneath.

  I didn’t sit. I just stood in the centre of the room, listening to the crashing and banging coming from the bedroom as he dashed about getting himself dressed.

  When I heard a key turn in the lock, I spun round. I don’t know why, but my first thought was that it was Eve, that they were together again and she had her own key. That one of the cups on the table was hers.

  Josh emerged from his room, hopping on one leg as he pushed his feet into trainers, just as footsteps made their way up the stairs and in walked our daughter, her overnight bag over her shoulder and a half-eaten Danish pastry in her hand.

  ‘Oh!’ she said, seeing us together. ‘Mum. What are you doing here?’ There was no mistaking the look on her face. The look that said she’d been caught out, and it wasn’t going to be easy to talk her way out of it.

  ***

  I hadn’t intended to see Colin again, but now I’d been inside Josh’s flat, had a glimpse of his life plodding on as ever, without me in it, I decided it was time I started doing what I wanted to do, for a change. I didn’t need Josh’s permission to lead my own life, or Janey’s to see whomever I chose to see. Neither of them had seemed particularly bothered about asking for mine, after all.

  ‘I didn’t know if you’d be seeing someone,’ I said, squeezing in behind the only free table in Wetherspoon’s and pushing my coat down in a bundle beside me. ‘I don’t want to tread on some other woman’s toes.’

  ‘You’re not. And I’m not. Seeing anyone, that is. Oh, there have been women over the years. Of course there have, but nothing serious, nobody I’d walk over hot coals for. How could there be, when I only have eyes for you?’ He put the two glasses of wine down in front of us, took the chair facing me and casually picked up the menu, his eyes dancing with merriment, trying to hold back a cheeky smile.

  ‘You old flirt, you!’

  ‘Not
so much of the old, Ms Peters. I am younger than you, remember. Now, tell me everything.’

  ‘The potted version?’

  ‘That’ll do for now.’

  ‘Had enough. Told him I knew about the hotel, and the woman. Asked him to leave. He left.’

  ‘Well, that’s potted all right! But about time too. Good for you. I was beginning to think I’d pushed you too hard last time I saw you, and that you’d never go through with it. And now?’

  ‘And now we’re living separately. I’m going to divorce him, but I haven’t got the ball rolling yet. I need to give Janey time to come to terms with things, and I’m a bit worried about the cost of it all, to tell you the truth, but it helps that I work at a solicitor’s. I’m hoping they might give me mates’ rates.’

  ‘You didn’t chuck paint all over his suits then? Maybe the dry cleaners where you worked before might have offered mates’ rates too.’

  ‘Ha. No, I did consider that, or cutting them up maybe, but no. I’m trying to be civilised about it all. For Janey’s sake,’

  ‘And how is Janey? How’s she taking it? My parents split up when I was a kid, so I do know what it’s like.’

  ‘She’s still living with me, but not taking it well. Playing the rebel daughter to perfection at the moment. She lied to both of us one weekend and spent the night at her friend’s house, or more likely the two of them were out until all hours at some party somewhere, but she told me she was with Josh. She came back safe and sound, so no real harm done. Had some plan to turn up at his flat in the morning, let him think she’d come straight from mine, and let me think she’d been there all night. I think she was banking on us hardly speaking to each other so we’d never suss her out.’

  ‘Cheeky little bugger! How old is she now?’

  ‘Not quite fourteen. I suppose it’s normal for teenagers to rebel a bit, but I’d hoped we might get another year or two before all that started. A rocky home life has a lot to answer for.’

  ‘Don’t you go blaming yourself, Sarah.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t. I blame Josh. One hundred per cent.’

  ‘And your sister?’

  ‘Her too, but I believe her when she says she’s not been near him this time. Or I think I do. I can never be sure though, can I? Not when they’ve both lied to me before.’

  ‘And you’re not going to forgive him this time? Give in and take him back?’ Colin sipped his drink and watched me, waiting to see if I was about to waver yet again.

  ‘No way!’

  ‘So if I was to ask you out, properly this time, on a – let’s call it a date, shall we? – would you come? Let me treat you? Buy you a meal?’ He took his hand off the stem of his glass and placed it over mine on the table.

  I didn’t have to think too hard about that one. I smiled, liking the feel of his fingers touching mine. ‘I think I might, yes.’

  ‘No time like the present then.’ He passed me the menu. ‘You can have anything you want, so long as it’s under a tenner!’

  I couldn’t remember when I had last laughed like that, or felt so comfortable in the company of a man. It had been a long time coming.

  Without saying another word, I slipped my hand out from his and tugged off my wedding ring. It hadn’t left my hand in more than eighteen years and needed a bit of encouragement to ease its way over the joint, but it soon came away, leaving a strange white indentation around the base of my finger. I expected to feel different, strange, perhaps even sad, my ring finger suddenly so exposed and bare, but all I felt was elation and a wonderful new sense of freedom. I slipped the ring into my coat pocket and wriggled my hand back inside Colin’s, which was, I suddenly realised, exactly where it belonged.

  ***

  I heard her being sick before I saw her, through the partially open door, on her knees in the bathroom, still in her nightie, hunched over the toilet bowl.

  ‘What’s up, Love? Got a bad tummy?’ I stepped into the room and leant over her. There was only a thin watery yellow layer floating in the toilet so she hadn’t brought much up, but her face was deathly pale. ‘Come on, back to bed with you. No school today. I’ll ring them. And I’ll call the office too and say I can’t come into work. I’m owed a bit of leave. Can’t have you here by yourself if you’re poorly.’

  ‘I’ll be okay, Mum. Must just be something I’ve eaten.’

  ‘Well, we both had the same for dinner last night and I’m all right. Is it your period? I remember mine were pretty painful at your age. Come on. Up you get.’

  She shook her head.

  I helped her back into her bedroom and tucked her up, nipping downstairs for a glass of water and a bowl to leave by her bed in case she was sick again and couldn’t make it to the bathroom.

  It was a Friday and I had hoped Janey would be off to Josh’s at some point over the weekend so I could see Colin without the awkwardness of having to try to explain myself. Still, a few hours curled up under the duvet and she’d probably be fine by the evening. I pulled her door to, closed the curtains and went down to make the necessary calls.

  Over the last couple of months, since what I now thought of as the weekend of the big lie, Janey had definitely reined in her behaviour a bit. Whether it was guilt or the fact that she had finally resigned herself to the new way of things I wasn’t sure, but she had knuckled down at school and was spending more time at home with me. She had even let me organise a small birthday party for her, just a few school friends at a pizza place, and not made a fuss about wanting some all-dancing, all-boozing kind of do that I’m sure she would have preferred given half a chance. I had started to let myself believe we might have turned a corner, and that the time was right to get going on the divorce.

  The house was still just as it had been on the day Josh left. Apart from his own clothes and wash things, his folder of paperwork (evidence and all) and that one photo I’d seen at his flat, he hadn’t taken anything else. His flat had come already furnished, with basic kitchenware included, and Janey had told me she’d helped him choose a portable TV. So I still had everything else. And Josh was still paying the bills. Well, not the food, which I could just about manage on my part-time wages, but he was keeping the roof over our heads, still paying the mortgage and the heating and the council tax. Divorce would change all that, I was sure. There was a limit to how far his salary could stretch and keeping two homes going indefinitely was never an option. I had to start thinking about the future. About how I was going to manage, and where I was going to live. About Josh one day wanting us to sell this house and divide the proceeds, paying me some sort of settlement or allowance, demanding half the furniture. I couldn’t just sit and wait for the axe to fall.

  The truth was that I liked the house. It was my home and had been for a long time now. I liked my comfy bed, the way I’d arranged the kitchen, the little tree in the garden that I sometimes sat under to read a magazine, and the shrubs I’d planted which were nicely settled now, just as I was. I didn’t want to give it up. I sat in the quiet and let my thoughts run free. Maybe I could get a better-paid job, maybe I’d have a sympathetic judge who’d award me everything, or maybe Colin and I might—

  ‘Mum?’ Janey was calling me from the top of the stairs.

  ‘What is it, Love?’

  ‘Can I have something to eat? I missed breakfast and I’m starving.’

  ‘Ah. Feeling better then, are we? What do you fancy? Coco Pops all right?’

  ‘Could I have some ice cream?’

  ‘For breakfast?’

  ‘Why not? It might make my tummy feel better. And it’s easy to swallow, isn’t it?’

  ‘If you’ve got tonsillitis it is, yes! Which I’m quite sure you haven’t. But, go on then. Can’t do any harm, if it’s what you fancy. I’ve only got vanilla though.’

  ‘With sprinkles?’

  ‘Not much wrong with you now, is there? Carry on like this and you can go into school for the afternoon.’

  ‘Oh, do I have to? It might be catching and I would
n’t want to give it to anyone else.’

  ‘Very public spirited of you, I’m sure. Now get back into bed and I’ll bring your ice cream up on a tray. But if it makes you sick again, you’ve only got yourself to blame!’

  Chapter 29

  EVE

  I’d been teaching long enough to recognise when a pupil had a problem. Janey wasn’t in any of my classes but I’d always tried to keep a watchful eye on her, if only from a distance, to make sure she was doing well in her lessons, wasn’t being bullied or mixing with the troublemakers. The last couple of times I’d seen her in the corridors or sitting outside on a bench at breaktime, she had looked unhappy, a bit withdrawn, and if it was because of her parents’ break-up then I couldn’t help but feel at least partially to blame.

  I was fairly sure Sarah had told her daughter nothing about Josh and me. She might well be aware that we had met at uni, and even that we had dated as teenagers, but the full details of our later connection had been kept from her, for which I was truly grateful. I loved Janey and the last thing I wanted was for our relationship to suffer or for her to think badly of me.

  I was still debating with myself whether to try to catch her on her own and see if I could help in any way, when the dilemma was taken out of my hands. She came to see me.

  ‘Auntie Eve – sorry, Miss Peters – can I talk to you, please?’ I had found her hovering outside the staffroom door at the start of the lunch break one Friday, staring down at her own feet, and with no sign of her packed lunch. She was wearing her coat.

  ‘You don’t want to eat first?’

  ‘No, I’m not hungry, and this can’t wait. It’s … well, kind of personal.’

  ‘What is it, Janey? Do you want to come into the Head’s office? We can have some privacy there as he’s out for the afternoon. Or would you rather go for a walk?’

  ‘Yes, please. A walk, away from school. Is that allowed? We need permission to leave the building, don’t we? But as you’re …’