The Secret Sister Read online

  She clammed up again after that. I wasn’t even sure she’d heard me tell her where I was going.

  Now, after settling into the bedsit, which was as grubby as I’d feared, I pulled out a bottle of vodka I’d picked up at a nearby off-licence. It wasn’t a good idea, but I still had a throbbing hangover from the night before. I would only have the one little drink, something to smooth the jagged edges, while I thought about finding my father.

  Chapter 2

  Ella

  ‘I didn’t realise Mum had so much stuff.’ The heap of clothes, shoes and boxes looked wrong in the middle of the bedroom.

  Greg came through from the landing, running his hands through his light brown hair. ‘That’s because it was all hidden in cupboards and drawers for years,’ he said, reasonably. ‘And don’t forget there’s at least thirty years’ worth here.’

  ‘Oh God.’ I covered my face with my hands. My earlier optimism that I could clear out her things without feeling upset was fading fast. I wished she hadn’t insisted that I do it. ‘Where am I supposed to put it all?’

  Greg came over and pressed a kiss on top of my head. ‘Unless there’s anything you want to keep, bag up the clothes and shoes for the charity shop. We can shred or burn any paperwork that’s not relevant.’

  ‘It sounds so clinical,’ I said, dropping my hands. ‘I wish I could just leave everything as it was.’

  ‘She knew your dad wouldn’t be able to cope with it,’ Greg reminded me. He was unusually dishevelled, his hair falling over his forehead. ‘Remember you said he’s been sleeping on the sofa.’

  ‘But why get rid of it all?’ I was suddenly close to tears. ‘I thought he’d want to keep Mum’s things around him.’

  ‘That doesn’t work for everyone.’ Greg tilted my chin with his fingers, his hazel eyes sympathetic. ‘After my dad died, Mum couldn’t bear the reminders. That’s why she sold the house and moved abroad.’

  ‘Jesus.’ I shook my head, taking in the familiar sight of him. He hadn’t changed much in the six years we’d been together, but lately I’d noticed a deepening of lines around his eyes and a hint of grey at his temples. At thirty-three, he was starting to look older than his years, and I wondered – not for the first time – whether I should have encouraged him to chase a partnership at Sheridan-Hope, the London law firm where he worked. The company specialised in media cases, and his job involved gruelling hours, but I worried if he didn’t push himself, he’d get left behind.

  It was the first Saturday morning we’d spent together in ages and I’d been surprised, but grateful, that he’d offered to help me out with Mum’s things. ‘I can’t imagine getting rid of all traces of you if you died,’ I said.

  His face relaxed into a smile. ‘I’ll take some of her books down to the car.’ He reached for my hand just as I stepped away and so he scratched his elbow instead. ‘Do you want some coffee?’

  ‘Please.’ On a sigh, I turned back to the muddle I’d made, while Greg picked up a box of paperbacks and padded downstairs.

  I crossed to the bed and picked up a heavy black coat, holding it to my face. It didn’t smell of anything. I couldn’t ever remember Mum wearing it. She hadn’t thrown anything away for years and most of her clothes looked dated, the lengths and collars all wrong, the fabrics faded from washing.

  As I folded the coat, ready to add to a bag stuffed with skirts and sweaters, I felt a crackle of paper in one of the pockets. Digging my hand inside, I touched something soft and pulled out a yellowing receipt. The print was worn, but I could make out the words Annie’s Tea Room, and the date: nearly twenty-eight years ago. She’d bought a cup of tea and a buttered scone, which had cost £1. She must have been there on her own, and I wondered if it had been during a trip to York to visit Aunt Tess.

  I crumpled the receipt into the pocket of my jeans and thrust the coat in the bag, anxious to get the job over with, but as I turned my attention to a pile of shoes a burst of childish laughter caught my attention.

  I moved to the window and looked out to see Dad pushing Maisie on the swing that used to be mine at the bottom of the garden. She was kicking her sturdy legs, her dark curls dancing around her face, eyes wide with delight.

  I pressed my forehead to the glass, clouding it with my breath. Maisie looked so like Greg, my own freckled skin and straight fair hair having passed her by. At the age of three, there was already something of Mum in her smile and clear calm gaze.

  I pushed open the window to let the warm June breeze flow in, bringing with it a layered mix of scents from the garden. Mum used to love sitting out there with her easel, painting. Neither of my parents had been keen on gardening, but before he died my grandfather had taken care of things, and since then a local gardener had kept it in shape.

  It was good to see Dad, if not smiling, at least looking less tense. He hadn’t coped well with Mum’s death just after Christmas, six months ago. He was angry that she’d been taken too soon – which of course she had.

  Sometimes he seemed angry with me too. I’d catch him watching me, grey eyes narrowed like a sniper’s, and wondered if I reminded him of her – though I looked more like him than Mum. I’d asked him once what was wrong and he dropped his gaze and said curtly, ‘Isn’t it obvious? I’ve lost the best thing that ever happened to me,’ which had left me wondering where I stood in his affections.

  I glanced sideways at a silver-framed photo of them on the windowsill; Mum, an elegant figure in an A-line denim skirt and flowery blouse, smiling with friendly reserve, and Dad in his rimless glasses, an old wool jacket over a checked shirt, looking every inch the college lecturer he was. I’d taken the picture with a new camera on my sixteenth birthday, and they looked relaxed and happy.

  Dad had been strong during Mum’s illness, but since her death seemed half the man he’d been. The double chin he’d developed over the years had vanished and his clothes hung off his lanky frame. Even his reddish hair looked thin and lifeless and he’d grown a straggly beard that aged him. Worse, he’d applied for early retirement from the university, and spent most of his days either walking Charlie, his old spaniel, or slumped in an armchair in front of the television.

  Eyes stinging, I turned back to the job I’d begun two hours ago. At least the wardrobe was empty now, apart from Dad’s few clothes. They looked lonely, taking up barely any space.

  As I went to close the door, my eye was drawn to a shoebox I’d missed on the floor of the wardrobe, at the back. I bent to retrieve it, impatiently pushing my hair back, and carried it to the bed. I sat on the floral duvet, wondering whether Mum had kept her wedding shoes in the box. It was a nice cream one, with a silver band around it, and a picture on the side of some strappy, open-toed shoes in her size.

  Hoping for a glimpse of a younger mother on her wedding day, I removed the lid and peered inside, hit by a musty smell. There weren’t any shoes, but my initial disappointment gave way to an unexpected burst of excitement as I delved inside and drew out a faded Polaroid photograph. It was of Mum, cradling a newborn baby wrapped in a lacy white shawl. She looked different than in other photos I’d seen of her with me when I was a baby. She was wide-eyed, her black hair a wild mass of tangled curls around her heart-shaped face. I couldn’t make out what she was wearing. It looked like a nightdress, and she was sitting on a bed that could have been anywhere.

  Why wasn’t the photo in the album with all the others? Why shove it in a shoebox? I flipped the photo over and read the words scrawled on the back in blue ink.

  Colleen.

  My heart gave a thud.

  Colleen?

  So, the baby wasn’t me.

  I looked closer, but there were no discerning features, apart from a swirl of fair hair. Could it be Aunt Tess’s baby, Mum’s niece? But her name was Rosa, after their mother.

  I plucked out a tiny wristband, almost identical to the one I’d kept after leaving hospital with Maisie. Only this one had Colleen Brody written on it, along with a date of birth: five years bef
ore I was born.

  I felt as if someone had squeezed all the breath out of my lungs.

  A vision of Mum, just before she died, swam into my head. She’d started apologising to Dad and me, her eyes cloudy from the morphine. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she kept saying, clutching at our hands, blinking too much, as if she was trying to bring us into focus. ‘I should have fought harder. I’m so sorry. Forgive me, please forgive me.’ We’d assumed she was talking about the cancer that had fatally spread.

  ‘Oh my God.’ Forcing myself to breathe, I dug out a square, dog-eared envelope addressed to Anna Harrison. Mum’s maiden name. The address on the front was my grandparents’ house in Hampshire, where she’d grown up.

  The letter was crumpled, and soft with use, and the writing was tiny and sloping – almost impossible to decipher. The word Reagan leapt out. A man’s name. Irish? My eyes jumped to the address at the top of the page. Cork, Ireland. Underneath, were the words:

  Anna, I thought you should have Celia’s new address. She doesn’t want any contact right now, but might change her mind. We did the right thing, you know. She’ll have a good home with a mother who loves her. I’ve been abroad more or less since you left and will be returning to America at the weekend. Hope all’s well and that you’re on your way to becoming a famous artist! Reagan. PS: The baby’s well.

  The words slammed into me like a punch. I stood up, my thoughts simmering and darting, and finally grasped the only possible conclusion – the one I’d suspected the second I saw the picture of a mum I barely recognised, holding a baby that wasn’t me.

  ‘Ella, what is it?’ Greg manifested in front of me, coffee slopping out of the mug he was holding onto the cream carpet. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I managed, knowing how crazy I must look, standing there clutching a wristband and a letter in one hand, and waving a photograph with the other. ‘Oh, Greg,’ I spluttered, laughing and crying at the same time. ‘You’ll never guess what.’

  His look of bemusement only made me laugh harder, even though my eyes were leaking tears. ‘What? What is it, Ella?’

  ‘Something wonderful,’ I burst out. ‘Greg, I have a sister.’

  Chapter 3

  Ella

  ‘I can’t believe it.’ Greg studied the photo with a furrowed brow, turning it over and over, as if doing so would reveal answers. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Why not?’ I said, dropping back on the bed. ‘Do you remember I told you how Mum kept apologising right at the end? Well, I think this is what she was talking about.’ My cheeks were burning, as though I were running a fever. ‘I think she had a baby girl before me and gave her up for adoption.’

  Greg threw me a perplexed look. ‘But why didn’t she ever say anything?’ He’d been close to my mum. They’d shared a dry sense of humour, as well as a love of art, and would sometimes meet for coffee in the city if it was one of her days at the gallery where she occasionally worked before she became too ill.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, not wanting to dwell on the ‘why’.

  ‘Maybe it’s a friend’s baby.’

  I jabbed the letter I was holding. ‘It says in here, “we did the right thing”,’ I repeated. I’d read it out once, but unusually for Greg, he hadn’t taken it in. As a lawyer, he was used to absorbing all sorts of confidences, but perhaps this was too personal. ‘I think she had a baby with this Reagan and they gave her up for adoption.’

  ‘It doesn’t seem like something she would do, that’s all.’ Shaking his head, Greg looked down at the garden. ‘Do you think your dad knows?’

  ‘Probably not.’ I tried to imagine it. There’d always been something self-contained about Mum that suggested she might be good at keeping secrets, and Dad had a jealous streak. ‘If it happened before they met, she might not have wanted him to know.’

  ‘Pretty big secret to keep from your husband.’ Greg’s tone held an undercurrent that annoyed me, considering he’d once kept a secret of his own for months. ‘What if this Colleen had tried to find her?’ he continued. ‘How would your mum have explained that?’

  ‘Well, maybe he does know,’ I said, changing tack. ‘I’m just getting to grips with all this.’ I gave an incredulous half-laugh. ‘Perhaps they made a pact never to talk about it.’

  He glanced at the photo again. ‘So, she’s your half-sister.’

  ‘She’s still my sister, Greg.’ I couldn’t hide the bite in my voice. ‘I want to find her.’

  ‘Whoa, hang on.’ He came and sat beside me, dislodging the shoebox, which slid off the bed and scattered its contents on the floor. ‘Let’s take a minute to think this through.’ He reached for my hand. ‘You’ve had a shock,’ he said with a worried smile. ‘Christ, even I can’t take it in.’

  ‘It’s more of a nice surprise than a shock.’ I pulled away from him, poking around my feelings. It was as if a switch had been flicked inside me, lights going on. I wanted to bounce on the bed, to run up and down, to rush off and find her immediately. ‘It’s a wonderful surprise.’

  ‘Aren’t you angry with your mum?’ He picked up the letter and squinted at the tiny script. ‘This writing’s awful.’

  ‘Maybe she didn’t want to hurt me and Dad,’ I said, chewing my thumbnail – a childhood habit I couldn’t shake. ‘Or buried the memories so deep she kind of forgot.’

  ‘Forgot?’ Greg pulled a face. ‘Would you forget if you’d given Maisie away?’

  ‘It sounds awful when you put it like that,’ I said, suppressing a flutter of anxiety.

  ‘Why do you think she did it?’

  ‘I don’t know, Greg.’ There would be plenty of time to consider why Mum had hidden something so important – so life-changing. Right now, all I could think about was how I’d longed for a sibling growing up, and now it appeared I had one; half-sister or not, we shared a mother. We had her blood running through our veins. ‘Oh, Greg, this is the best news I’ve had in ages.’ Unable to sit still any longer, I skirted the mess on the floor and dashed to the window, my heart beating too fast. ‘Maisie has an auntie,’ I said, watching my daughter circling the lawn, her arms stretched out to the sides. Charlie was chasing her, his pink tongue lolling out, while Dad watched, hands dug deep in his corduroy trouser pockets. Seeming to sense my gaze, he turned and raised his arm in a wave.

  ‘I need to talk to Dad,’ I said, with a rising sense of urgency. ‘Now.’

  ‘Ella, wait.’ Greg’s hands circled my upper arms. ‘You’re getting ahead of yourself,’ he said. ‘Your dad’s still grieving, and there’s a lot we don’t know. There’ll be hoops to jump through before you can think of finding this … finding her.’

  ‘Colleen,’ I said, already possessive of her name, liking the feel of it on my tongue. My sister, Colleen.

  ‘She might not be called that anymore.’ He turned me to face him, sounding more like his assured self now that the shock was wearing off. ‘Most adoptive parents give the child a new name.’

  ‘I didn’t think of that.’ I felt a sagging inside. ‘There must be a record somewhere, of the adoption.’

  Greg hesitated. ‘Yes … if it was done formally,’ he said, sliding his hands down my arms and wrapping his fingers around mine. ‘The truth is, Ella, we don’t know what happened back then. It could have been a casual arrangement, or money might have changed hands.’

  ‘Oh, don’t say that.’ I wrenched away from him. Squatting down, I began rifling through the items on the carpet. ‘There might be something else here.’

  There was a tortoiseshell hair slide, a train ticket, a theatre programme, a pressed rose – its crispy petals the colour of blood – but apart from the wristband, photograph and letter, there was nothing else linking Mum to the baby.

  I read the letter again, my eyes sliding over the words, and turned it over as if there might be some new ones on the other side. ‘I could write to this address,’ I said, looking up at Greg. ‘Explain who I am.’

  ‘They’ve probably moved by now. Th
at letter was written years ago, and they might not want to be found.’ He knelt beside me, a dark stain on his jeans where the coffee he’d brought me had spilled. ‘She might not even be alive, Ella.’ His voice was sombre and I felt a pinch of hatred at him for spoiling things.

  ‘You’ve got a sister and a brother,’ I said. ‘You’ve no idea about being an only child.’

  ‘Hey, steady on.’ He held up his palms. ‘You’ve always gone on about what a happy childhood you had. Don’t start twisting things.’

  ‘But I still used to wish I had a big sister.’ I wanted him to throw caution to the wind, to be excited for me, instead of the voice of reason. ‘I just want to try and find her, that’s all.’

  ‘I will help, of course I will.’ He plucked the letter from my hand, his gaze unbearably gentle. ‘But maybe we should sleep on it first.’

  ‘I’m not going to change my mind,’ I said, my brain tingling with questions. Did she look like me, or Mum? Or her father, Reagan? Was she happy; married with children? Tall or short? Outgoing or quiet?

  I leaned against the bed and hugged my knees. ‘This kind of makes up for losing Mum.’ I felt a wobble in the pit of my stomach as I said it.

  Greg’s eyebrows lifted. ‘You think you’re owed a sister to make up for losing your mother?’

  ‘Why not?’ I countered. ‘There’s a kind of balance, don’t you think?’

  He exhaled, seeming lost for words. ‘I think you’ve had a shock.’ He rose and dusted his hands on his jeans. ‘I’ll go and make some more coffee while you finish up here.’ He touched my hair. ‘We’ll talk again at home.’

  I sat for a while when he’d gone, listening to him moving in the kitchen below, calling something to Dad through the window, and I heard the low rumble of Dad’s response. Greg was right, this wasn’t something to be rushed into, but nearly thirty years had gone by without me knowing my sister and I couldn’t bear to waste another minute.