Читать книгу: «The Secret Sister»

For our families, with love.

Prologue
Ella

When you’ve led a charmed life, I suppose it’s inevitable that it’ll fall apart at some point.

It happened to me after my mother died, though her death was the catalyst, not the cause.

Mum had been ill for a while and had come to terms with dying. She’d lived to see me happily married, and to meet her precious granddaughter. I thought we’d had time to say all the things that mattered.

When the end came it was peaceful, with her family gathered around, and I was holding her hand.

It was much later, while clearing out her bedroom, that I realised I hadn’t known my mother as well as I thought I had.

The one thing that really mattered had been left unsaid.

Chapter 1
Colleen

Saturday

The sun woke me, slanting through the half-open curtains, hurting my eyes. I rolled out of bed, pulled my hoodie on over my pants, and padded to the window.

My brain pulsed against my skull. I felt sick and fragile. It had been years since I’d suffered a hangover, but I’d never forgotten the feeling.

The view from the ground-floor window of the guesthouse was nothing special – an area for cars, a scruffy garden with plastic furniture and faded umbrellas – but there was something soothing about the silence. Apart from the occasional cry of a seagull it was a respite from my shite-awful life.

I squinted up at the sky as the sun grew bigger and rounder – a shiny ball of hope. It would disappear within hours, if the puffy grey clouds approaching were anything to go by. Hope never stayed around long.

A solitary magpie landed on the window ledge with a thud and a flap of wings, and I jumped. I’d been on hyper-alert since leaving my husband, nerves jangling at the slightest thing. I prayed Celia wouldn’t tell Jake where to find me – not that she cared. The woman I’d called mother for thirty-three years had long since lost interest in me.

I turned and scanned the room, trying to work out how I got so pissed the night before that I now barely remembered arriving.

A folder on the bedside table informed me the guesthouse was close to the Atlantic Ocean, near Rosses Point, and a forty-minute walk to Sligo.

I turned to look at Gabriel, sprawled face down on the crumpled bed, taking in his narrow shoulders, his flop of lank blond hair. Hopefully, he would be out for hours.

A flashback of me talking too much, and later my words slurring into an incomprehensible blur filled my head.

What had I said to him?

I eyed his open wallet on the floor, stuffed with a wad of euros. A table by the door was littered with rolling tobacco, two empty bottles of wine and half a line of cocaine. I etched a finger round my nostrils, praying I hadn’t taken any. I’d been clean since meeting my husband, Jake, fifteen years ago.

How had I let this happen?

My heart pounded as I tried to recall the night before. But, despite raking around my head for clues, I could barely remember a thing, just tiny bursts of memory that floated in and out in disjointed flashes. ‘But I don’t drink,’ I could hear myself saying in a silly flirtatious voice that didn’t suit me, laughing as a large glass of wine was pushed in front of me. ‘Not anymore.’

I heaved with self-disgust as my eyes skittered around, looking for my rucksack, noticing a row of cheap-looking seascapes, fixed to the wall with nails in case some loser tried to take off with them.

Had Gabriel booked us into this horrible dump?

I couldn’t remember.

There was a laptop on the dressing table, its charge light flashing, and a rubber plant in a plastic pot on the floor, starved of everything it needed, but somehow surviving.

I finally spotted my rucksack, lying on the floor beneath a pillow. I grabbed it and headed into an adjoining bathroom that looked as if it hadn’t been updated since the Seventies. I closed the door quietly, filled a tumbler with water and gulped it down as I stared at my pallid, blotchy reflection in the mirror above the sink. Already, I didn’t look like me. I hadn’t worn a hoodie before, for a start. Jake would never have approved.

I retrieved the black hair dye and scissors I’d bought the day before, and taking a length of my hair between my fingers, snipped it off. Another clump followed, and another. I daren’t look at the honey-coloured strands of hair in the sink in case I cried.

My eyes stung as I mixed the dye and pulled on the plastic gloves. Once I’d massaged the lotion into my hair, I thought I might puke and hung over the toilet, but after retching several times, nothing happened. I rose and sat on the edge of the bath, waiting, striving to make sense of everything, trying to work out how I got here. I pummelled my temples. Still nothing. Gabriel certainly hadn’t forced me to drink wine. I could see myself, willingly knocking it back. Perhaps Jake had been right. Perhaps he was the only person who could stop me from self-destructing. I’d proved him right within a day of leaving.

Twenty minutes later, I rinsed off the dye and studied myself again. My hair was so dark my skin looked like Snow White’s, my freckles more distinctive.

Jake won’t recognise me now.

I threw the remnants of the dye in the wicker bin then took a lukewarm shower. Afterwards, I pulled on black skinny jeans and a black T-shirt. I didn’t bother with a bra.

Jake would call me a tramp. He knew I’d gone. He’d already cancelled the credit cards, and texted me.

Where the hell are you?

I returned to the bedroom, opened Gabriel’s wallet and took out the wad of notes. There must have been over a thousand euros. It would help me get by until I found my father. What little money I’d withdrawn from a cashpoint before Jake cottoned on wouldn’t go far.

Gabriel was snoring into his pillow, his spine rising and falling. Had we had sex? Surely I’d have remembered that.

He suddenly swung his arm above his head and it landed with a thud on the pillow, making me jump. A flash of memory of his arm tightly round me, him whispering, ‘I love you, Colleen.’

Had that happened?

I shoved the money back in his wallet and left it on the table.

After pulling my hoodie back on, I pushed my feet into my trainers, grabbed my rucksack, and left without looking back.

Thick clouds gathered as I walked towards Sligo, and heavy spots of rain began to fall. A bus drew up at a shelter, and I ran and jumped on it. It was empty, apart from an old lady talking to herself.

As the bus revved a man leapt on, tall and slim with dark hair slicked to his head. My heart began to hammer against my ribs. I dragged up my hood, and slid down in my seat, but the man wasn’t Jake. Apart from his build and hair colour, he looked nothing like him. My heartbeat slowed as he sat in front of me and took out his phone.

Before I walked out yesterday, I’d felt sure Jake had been following me for months. ‘Are you having an affair?’ he’d asked more than once, as though something had happened to raise his suspicions.

I’d wanted to say, ‘When? When the hell do you ever let me out of your sight long enough to meet anyone?’

My phone vibrated in my pocket, making me jump. I pulled it out and saw Gabriel’s name flash up. Christ, I’d given him my number. I declined the call and within seconds a text came through:

Hey gorgeous. Shall we meet in the same bar tonight in Sligo? xx

‘Not a chance in hell,’ I whispered, typing a reply.

It was a mistake, Gabriel. I’m sorry.

I deleted his contact details, just in case.

My head pounded as the bus rocked and jolted on its way, and I prayed I wouldn’t throw up. I hadn’t even got a bag to be sick in, just the hood of my jacket, which would be all kinds of messy. I breathed deeply, fighting nausea, watching the sea through the window, spreading endlessly.

Rain speckled the window like tears, blurring the view. I gripped the necklace – a letter ‘B’ – that I always wore, and rested my head on the glass. I closed my eyes, but the sound of the man in front watching videos on YouTube on his phone and shifting in his seat prevented me from dozing.

As the bus stopped in Sligo its exhaust backfired, jolting me alert. It had been dark when I arrived the evening before and I hadn’t appreciated the colourful buildings curving around the banks of the River Garavogue. A smile tugged at my mouth. This was the town where everything would change.

I jumped from the bus, bought a local paper from a stand, and searched the pages for somewhere to stay.

The cheapest place I could find was a bedsit, near the town centre.

‘It’s yours if you want it,’ said the man who answered the phone, with very little charm. ‘You can rent on a day-to-day basis.’

It was obviously basic, probably terrible, but it didn’t matter. I was in Sligo, where I needed to be. This was where I would find Reagan, my father. Everything would be better then. I’d have someone on my side, to look out for me, protect me – maybe convince Jake I didn’t want to be with him anymore.

‘Leave her alone, you controlling bastard,’ I imagined my father saying.

Words I could never quite say myself.

As I headed towards the bedsit address, the rain eased off and my thoughts drifted to Celia. I couldn’t call her my mother anymore. Not after what she’d told me two weeks ago, during one of my rare visits.

‘It’s time you knew the truth, Colleen.’ That’s how she’d started the conversation, out of the blue.

We’d become estranged over the years, but I made the effort to see her now and then. We would sit in her dark kitchen – it was always dark, even with the lights on – and she would make tea, a mug for me, and always a cup and saucer for her. We’d sit at the old pine table, barely saying a word, until it was time for me to leave.

But it had been different this time.

‘I’m not your real mother,’ she’d said, fiddling with her spoon, not looking at me. There was no preamble. No preparation. The words sounded surreal, as though she was trying them out to see what they sounded like. As if it was a game. But Celia never played games.

‘What are you on about?’ I said, with a laugh that didn’t sound like mine – not that I laughed often.

She put down her spoon. ‘She died six months ago,’ she said. ‘Your real mother.’

Just like that.

I’d stared at her for what felt like an hour. She kept biting her lower lip with her small teeth, her eyes looking anywhere but at me.

‘And you tell me this now?’ My brain couldn’t form a coherent thought. ‘Now I’m thirty-three?’ I paused. ‘When my real mother is dead? Christ, Mam.’

‘Don’t blaspheme, Colleen.’

Seconds passed. I rose and began pacing, questions flooding my mind. Who was my father? Why did my mother leave me with Celia? Was Bryony adopted too? But I knew better than to mention my sister.

‘I only found out myself because her death was reported in a magazine.’ Celia’s voice cut through my frantic thoughts, and I stopped pacing. ‘She, Anna, is … was … a successful artist.’

I sank back down in the chair. ‘Go on.’

‘I should have told you a long time ago, I know that,’ she said, her fingers twisting together. ‘I should have given you a chance to find her.’

‘Too right, you should have.’ My heart was beating so hard I was surprised she couldn’t hear it.

‘I’m sorry.’ Her eyes shimmered with tears, but this was nothing new. Celia spent nearly every moment on the edge of a nervous breakdown. And the truth was, now her words were sinking in, finding out Celia wasn’t my biological mother wasn’t such a shock, not really. It explained so much.

‘I wouldn’t have wanted to find her,’ I said, anger bubbling up. ‘Any mother who could give up a child—’

‘But you don’t know why, Colleen,’ Celia cut in. Her voice was soft, and her green eyes – eyes I’d thought were like mine – darted around the kitchen as if looking for a quick escape. She rose from the table, smoothed her apron, and went to look out at the garden. It had grown wild since her second husband walked out, years ago, but she had recently cultivated a little vegetable patch. It had made me wonder if she was improving, if her depression of so many years was finally lifting. ‘I want to tell you who your da is too,’ she said, not turning. ‘It’s time you knew everything.’

‘Jesus, you’re full of news today,’ I said, my mind reeling. I’d always believed Celia’s first husband – the man we’d lived with in Cork until I was five – had been that man: my father. But Celia was about to destroy that belief too.

She crossed to a kitchen drawer, opened it, and took out a photo. ‘His name is Reagan Brody.’

‘Wasn’t Brody your maiden name?’

She nodded and sat back down. ‘Reagan’s my brother,’ she said. ‘He lived abroad for a long time, but he’s back now. He’s living in Sligo.’

‘Your brother?’ I cried, covering my mouth.

She nodded, her straight grey hair hanging limply on either side of her face.

‘So, I’d have called him Uncle and Da, had I ever met him?’ My voice was rising. ‘What a bloody mess. Jesus Christ.’

‘Please don’t take the Lord’s name in vain, Colleen.’

‘So he – my father – knew where to find me all along?’ I snatched the photo, hands shaking. It was too much to take in. I stared at his face, trying to convince myself there’d been a terrible mistake. Unable to take in that he was part of the family, and yet he’d never bothered to contact me.

‘We thought it was for the best,’ said Celia, her voice calm.

As I stared at his image, something tugged at my memory. His tanned face, that fair unruly hair, his cheery smile. He looked familiar. Or maybe it was just that I’d inherited his green eyes, not Celia’s.

I felt so many things, all blended together so they were indistinguishable, my mind buzzing with thoughts. But Celia closed off after her confession, as she so often did; never quite living in the real world.

Yesterday, after I walked out on Jake, I went round to see her to say goodbye and let her know where I was heading. She’d slipped a piece of paper into my hand.

‘I’ve never used it,’ she said, as I read the email address she’d written down. ‘It’s Reagan’s. He sent it to me a couple of years back, in case I needed to get hold of him.’

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 before 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.’