Forget Her Name(40)

She places the ham carefully on a steel platter in the middle of the table, as though ready for carving. Then turns to wash her hands at the sink, her back very straight, long blonde hair twisted up in a neat chignon for work. Willowy-thin, with angular hips and a perpetually sulky face, Kasia Lecinska is not the friendliest of people. But she’s an excellent cleaner, and not too bad at baking either.

Certainly my mother says she couldn’t cope without her.

I frown though, perplexed to see her still here. Kasia usually keeps such regular hours, having a young family of her own, and it’s nearly seven o’clock.

I glance at my mother. ‘Are you having a dinner party tonight?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Dad glares at me. ‘I asked Kasia to stay on until you got home, that’s all. Just in case she was needed.’

‘Needed for what?’

He hesitates. ‘You were late. We weren’t sure what had happened.’

‘I’m only half an hour late.’

‘Forty-five minutes,’ my mother corrects me, her face strained.

‘Even so, it’s not exactly . . .’ I stop and look from her to my father. They both seem so tense. As though something has happened. A sense of dread creeps over me. My mouth is horribly dry. ‘I don’t understand. What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing,’ my mother says quickly, but I don’t believe her.

‘I didn’t realise I was on a timetable.’ It did take me a while to calm down after Sharon blew up at me. But even so . . . ‘I’m sorry, I suppose I’ve got used to doing my own thing.’

‘We expect you to keep regular hours under this roof.’ Dad’s voice grates at my nerves. ‘Our house, our rules. Remember?’

I stare at him, speechless.

‘Of course, you’re free to come and go as you please—’ Mum begins in a placating tone, but Dad interrupts her.

‘No, she bloody isn’t,’ he insists. I haven’t seen him this angry since the night he took me upstairs to look at Rachel’s toy chest and we found the snow globe was missing. ‘Not when we don’t know how stable she is.’

I turn, hearing the door open, and see that Dominic has come into the kitchen.

‘What . . . what do you mean?’ I feel suddenly rigid, as though something inside me – my heart, perhaps – has turned to stone. ‘How stable I am?’ I look at my husband pleadingly. ‘Dom, what are they talking about?’

Dominic says quietly, ‘Louise gave me a call at work this afternoon. She’s worried about you.’ He pauses. ‘We all are.’

‘Louise?’ I echo, shocked.

‘It’s okay. She told us what happened at the food bank today. About the paperwork you signed as Rachel.’

‘That I signed . . . ?’ I shake my head in instant, furious denial. It’s important to stay calm, I know that. Yet how can I? My chest is tight and I can hardly breathe. ‘She had no right to say anything. I told her in confidence. And why the hell is everyone assuming it was me?’

Dominic looks at me in silence, his eyebrows raised.

My parents say nothing, either.

Kasia, typically expressionless, hangs up her apron beside the range, then slips out of the kitchen without meeting my eyes. God only knows what she makes of all this, our crazy English family.

Meaning to go upstairs to my room, I make for the hall door but blunder into Dominic. He grabs me by the shoulders, his face sympathetic. ‘Darling, please.’

‘Please what? Please don’t have a nervous breakdown? Please don’t crack up?’

‘She’s hysterical.’ My father, of course, ready with his expert male opinion. ‘We should call her doctor.’

‘Oh, why bother with a doctor? Why not just give me a good slap?’ I turn on him, tasting salt in the corner of my mouth. The familiar brine of sorrow. Though this time it’s more like rage. Long-suppressed rage escaping as tears. ‘I’m sure you’re dying to give me a good slapping, aren’t you, Dad?’

My mother says something in quick protest, but I don’t catch it over my father’s roar of anger. ‘How dare you?’ He comes towards me, fists by his side but clenched tight nonetheless. ‘After everything we’ve done for you . . .’

‘So why say it was me who signed that paperwork?’ I almost scream at them, and duck away from Dominic, who’s trying to restrain me. This isn’t his battle, it’s mine. It’s been mine for a long time, and I know all the manoeuvres. ‘Why not admit the truth?’

An awful silence falls again.

Mum looks frightened now, a hand at her mouth.

Dad stops where he is, staring at me. There’s some expression in his eyes that I don’t quite understand.

‘And what truth is that, Catherine?’ he asks.

‘That Rachel isn’t dead. That she didn’t die like you told me. That my sister is still alive somewhere.’ I’m gasping, and barely recognise my own voice. Or the words coming out of my mouth. They feel sharp and pointed, like knives I’m throwing at my enemies, my parents. ‘And she’s coming back to finish what she started, and destroy my life.’





Chapter Twenty-Four Upstairs in our self-contained flat, I sink down on the white leather sofa and bury my face in my hands.