The Half Sister(20)

‘Can I come up?’ asked Kate. ‘To help you look.’

‘Come on then,’ he’d said, appearing at the hatch with an outstretched arm.

She’d balanced on the beams as if her life depended on it, remembering her father’s warning years previously not to go up to the loft without him. ‘If you fall through the lagging you’ll end up in your mother’s lap in the front room,’ he’d said sternly.

Kate was sure that he was spinning her a yarn, but she wasn’t taking any chances as she slowly worked her way over to the corner.

Whilst Harry busied himself with trying to find the decorations, Kate had begun to open a few boxes and peer inquisitively inside. The quill pen had been sat on top of a pile of dusty law books. ‘Can I take this downstairs?’ she’d asked, holding it up.

‘Yes,’ Harry had said absently, without even looking at what she was referring to.

She’d pulled out a carrier bag that she’d spied stuffed down between two boxes and put the feathered nib in with the small box that was in there.

‘Have you found them yet?’ called out Rose. She’d sounded closer than the kitchen.

‘The only ones I can find are silver and purple,’ Harry replied.

There was a lengthy silence and Kate and Harry had looked at each other, as if they knew what was coming – trying not to giggle.

‘They’re the ones!’ Rose exclaimed.

Harry had clenched his fists in exasperation and mouthed a frustrated scream as he looked imploringly at Kate. ‘You said I was looking for red and green.’

‘I must have chucked them out,’ said Rose, blithely oblivious. ‘I bought silver and purple for last year – I remember now.’

Kate had gleefully covered her face with her hand, whilst her father had blown out his cheeks.

It wasn’t until later that day, when her dad had gone out to play golf, that she remembered the box in the bag that she’d brought down. She’d taken it to her mother, holding it open at arm’s length.

‘What’s this?’ she’d asked innocently.

Rose gave it a cursory glance. ‘I have no idea.’

Kate had opened the box and lifted a romper suit out, so tiny that it would have easily fitted one of the dolls that she’d only recently thrown out.

Rose had flown across the room, as if she’d sprouted wings, snatching the all-in-one out of her hand. ‘Where did you get this?’ she’d breathed, barely audible.

‘It was in the loft,’ said Kate. ‘Was it mine?’

‘No, no,’ said Rose, roughly pulling the box out of Kate’s hand and inadvertently dropping it to the floor. She’d scrambled to pick up the teddy that had fallen out of it, but hadn’t noticed the minute plastic tag that had slid under the oven. ‘It was Lauren’s,’ she’d said breathlessly, shoving the bear and romper back into the box.

‘And what’s this?’ asked Kate, picking up the piece of plastic that she could now see was a hospital ID tag.

‘Nothing!’ Rose barked, whipping it out of Kate’s hand and shoving it all into the cupboard where they normally kept the saucepans. ‘Now go,’ Rose had said, turning back around. ‘Run along and I’ll call you when dinner’s ready.’

Kate had watched, through the crack in the kitchen door, as her sobbing mother had gone into the sideway and thrown the box into the dustbin.

When she was sure the coast was clear, Kate had crept out there to retrieve the box and all its contents, and hid it under her bed. If it wasn’t for Jess, it would most likely have stayed hidden until a time when she might have wanted to show her own children something of the person she used to be. But now, that tag is ringing alarm bells in her head that refuse to be silenced.

She can see it, wrapped around the teddy bear’s foot, its numbers facing away from her. The significance of what those digits are, and what they might mean, weighs heavily on Kate’s chest. She has to be sure that she’s ready to face the consequences of what they’re going to reveal.

As she twists the tiny tag, the numbers blur as Kate squints, knowing that once she sees them, she will never be able to unsee them. Can she live with that? She tells herself to read the date from the left, but her eyes have already fast forwarded to the last two numbers; the year. She so wants it to be Lauren’s date of birth. It won’t help the predicament they find themselves in with Jess, but it would mean, for the most part, that her family is the one she thought it was; the one she now desperately wants it to be.

But the numbers burn indelibly onto her brain, like scores on a punch card.

15/09/96

It’s not Lauren. It’s not her. It has to be Jess.





11


Lauren


Lauren is driving around the South Circular, cursing every red light that stops her in her efforts to get Jude to fall asleep. He’d woken up amongst all the commotion at her parents’ house and despite being fed, winded, changed and rocked, he’s still screaming an hour later. She used to feel compelled to find a reason for her children’s distress, but since her mother had reassured her that ‘sometimes babies just cry because that’s all they can do’, Lauren had tried to be a little more relaxed. Though it isn’t easy when his cries are beginning to hurt her ears and little Emmy keeps repeating ‘poo poo’ over and over again.