The Half Sister(36)
‘Have you got any paracetamol?’ she says. ‘I’ve got a terrible headache.’
Kate knows where they’d usually be kept and prays that her mother doesn’t magic the tablets out of her handbag on the kitchen worktop.
‘I’ve got some in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom,’ says Rose, going to get up.
‘Don’t worry,’ says Kate, beating her to it. ‘I’ll go.’
The stairs that she’s run up and down a million times now feel like a crime scene. For some reason, she doesn’t even want to touch the bannister for fear of leaving any incriminating evidence.
She wants to close and lock the bathroom door but is sure Rose would think that weird. There’s a toilet downstairs, so why would Kate go upstairs? Any other time it would have felt totally natural, but when she knows she’s being devious, it feels anything but. She opens the mirrored cabinet above the sink and scans the shelves, not knowing what she’s looking for. There’s an ointment for nigh on every ailment, though when Kate picks up the menthol vapour rub, she sees that it’s five years out of date.
She puts two paracetamol into her pocket and eyes the two toothbrushes that stand proudly in a glass. Knowing that the bristles hold all the evidence she needs, she looks at them, disappointed that she’s unable to distinguish whose is whose. Though even if she could, she’d never be able to take either away, as Rose would instantly notice that they were gone. A folded flannel sits neatly in the chrome bath tray and a loofah sponge hangs from the taps, but again, both would be noticed if they weren’t there.
Careful to avoid the creaky floorboard, Kate steps over the landing into her parents’ bedroom. The curtains are half drawn, and the room is shrouded in the fading light of the setting summer sun. Kate hasn’t been in her parents’ bedroom since she doesn’t know when, but the memories it evokes instantly bring tears to her eyes and a tightness in her chest.
She watches through the eyes of her six-year-old self as she tiptoes into their room at their old house in Harrogate, dragging her misshapen pillowcase stuffed with presents behind her. Her dad’s face is ruckled into his pillow, his mouth wide open as he loudly snores.
‘Daddy,’ she’d whispered. ‘Daddy, are you awake?’
He murmured momentarily and her heart had soared, but then he’d snuggled back down into the duvet and snored even louder. She’d stood there, waiting for what seemed like an eternity, desperately wanting him to wake up, but not wanting to be the one who woke him.
‘Father Christmas has been,’ she’d whispered loudly into his ear.
He’d suddenly opened one eye, staring straight at her, and she’d momentarily been too scared to move, but his face had dissolved into the biggest smile. ‘Has he left any presents for the best little girl in the world?’
She’d grinned and hauled her makeshift stocking into the air. ‘Look how many.’
Her father had swung Kate up onto the mattress, onto this very same Laura Ashley bedspread, where they’d quietly shared a Terry’s chocolate orange, waiting for Rose and Lauren to wake up.
Kate wipes a tear away, wishing that her and Lauren were as close now as they were then. But it seems that any chance of returning to those times has been blown out of the water by Jess. The realization makes Kate hate her even more.
She inches across the beige carpet, towards the hairbrush that is lying upturned on the dressing table. Her father’s ash blonde hair is entangled with her mother’s auburn strands, and she wonders if it’s been left like this for a reason. Had Rose found it too painful to clean and throw away? Believing it to be the last semblance of her living, breathing husband who she misses so much? Kate is racked with guilt as she tries to lift just a couple of strands, knowing that if she’s going to prove Jess isn’t her father’s daughter, she has to get the evidence. She wraps what she manages to disentangle in a tissue and puts it in her pocket.
She ought to get out of here before Rose wonders what she’s up to, but she feels compelled to look inside the built-in wardrobes that run the length of one wall. She slides across the last door and runs her fingers along the sleeves of the suits that hang there. A sob catches in her throat as she brings a cuff to her nose and breathes in her father’s scent – its muskiness still so distinctive.
Kate’s eye catches sight of a candy-striped hat box, hidden under a shelf beneath her father’s clothes, and she looks out onto the landing before carefully sliding it out. Her chest flutters when she opens it to find dozens of handwritten envelopes, some in her mother’s handwriting, but most in her father’s, each addressed to the other. She wants to take them all, hurry home and settle into the corner nook of her L-shaped sofa to read each and every line carefully, but she’s sure she heard a creak and quickly takes the top one and stuffs it in her pocket.
‘What are you doing?’ asks Rose, with a furrowed brow.
Kate’s just pulling the door closed.
‘I . . . I was just looking for the tablets,’ she stutters.
‘I told you, they’re in the bathroom.’
‘Did you?’ says Kate, feigning ignorance. ‘Sorry, I thought you said your bedroom.’
‘Since when have I kept medicines in the wardrobe?’ Rose’s voice is tight and clipped.
‘I . . . just thought . . .’