The Half Sister(48)
Even though Kate knows where Bournemouth is on the map, she’s still surprised to find the train speeding through the New Forest, a place where she spent many family holidays as a young girl. The pink heathers that adorn the heathlands take her back to the house they rented in Lyndhurst, where they’d have ponies join them in the back garden as they had picnics. The four of them would rent bikes and cycle through the ancient woodland that was peppered with three-hundred-year-old trees and grazing deer.
But the happy memories are suddenly overpowered by the events of their last holiday here, when Kate remembers an almighty row between Lauren and their dad. She could only have been twelve, but never had the four-year age gap between her and her sister felt wider. Whilst Kate was still studying diligently, Lauren had ‘gone off the rails’, in her mother’s words. Rose would never have said that to her daughter’s face, but it was certainly the opinion she’d aired to Harry after a particularly unpleasant slanging match.
‘I don’t care what you say,’ Lauren had shouted. ‘This is my life and I love him and he loves me.’
‘But darling,’ said Harry, in his best placating voice, ‘you’re only sixteen. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you.’
‘You met Mum when she was sixteen,’ said Lauren defiantly. ‘And that seems to have worked out okay.’
‘But times are different,’ said Harry. ‘You’ve got so many more opportunities. You can go anywhere. Be anyone.’
‘I don’t want to go anywhere or be anyone. I want to be with him. It’s our decision and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.’ Kate had sat at the top of the stairs as the whole house reverberated when Lauren slammed the front door.
‘What are we going to do?’ Rose had cried.
‘It’s her decision,’ said Harry resignedly. ‘I don’t see what else we can do.’
‘You have to do something,’ said Rose. ‘We can’t let her ruin her life.’
‘But if that’s what she wants to do . . .’
‘I will not allow this man . . . this boy,’ Rose had spat, ‘to destroy all her dreams. She wanted to go to university. She wanted to go to America. She wanted to be a journalist. She wanted to be so many things, and now she’ll be none of them.’
Harry had taken Rose into his arms. ‘You make it sound as if her life is over,’ he’d half laughed.
‘What kind of father lets his sixteen-year-old daughter throw it all away on a whim?’ said Rose.
‘I don’t know what you want me to do.’
‘She’s gone off the rails and it’s your job to pull her back in.’
Kate didn’t know what he’d done, but Lauren was never the same again.
‘Are you going to the coast for the day or are you on your way home?’ asks the lady sat opposite Kate, interrupting her thoughts. She hadn’t noticed her there before – she must have got on at the last station, when Kate was immersed in the memory.
‘I’m just going to Bournemouth for the day,’ she says, smiling politely, a little part of her hoping that it will be enough to signal the end of the conversation. If only to save Kate from having to explain what she’s doing there.
‘It’s a lovely part of the world, isn’t it?’ says the woman, nodding her head at the window. ‘I don’t know how you townies live amongst all that smoke and noise.’
‘It’s exhilarating at times,’ says Kate. ‘But then I come somewhere like this and I suddenly realize what I’m missing out on.’
The woman smiles. ‘Well, you’ve certainly got the weather for it. You’ll be seeing the south coast at its best. Are you visiting family?’
Despite knowing the question might well be asked, Kate is still caught off guard when it is.
She nods and swallows the bad taste in her mouth. ‘My sister,’ she says without even thinking. ‘It’s a surprise.’
The woman smiles kindly. ‘Oh, I’m sure she’ll be thrilled.’
I wouldn’t bet on it, thinks Kate.
24
Kate
There’s not a cloud in the sky when Kate gets off the train at Bournemouth. She stands on the platform for a moment, breathing in that unmistakeable sea air and listening to the seagulls squawking overhead.
Despite what she’s here for, there’s almost a feeling of serenity about the place, a peacefulness that you can’t find in London, no matter how hard you try.
‘Where to?’ asks the driver as she reaches the top of the taxi rank.
‘The university please, Talbot campus.’
‘I assume it’s not to study,’ he says, laughing.
He must see the perplexed look on her face as he quickly follows it up with, ‘No disrespect, love.’
Kate pulls herself up at the slight, knowing that he’s only speaking the truth, but it sometimes takes a comment like that, from someone who can only see your exterior, for reality to hit home. The campus is almost deserted, the summer vacation well underway. She spots a few students milling around, their smiles carefree, their optimism for the future almost tangible, and she realizes that she is old. She may not look a day over thirty-four – though if the truth be told, she’d rather hope that she could pass for closer to thirty – but her mind feels a hundred, scarred by the minutiae of everyday life, cynical of everyone’s motive, no longer assured that everything will work out for the best. As she looks at the nondescript building she’s about to walk into, she has a sinking feeling that the latter will never be truer.