The Half Sister(55)

It takes all of Kate’s resolve not to baulk as the fetid smell of overcooked vegetables mixed with the pungent odour of weed permeates her nostrils.

‘My name’s Kate,’ she says, holding out her hand when she reaches the top of the stairs.

‘Finn,’ says the girl. ‘Come in – you’ll have to excuse the mess.’

There are wet clothes hanging off every surface in the room. It isn’t until Finn hastily pulls a curtain partition across that Kate fleetingly notices the corner of a cot disappearing behind the makeshift screen. She can’t imagine how you’d bring a baby up in these conditions.

‘So is Harry okay?’ asks the girl, as she moves a drying bedsheet from the only chair, nodding to Kate to sit down.

‘Harry?’ repeats Kate, momentarily stumped as to how this girl knows her father.

‘Yeah, Harriet,’ says the girl.

Kate’s stomach lurches as she acknowledges the similarities between her dad’s name and that of the girl who’s claiming to be his daughter. Had he given his illegitimate child his first name, knowing he could never give her his last?

What if he did have an affair which resulted in his mistress having a child? What if Jess really is his daughter?

No, Harriet or Jess, or whoever the hell she is, is not my father’s daughter, Kate says to herself. So why, then, is she trying so hard to pretend to be?

‘I hope Harriet’s okay,’ she says to Finn. ‘I’m just trying to find her.’

The girl seems to be sizing Kate up, as if working out whether to believe what she’s saying.

‘We met when we were both working at the university,’ Kate goes on. ‘She told me that she lived here, but I haven’t heard from her since she left for London. I just wanted to make sure she was all right.’

‘I haven’t heard from her in a while either,’ says Finn.

‘But you’ve heard from her since she left here?’

‘I’ve only heard through mutual friends – I don’t have a phone.’ Finn says, shrugging her shoulders. ‘I can’t afford one.’

‘But she’s well, and chasing that dream of hers?’

‘I guess so,’ says Finn, looking around the desolate place. ‘Though I imagine after living here, anything’s a dream.’

‘And the baby?’ asks Kate, nodding in the direction of the curtain partition. ‘Is that yours?’

Finn looks at her wide-eyed and nods. ‘You won’t tell the authorities though, will you? They don’t know that I’m living here.’

Kate tilts her head, the journalist in her ever ready to pounce. ‘How do you mean?’ she asks.

‘Once I had the baby and turned eighteen, I had to leave foster care. Harry let me move in here with her, so that she could keep an eye on me.’

‘In this room?’ exclaims Kate. ‘The three of you were living in this one room?’ She looks around; the double bed, oven, fridge, sink and chair she’s sitting on take up all the available floor space.

‘The curtain helps,’ says Finn, as if it’s a luxury item. ‘This place is a palace compared to our last foster home.’

‘So you’d been in foster care a while?’ asks Kate.

Finn nods sadly. ‘Most of my life. I was adopted when I was two – that’s when I met Harriet – when I went to live with the Oakleys. They adopted her at the same time. She’s four years older than me, so became the big sister I never had.’

‘So neither of you knew your birth parents?’ asks Kate, hoping that by making it sound more generic, Finn won’t find it an odd question.

‘No, we were both given up at birth,’ says Finn, and Kate gasps inwardly, relieved to know that if her dad is Jess’s father, he hadn’t been leading a double life. She hates herself for doubting him.

‘We went into the foster system pretty quickly and thought all our prayers had been answered when the Oakleys took us in, but it wasn’t to be.’

‘Why?’ asks Kate. ‘What happened?’

‘Our dad, Bill, got really sick about a year later. He had terminal lung cancer and when he died, his wife Patricia had a mental breakdown.’

‘I’m really sorry to hear that,’ says Kate. ‘That must have been terrible.’

Finn nods. ‘It would have been if I didn’t have Harry, but from that moment on she wouldn’t let me out of her sight. We stayed in foster care together until she was eighteen and came here.’

‘What is this place?’ asks Kate. ‘Some kind of halfway house?’

‘Yeah, it’s supposed to ease us into independent living, but once you come here, you very rarely leave.’

‘Unless you’re Harriet,’ says Kate.

Finn smiles. ‘Unless you’re Harriet,’ she says, before her face suddenly clouds over with worry. ‘But they don’t know that she’s gone. You won’t tell them, will you? They’ll throw me out if they know she’s not living here, and she’ll get into trouble.’

Kate feels genuinely sorry for her, but her sympathy doesn’t run to Jess. Why should it? When she’s turned up out of the blue, wreaking havoc on her life. Everything she’s said has been a lie and everything she’s doing seems specifically targeted to inflict as much grief and pain as she possibly can.