The Half Sister(56)

‘So, what dream is she chasing in London?’ Kate asks casually.

‘Oh, she’s got big plans,’ says Finn, with a smile that creases her eyes. ‘She’s got a great job, a new boyfriend . . . As you probably know, Harriet goes for what she wants . . .’

Kate smiles tightly.

‘And usually gets it,’ says Finn, laughing.

Kate shivers involuntarily at the realization that it’s her family that she’s looking to get it from. Whatever ‘it’ is.





27


Lauren


Lauren’s in the shower, with shampoo in her eyes, when she hears the ping of a text on her phone. She grabs at the towel hanging over the glass screen in an attempt to clear her vision, but the soap is still smarting as she blindly reaches out of the cubicle to where she’d left her phone balancing on the basin. She can’t find it and risks a peek to give her some perspective. It’s not there.

‘Who’s Sheila?’ asks Simon.

She ducks her head back under the water, buying time. Shit!

‘What’s that?’ she calls out, as nonchalantly as she can manage, even though her insides feel like they’ve been set alight.

‘Sheila’s asking about tomorrow night,’ says Simon, the tone of his voice loaded with cynicism.

Lauren turns the thermostat to cold in the hope that it’s going to shock her brain into working. ‘One sec,’ she says, as she rinses the final traces of shampoo out.

The extra time that she thought she had is cut short when Simon turns the shower off and hands her a towel.

‘Let’s have a look,’ she says, holding out her hand, the water still dripping from her hair.

Simon places her phone purposefully into her palm, its content weighing more than the device itself. He stands there, unmoving, watching her.

‘Oh,’ she says, seeing the two worded message of Tomorrow night? ‘That’s Sheila from work.’

‘From the hospital?’ asks Simon.

She needs to think fast, but she feels wrong-footed, and vulnerable with no clothes on.

‘Yeah, one of the girls was asking if any of us were about to cover her shift.’

‘But you’re on maternity leave,’ says Simon gruffly.

‘I know, it was just a round robin, and I guess I must still be on the list. Sheila’s obviously checking that it’s tomorrow they were talking about.’

‘I’ve not heard you mention a Sheila before,’ says Simon, eyes narrowed.

‘She came just as I was going on maternity leave,’ says Lauren, covering her face with a towel as she dries her hair. It’s easier to lie when he can’t see her eyes.

‘Did she come to your leaving drinks?’

Lauren does a quick mental scan of all the midwives sat around the table at the pub. They’re all women Simon would know, and the two he didn’t, he made a point of talking to when he came to pick her up, an hour early.

‘I don’t think so,’ she says warily.

‘Well maybe you need to let whoever needs to know that you’re not looking for any extra shifts. I’ll do it.’ He starts to thumb instructions on the screen and Lauren makes a grab for it.

‘Woah,’ says Simon, pulling it away and holding it up in the air, out of her reach. ‘What are you so tetchy about?’

She’s not, because she knows she’s deleted every single message that ‘Sheila’ has ever sent, and all of her replies. But there’s still that niggle, no matter how tiny, that she hasn’t, and the thought of Simon seeing it sends her off-kilter. She gets hotter and hotter as she runs through their most recent communication in her head:

Sheila: I need to see you

Lauren: I may be able to do Thursday night

Sheila: Seriously?

Lauren: Maybe. I’m not sure yet

Sheila: I can’t stop thinking about you

Lauren: I’ll let you know

Sheila: Don’t make me wait too long

No matter how she comes at it, whichever way she plays it out in her head, there’s no way that she could ever make it sound like an innocent conversation between two colleagues. She knows that it’s not on there, but the thought of it keeps her reaching up for her phone.

‘Give it to me,’ she says, making a grab for it.

‘Me thinks she doth protest too much,’ says Simon, lowering it to read whilst holding Lauren firmly at arm’s length. ‘What’s on here that you’re so worried about?’

‘Nothing,’ she says, as she stops fighting for it, knowing that it’s only piquing his interest. ‘It’s my phone, my property.’

‘Well, actually I’m currently paying for it, so that’s not strictly true.’

God, how she hated having to be indebted to him. The sooner she gets back to work, the better.

‘So is there anything on here that shouldn’t be?’ He waggles the phone within her reach but she forces herself not to react.

‘No,’ she says, wrapping a towel around her and walking out onto the landing. She snags her toe on an exposed floorboard, and yelps, knowing it’ll be another splinter. All Simon needs to do is lay the carpet that’s been rolled up and standing in the corner for the past six months. But now is not the time to ask again. Maybe she’ll go and buy a remnant tomorrow, just to tide them over.