Читать книгу My Sister’s Lies: A gripping novel of love, loss and dark family secrets - S.D. Robertson, S.D. Robertson - Страница 8

Hannah Cook was glowering at the computer screen, tempted to delete the pathetic collection of words staring back at her, when she heard the doorbell.

Her eyes darted to the clock in the corner of the display: 4.07 p.m. Who could be calling round at this time of the day? It was way too early for Mark to get home. Not that he’d use the bell anyway, unless he’d left his keys at the office or lost them somehow. And it would be unlike any of their friends to turn up unannounced. It was 2019, for goodness’ sake; there was no need to risk catching people unawares in this time of constant connectivity. In fact, to do so was verging on rudeness.

Hannah decided it must either be a delivery – despite the fact she wasn’t expecting anything – or someone selecting the wrong apartment number. In case of the latter, and since the bell had only sounded once so far, she waited for a moment.

It wasn’t like she didn’t want to get away from her laptop. She’d already found countless reasons to do so throughout the day, procrastinating like a pro. The problem was that if she did so now, this late on a Friday afternoon, she’d probably not get back to it. And then she’d feel guilty all night and into the weekend, maybe even making herself work on Saturday or Sunday when she ought to be spending time with her husband.

She’d once read somewhere that being an author was like having homework for evermore. She’d laughingly dismissed this at the time, when having a book published had been her heart’s desire: a dream she’d never expected to realise. But already, now, even though she technically wouldn’t become a published novelist for several more months, she understood the truth of that statement. A dream job was still a job. And this particular one had expectations and deadlines that didn’t disappear when she left the office at 5 p.m., because there was no office, nor regular business hours. There was just Hannah.

The bell rang again, longer and more insistent this time. Hannah saved her work, ignoring the reckless, frustrated part of herself who told her it wasn’t worth saving, and walked out of the lounge into the hallway.

‘Hello?’ she said into the telephone-style intercom next to the apartment’s entrance. As she did so, Hannah looked into the mirror opposite and frowned at the grey roots already showing in her shoulder-length, wavy brown hair.

There was a pause as the person on the other end of the line cleared their throat. Then, like a muffled gunshot, came the last words Hannah was expecting to hear: words with the power to flip her world on its head.

‘Hannah? It’s Diane.’

‘So,’ Hannah said a short while later, breaking the latest uncomfortable silence in a conversation so stilted she felt a desperate urge to run out of her own home to escape it. ‘You’ve changed a lot since I last saw you, Mia. You were just a tot then.’

‘She’s still as beautiful as ever,’ Diane said, ‘but for some reason she likes to hide it away behind all that war paint.’

Mia scowled at her mother, next to her on the couch, who was chewing a fingernail like her life depended on its removal. The teenager gave a fleeting glance towards Hannah, perched on the armchair opposite, and shrugged her shoulders. Then she dipped her head forward so her green eyes, lined with dramatic, dark make-up, disappeared behind the long fringe of her straight, shoulder-length black hair. Although she was young to do so, Hannah was convinced she must have dyed it, as it had been dark brown when she was little.

Hannah had almost passed out at the sound of Diane speaking on the intercom earlier. She hadn’t seen or spoken to her sister for nearly eleven years. She’d all but resigned herself to never seeing her and her niece again. And now here they both were, sitting in her lounge.

It had taken Hannah a few moments to get over the shock of hearing her sister’s voice after so long. She’d actually dropped the intercom handset and let it swing against the wall on its coiled cord while she stood there wide-eyed, frozen to the spot; covering her open mouth with her hands, desperately trying to grasp what was going on.

Then she’d heard Diane’s voice again: a faint, tinny version this time, leaking from the speaker of the dangling telephone.

‘Hannah?’ she’d said. ‘Are you there or not? It’s Diane. I know you’re probably surprised to hear from me after so long, but I really need to see you. It’s important. I have Mia with me. Hannah?’

And so she’d reached over and buzzed them in. It was all she could manage at that point, needing the extra time it took the lift to reach the eighth floor to find her voice. And even then, seeing the pair of them appear at her door in the flesh – Mia unrecognisable from the child she’d adored – Hannah had struggled to find any words.

Instead, despite everything that had gone before, she’d instinctively hugged them both in one go and proclaimed how wonderful it was to see them. It had felt weird and awkward, so she’d ushered them inside, sat them down in the lounge and rushed to the kitchen to make a pot of tea. Because what the hell else was she supposed to do?

That was exactly the question she’d intended to ask her husband when, while in the kitchen alone, she’d phoned his mobile. Unfortunately, she’d got his voicemail, meaning he was probably in a meeting.

‘Mark,’ she’d said, trying to keep her voice steady as she left a message. ‘Please get home as soon as you can. I’ve got a situation here.’ She’d taken a deep breath before adding: ‘You won’t believe this, but Diane and Mia have turned up. They’re here in the apartment right now. Call me.’

From her seat opposite the visitors in the spacious lounge, Hannah’s eyes moved from Mia’s low-hanging fringe to Diane’s continued nail biting and then on to her mobile, sitting next to her on the right arm of the chair. Come on, Mark, she thought. Phone me back so at least I have a good excuse to leave the room again. She’d already been to the toilet once and returned twice to the kitchen to get sugar and biscuits.

It was so damn awkward. And since they were in her home, she somehow felt like it was her responsibility to keep the floundering conversation going, which was ridiculous when she thought about it. It was Diane, not her, who’d upped and left all those years ago. Now her sister, looking gaunt and frazzled, wearing navy leggings, pumps and a white blouse, was the one who’d turned up on her doorstep unannounced and utterly out of the blue. So why wasn’t she discussing the reason for this? She always used to have plenty to say.

There had been an initial chat of sorts: a bizarre, staccato series of pleasantries about the weather, their car journey to Manchester from Bournemouth, her apartment, and other peripheral matters like the modernisation of the city. At one point she’d asked Diane how long she’d been wearing her hair, now dyed a striking burgundy colour, in a pixie cut.

‘Oh, I don’t know exactly,’ she’d replied. ‘Quite a while. A few years.’

Hannah hadn’t been able to think of a suitable response to this. Diane’s words served as a harsh reminder of how long they’d been apart; how little they knew about the present-day versions of each other.

Was her sister aware, for instance, that she’d long since quit her job as an advertising copywriter and somehow – miraculously – written her way through the eye of a needle to win the elusive publishing deal that had been her childhood dream? She very much doubted it. It was out there on social media, of course, but Diane wasn’t involved in any of that – not as far as Hannah knew. Nor, to her knowledge, was she in contact with anyone from their past who might have told her. Apart from their father, of course: the one person she knew to have kept in touch with Diane. However, after his initial attempts to mediate between the sisters had failed, he’d refused point-blank to take sides in what he referred to as their ‘foolish feud’. As such, and as long as it lasted, he’d sworn not to speak a word to either of them about the other in order to maintain his neutral status.

He was a stubborn man, Frank Wells, so she couldn’t imagine he would have breached his vow to reveal this one particular piece of news. While she could only assume he was the person who’d given Diane her address, this was no doubt with the intention that it might lead to their reconciliation.

As Hannah had lost herself for a moment in these thoughts, her guests had also kept quiet, leading to the first long, awkward silence of their visit. Suddenly aware of it and uncomfortable, she’d responded by taking the bull by the horns and attempting to get to the bottom of Diane’s shock return. ‘You said something before about needing to see me,’ she’d said, squeezing her palms together and raising her eyebrows. ‘That it was important?’

‘Yes, that’s right, but can we talk about it later?’ Diane had replied. ‘How’s Mark, by the way? He’s still at work, I assume.’

‘He’s fine, thank you. He should be home before too long.’

‘Good.’

Now Hannah, whose initial feelings of shock and panic had given way to unease and confusion, felt like asking Diane again why she was here and, if necessary, demanding an answer. It was definitely a reasonable question, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it after the last response. So instead she found herself trying again with Mia, who was, after all, an innocent party in the family feud that had kept them separate all this time. Losing touch with her niece – the closest thing she’d ever had to a child of her own – had been one of the most painful parts of the whole sorry affair.

‘So, Mia Wells, let me see,’ she said, trying not to think about all those years and milestones she’d missed from her childhood. ‘You must be fourteen now, right?’

Mia, who was pin thin and wearing skinny jeans with a black T-shirt, nodded without looking up at her.

‘So what school year are you in now?’

‘I’ve just finished Year Nine,’ she replied in a monotone voice.

‘Right,’ Hannah replied, nodding her head as she tried to work out what that meant, recalling that the naming system for year groups had changed since her and Diane’s schooldays.

‘It’s what we used to call Third Year,’ her sister chipped in, as if reading her mind. ‘From September she’ll be in the equivalent of Lower Fifth, working towards taking her GCSEs at the end of the following year.’

‘So have you finished for the summer now, Mia?’

‘Yes,’ the teenager replied.

‘They broke up earlier this week,’ Diane explained, looking at the fingernails she’d just been biting, frowning and then shoving both hands under her thighs.

Old habits die hard, Hannah thought. Smiling at her niece in case she decided to make eye contact, she added: ‘Wonderful. All that time off. I bet you’ve got loads of stuff planned. Are you going on holiday anywhere?’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘Right.’

‘Can I use your toilet, actually?’ Mia asked, adding a ‘please’ following a nudge and a glare from her mother.

‘Um, yes. Of course. It’s in the hall, next to the front door.’

Diane rolled her eyes. ‘Sorry about Little Miss Grumpy,’ she said once Mia was out of earshot. ‘She’s at that age.’

‘Listen, what the hell’s going on?’ Hannah hissed, unable to contain herself any longer. ‘You show up at my home after all these years of no contact and then you sit there, saying almost nothing. Why are you here? Is one of you in trouble? You need to give me something.’

‘I will, but not in front of Mia.’

‘She’s not here now.’

‘She’ll be back any minute, and it will be better if Mark’s around too.’

‘Mark? What—’ Hearing the toilet flush, Hannah changed tack. ‘Come on, quick. Just tell me.’

‘I can’t now. Sorry. It’ll have to be tonight – after Mia’s gone to bed.’

‘Gone to bed?’ Hannah repeated, as it dawned on her what Diane’s words implied. ‘Where are you staying?’

‘Um, well, I was hoping you might be good enough to put us up for the night.’

‘What? You don’t even have an overnight bag.’

‘Our things are in the car.’

‘You didn’t think to phone ahead?’

‘I didn’t have your number to start with and then … Well, I got your landline from Dad, but I wasn’t sure you’d take my call. Turning up here seemed a better option.’ Diane threw her sister a sheepish look. ‘I know it’s a lot to ask in the circumstances, but … please don’t make me beg.’

Mia walked back into the lounge at the same moment as Hannah’s mobile started to ring.

‘Sorry, you’ll have to excuse me,’ Hannah said, wondering whether her niece had overheard any of their discussion. ‘That’ll be a business call I’ve been waiting on. I need to take it.’ She slid the phone from its facedown position on the arm of the chair, knowing it was almost certainly Mark calling, and raced to the relative safety of the kitchen before answering.

‘Hi, love,’ she said, speaking quietly despite having shut the door.

‘Are you okay? I just got your message. Sorry, I was tied up in a meeting.’

Hannah brought her husband up to speed with what had happened so far.

‘The whole thing is totally weird, right?’ she said.

‘Definitely.’

‘So what do we do? Can they stay tonight or not?’

She heard the sound of Mark letting out a long sigh on the other end of the line. ‘It’s tricky, isn’t it, darling? Despite everything, they’re still family. And none of this is Mia’s fault. It’s hard for me to form a proper opinion without having seen them for myself. What’s your gut feeling? Do you think Diane’s here with good intentions or, I don’t know, that she’s up to something? How does she seem? Is she behaving strangely or—’

‘She’s like my sister, but older.’ Lowering her voice to little more than a whisper, Hannah went on: ‘She does look tired and anxious. Not chatty at all. There’s definitely something weighing on her mind. My guess is she needs our help in some way. Money, perhaps? That might explain why she wants to stay with us rather than in a hotel. You can see for yourself when you get home. Let’s wait until then and we’ll make a joint decision about them sleeping over. How long are you likely to be?’

‘I need to reply to a couple of emails and then I’ll head straight back. I’ll be home soon, I promise.’

‘Good. Please hurry. I’m running out of things to say.’

Luckily, Mark’s office was also located in the centre of Manchester, only a fifteen-minute walk from the apartment. True to his word, he returned home in around half an hour, although to a struggling Hannah it had felt like forever.

She’d almost resorted to turning on the television, although doing so in the presence of guests was one of her pet hates. Instead, she’d gone for an artificially extended trip to the bathroom before busying herself about the kitchen making another cup of tea for everyone.

‘There you are,’ she said, dashing to the front door as soon as she heard the key in the lock.

Mark was dressed in his usual work attire of a dark suit and open-necked shirt, his tan leather briefcase swinging from his left hand and his door key in the right. He looked as tall and handsome as always, his short but thick salt-and-pepper hair lightly ruffled, and a five o’clock shadow lining his square jaw. If anything, he’d got better looking with age. At forty-five, three years older than Hannah, he’d retained his slim and sporty physique, unlike some of his tubby contemporaries. But he’d done so in a natural rather than gym-crafted way, thanks to regular squash games and the odd run, combined with sensible eating and drinking.

Hannah had always been proud to call this dashing, intelligent and yet grounded man her husband. The fact he also had a good job as chief financial officer for a fast-expanding tech firm – well paid enough to enable her to pursue her literary ambitions – was the icing on the cake.

Now, with sibling rivalries suddenly back on the agenda, she recalled how she used to feel like she’d got one up on her sister by marrying such a catch. Looking at him standing before her in the hall today, she felt it again. Diane had Mia – but she had Mark.

In a loud voice meant for the ears of their guests, she asked: ‘Did you have a good day, love?’

‘Yes, thanks. It was fine.’

‘I have a surprise for you,’ she added, voice still raised. ‘We’ve got some unexpected guests. You’ll never guess who.’

Hannah really wished she didn’t feel the need to do this: to hide from Diane that she’d phoned for backup. But she did nonetheless, tumbling back into bad habits, because Diane had always been so independent and fearless, like she could single-handedly take on the world without breaking a sweat. And now – perhaps even more so than in the past – she absolutely did not want to look weak and needy in front of her sister.

‘Do we?’ Mark replied, his mouth going along with the ruse while his eyes begged to know what was really happening. ‘That sounds intriguing.’