Page 7 of The Half Sister

Yet now, she dares to contemplate the possibility that he might have been the very opposite.

‘Why didn’t you tell her he was dead?’ asks Lauren, almost accusingly.

It takes a while for Kate to realize that she’s talking to her.

‘Because it’s none of her goddamn business,’ Kate snaps. ‘Though I suppose if it were up to you, you’d sit her down, make her a cup of tea and tell her the whole story.’

‘And what’sthatsupposed to mean?’ says Lauren.

‘It means that this would suit you, wouldn’t it?’ Kate glares at Lauren. ‘You’d love nothing more than to have Dad’s memory tarnished.’

‘Why would I want that?’ asks Lauren, fixing her sister with a cold hard stare.

‘Because then you’d feel justified for treating him with such contempt for all these years.’

‘Girls, girls, please,’ says Rose, who’s still visibly shaking and wringing her hands in her lap. ‘None of this is helping.’

‘So, what are we going to do?’ asks Lauren.

‘Nothing,’ says Kate.

‘Don’t you think she deserves to be heard?’ asks Lauren incredulously. ‘You can’t just dismiss what she said and ignore her.’

‘That’sexactlywhat we’re going to do,’ says Rose icily as she stares at her daughters.

4

Lauren

‘Well, what d’ya know?’ Simon smirks, as soon as Lauren has strapped all the children into the back seat of the car and gets into the front. She exhales, letting out the breath she feels she’s been holding in for an eternity. She doesn’t want to talk about it, but she doubts her husband will give her the choice. ‘Do you think there’s something to it?’ he asks.

Lauren turns to look out the window, watching the pavement fall away as Simon pulls off. Jess’s sudden appearance is hard enough forherto get her head around. She hasn’t got the energy to face an interrogation from her husband.

‘Who knows?’ she says quietly.

‘Who would have thought it?’ Simon says, chuckling to himself. ‘The man who spent his life dealing with everyone else’s infidelities was up to no good himself.’

‘It might not be all that it seems,’ she says. ‘We shouldn’t jump to conclusions until we know the facts.’

Simon snorts, and she knows he’s about to do exactly that. He’ll enjoy flying in the face of controversy, especially if it will give him a ringside seat.

‘All those times he spoke to me like I was a piece of dirt on the bottom of his shoe. All those times he tried to make me feel as if you were too good for me...’

Lauren bites down on her lip, to stop herself from saying,I am.

‘And all the while he was up there, in his ivory tower, he had a secret lovechild.’

Lauren takes a deep breath. It’s all very well having her own thoughts and feelings about her nearest and dearest, but she can’t bear to hear Simon saying them out loud. She’d never dream of airing her opinions on his own dysfunctional family, so she doesn’t expect, or want, to hear his views on hers. But she can sense he’s looking for a row, and she just doesn’t have the strength for another evening of arguments and sleeping on the sofa.

Although, if the truth be known, sleeping alone, even if itison a second-hand couch, where no matter how she lies a spring sticks into her ribcage, is preferable to lying beside her husband right now. The admission saddens her, but these past few months it’s felt like every night has been a war zone which she’s had to navigate her way through, judiciously avoiding the grenades that Simon throws at her.

‘What is it you do all day exactly?’ he had tactlessly said when he came in from work the other night to find Lego on the living room floor and a pile of dirty laundry on the landing.

She used to wonder that herself, especially when she’d only had one baby to get up, change, feed and put back to sleep again. Some days, she’d not had time to shower, or even get dinner ready for when Simon got home.

But ironically, the more children they’d had, the more efficient Lauren had become withhertime andSimon’smoney, as she learnt to stretch both to their full capacity. She’d mastered multi-tasking, and had become a wise shopper, searching out the best deals on meat and vegetables and eking the most out of every meal.

When Simon was working, the pressure eased off a little, as Lauren didn’t need to worry so much about where the next penny was coming from. But on the occasions he was laid off, which as a labourer on a building site were often, both their purse stringsandSimon’s moods, Lauren noticed, were more difficult to manage.

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