Kate watches as Simon walks out of the room, and waits to hear his voice at the door. The conversation is muffled and she strains to hear, relishing his discomfort as he no doubt listens to a Witness regaling him about the power of Jehovah, or a landscaper who just happens to have finished a garden down the road and has a few pergolas and statues left over.
Emmy is hitting Kate on the head with her plastic bowl and she waits expectantly for more peas to rain down on her.
‘Oi, you little rascal,’ she laughs, grabbing hold of Emmy’s bare foot. Just feeling her soft skin in the palm of her hand makes Kate’s chest tighten and she swallows the tears that are prickling the back of her throat.
‘It’s someone looking for Harry,’ says Simon, as he walks back into the dining room with a young blonde woman behind him.
‘What?’ asks Rose abruptly, looking from the woman to Simon and back again.
Kate is still on her knees, surveying the scene across the top of the table.
‘Yeah, it’s actually Harry I’m after,’ says the woman. ‘Harry Alexander. Is he around?’
Kate feels her blood run cold as her brain struggles to comprehend what this woman might want. But whichever way she looks at it, asking for a man almost a year after his death can’t be a good thing.
‘Sorry, what is it we can help you with?’ asks Kate, rising to her full height.
The woman looks at her feet as they shuffle from side to side. ‘It’s probably best if I speak to Harry first,’ she says.
‘Well, he’s not here,’ says Kate tightly, her chest feeling like a coiled spring. ‘What is it you want with him?’
‘Are you Lauren?’
Kate feels her mum shift beside her, but Lauren, she notices, is stock still. Even her swaying to comfort the baby has stopped.
‘Sorry, who are you?’ asks Kate, ignoring the question.
‘I’m Jess,’ says the woman, before clearing her throat.
‘And what do you want with Harry?’ asks Rose shakily.
Jess eyes her warily. ‘I need to talk to him. It’s really important.’
Kate looks to Rose. ‘I’ll let him know you came by,’ she says, as her mother and sister’s heads turn in her direction. ‘What should I say it’s about?’ she goes on, ignoring their perplexed stares.
The woman looks down at the floor again, as if summoning the courage she needs to say what she’s about to say.
‘I’m his daughter,’ she says eventually. ‘Tell him his daughter came to see him.’
3
Kate
‘What?’ gasps Kate, as the room spins around her. She looks to her mother, who is standing open-mouthed, as if frozen in time. ‘But . . . but that’s not possible,’ she stutters, her voice sounding as if somebody has a hand around her throat.
‘I think you’d better leave,’ are the first words that Rose says. ‘I don’t know who you are or what you want, but you’ve no business coming here.’
‘My name’s Jess and I just want to see my father – that’s all.’
‘Well, he’s not here,’ says Kate, feeling ever more present. ‘You’ve come to the wrong place. You’ve got the wrong man.’
‘I’m sorry – I just wanted to—’ begins Jess.
‘You need to go – now!’ barks Rose, in a tone that Kate hasn’t heard before.
‘Can we not at least talk about it?’
‘There’s nothing to say,’ hisses Rose. ‘As my daughter says, you’ve come to the wrong place.’
Jess reaches into the handbag on her shoulder, pulls out a crumpled piece of paper and reads it. ‘It’s Rose, isn’t it?’ she says, extending her hand, but Rose doesn’t even flinch.
‘And you must be Kate, or are you Lauren?’ She attempts a smile.
Kate stands firm, her jaw set, staring at the woman who has just thrown a grenade into her world.
‘Look, I can see this is a huge shock to you all,’ says Jess. ‘And I’m sorry – I had no idea you didn’t know. Otherwise I would never have . . .’
Rose is beginning to shake, and Lauren sidles up beside her and puts a firm arm around her back.
‘You need to leave,’ says Kate, her voice belying the panic that is raging within her.
‘But if I could just—’
‘For God’s sake, he’s—’ starts Rose, before Kate grabs her mother’s wrist, cutting her words off.
‘. . . not the man you’re looking for,’ says Kate, feeling as if her airways are being crushed.
‘I just want him to know—’ starts Jess.
‘Get out!’ screams Rose, making Emmy jump and dissolve into frightened tears.
‘Look, I’m sorry, but you need to leave,’ says Simon, stepping forward and holding an arm out towards the hall.
‘I’m sorry,’ says Jess tearfully, as Simon ushers her into the hall. ‘I thought you knew . . .’
‘Just get out!’ Rose yells again.
A moment later the front door shuts and everyone takes a sharp breath, none of them wanting to be the first to speak.
Simon coming back into the room breaks the almost hypnotic spell that seems to have been cast.
‘Well, what the hell . . .?’ he smirks, stifling a laugh. Only he could make this worse.
Kate falls back onto a chair, feeling the air in her body rush out. She thinks of the embryo inside her and forces herself to take deep, steady breaths. In for three, out for four. But her chest constricts, making it feel as if it’s trapping what little air there is inside of it. She imagines blowing into a brown paper bag and closes her eyes as she pictures it inflating and deflating.
‘M-mum?’ stutters Lauren. ‘Are you okay?’
If Kate feels floored by the unwanted guest’s announcement, she can’t even begin to think how her mother must be feeling. Rose’s eyes are glazed. ‘Yes, yes, I’m fine,’ she says eventually. Her voice is barely more than a whisper and she coughs to clear her throat.
‘So you don’t know who she is?’ asks Lauren.
Rose numbly shakes her head.
‘Well if you ask me,’ says Simon, ‘there must be something in it. You don’t just interrupt some random family’s Sunday lunch and deliver a bombshell like that.’
‘I have no idea what she’s
