‘So, you think Jess is Helen Wilmington’s daughter?’ asks Lauren.
‘I hope so,’ says Rose, ‘Because if she’s anybody else’s then I’ve been far more naive than I would care to admit.’
Lauren is wide-eyed as a thought occurs to her. ‘Do you know where she is now? Perhaps Jess can track her down and be reunited with her mum.’
Rose looks down, picking at the tissue she’s holding in her lap. ‘I heard she died,’ she says quietly. ‘About four years ago.’
‘Why didn’t you tell us all this when Jess first turned up?’ asks Kate.
‘Because . . . because I didn’t want you to hate your father,’ cries Rose.
Kate feels winded. She could never hate her father, no matter what lies her mother told. It takes all her willpower not to applaud her stellar performance.
‘How long did it take you to come up with this story?’ she asks.
Lauren gasps at her sister’s audacity. ‘Kate!’
Kate turns to face Lauren, her features hardened. ‘Before you jump on the bandwagon, why don’t you ask Mum about the baby mementoes that I found in the loft?’
Rose’s eyes widen, but she quickly pulls herself back together, presenting the pitiful face of the grieving widow again.
‘What baby mementoes?’ asks Lauren, looking from Kate, to their mother, and back again.
‘Do you remember, Mum?’ asks Kate. ‘Do you remember the little pink sleepsuit and teddy bear?’
A look of utter panic descends on Rose’s face as she gets up from her chair, brusquely shaking her head from side to side. ‘No, no,’ she says, one too many times – each denial countered by Kate’s resolute belief that she’s lying. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Sure you do,’ says Kate confidently, though inside her stomach is in knots. ‘I showed them to you, and you promptly threw them in the bin.’
Rose lets out a strangled guffaw. ‘I really don’t remember that. Are you sure you didn’t dream it?’
‘I’m sure,’ mutters Kate, cocking her head.
‘Well, perhaps you imagined it. You always had such an overactive imagination when you were little.’
‘You haven’t even asked me how old I was at the time.’
‘Kate, that’s enough,’ says Lauren.
‘So you’re denying any knowledge of it,’ Kate presses on, ignoring her sister. ‘You don’t remember the box, any of its contents, throwing it in the bin . . . nothing at all.’
‘No darling, I don’t,’ says Rose, reaching for Kate’s hand. She pulls it away and sits down on the sofa next to Lauren.
Kate considers telling her about the hospital tags bearing the same date – the strongest proof yet that, one way or another, Rose knows exactly who Jess is. But she decides to hold back, fearing that she won’t be able to offer a justifiable explanation as to how she came about the information. It’s going to be pretty irrelevant anyway, once the DNA results come in. Rose won’t be able to wriggle her way out of that one.
‘So you’re going to carry on with this charade?’ says Kate. ‘How could you do this to Dad? I thought you loved him.’
‘Oh darling, I did,’ says Rose. ‘Sometimes I think I loved him too much. I would have done anything for him.’
‘Having a sordid liaison in the office was not the man he was,’ says Kate, resolutely.
‘That’s not the man you wanted him to be,’ says Rose. ‘There’s a difference.’
Lauren puts a hand on Kate’s back. ‘You had a very special relationship – we could all see that, but ultimately you weren’t in a relationship with him, Kate. Mum was his wife, the person who saw what was going on.’
‘That’s not the man he was,’ Kate repeats. ‘And I’m going to prove it.’
34
Lauren
As the day wears on, Lauren has discovered that being a faithful wife and mummy to three children doesn’t sit comfortably alongside knowing you may be about to do something that could throw a grenade into your life.
She tries to convince herself, as she burns the kids’ fish fingers – even the most perfunctory tasks are proving impossible – that it’s all this business with Kate that’s messing with her head. She tries to pretend that it’s not the thought of seeing Justin tonight that’s made her put Noah’s red onesie in with Jude’s white sleepsuits. Why would it? The only reason she’s going to see him is for closure – to wrap up the unfinished business that stands between them, so they can both move on with their lives. She’ll not go into his flat – there’s no need to – they can say their goodbyes on the threshold. That’s all they need to do. So why, then, does she put on matching underwear?
As she stands in front of the full-length mirror in her bedroom, adjusting her pose in an effort to turn herself into something she’s not, she wonders when time had caught up with her. When she was last with Justin, all she’d wanted was to look like a real woman, instead of the teenager that she was. But now, as she lifts her bra strap up so her breast sits where it used to, and runs her fingers over the creped skin on her stomach, she yearns for the taut skin of her youth. It seems we’re never happy.
‘Are you going out, Mummy?’ asks Noah from the doorway.
‘Hey,’ she says, rushing to him and picking him up. ‘You’re supposed to be asleep by now.’ She carries him to his bed and gently lays him down.
‘But if you’re going out, who’s going to look after me?’ he asks, rubbing the blanket he’s had since he was born against his cheek.
She weighs up the pros and cons of telling him the truth, but coupled with not having told Simon she’s going out, she opts for the path of least resistance.
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she says, hating herself. ‘Now snuggle back down.’
He offers an angelic smile as Lauren kisses him and it feels as if her
