“Hi!” I say. “Danny, it’s Becky! I’m back! So… give me a ring sometime!” I give him my number, then put down the receiver.

The kettle comes to a noisy boil and I briskly start spooning grounds into the coffee pot, thinking of who else to call. But… there’s no one. The truth is, I haven’t lived in London for two years. And I’ve kind of lost touch with most of my old friends.

I’m lonely pops into my head with no warning.

No I’m not. I’m fine.

I wish we’d never come home.

Don’t be silly. It’s all great. I’m a married woman with my own home and… and plenty to be getting on with.

Suddenly the buzzer rings and I look up in surprise. I’m not expecting anyone.

It’s probably a package. Or maybe Luke decided to come home early! I walk out into the hall and pick up the entry phone.

“Hello?”

“Becky, love?” crackles a familiar voice. “It’s Mum.”

I gape at the receiver. Mum? Downstairs?

“Dad and I have come to see you,” she continues. “Is it all right if we pop up?”

“Of course!” I exclaim in bemusement, and hit the buzzer. What on earth are Mum and Dad doing here?

I quickly go into the kitchen, pour out the coffee, and arrange some biscuits on a plate, then hurry back out to the lift.

“Hi!” I say as the doors open. “Come on in! I’ve made you some coffee!”

As I hug Mum and Dad I can see them glancing at each other apprehensively. They’re both dressed quite smartly and Mum has even got on the pearl brooch she normally wears to weddings.

What is going on? What?

“I hope we’re not disturbing you, love,” Mum says as she follows me into the flat.

“No! Of course not!” I say. “I mean, obviously I have my chores… things to be getting on with…”

“Oh yes.” Mum nods. “Well, we don’t want to take up your time. It’s just…” She breaks off. “Shall we go and sit down?”

“Oh. Er…” I glance through the door of the sitting room. The sofa is surrounded by boxes spilling their contents, and covered in rugs and foam peanuts. “We haven’t quite got the sitting room straight yet. Let’s go in the kitchen.”



Whoever designed our trendy kitchen bar stools obviously never had their parents come over for a cup of coffee. It takes Mum and Dad about five minutes to climb up onto them, while I watch, completely petrified they’re going to topple over.

“Spindly legs, aren’t they?” puffs Dad as he tries for the fifth time. Meanwhile Mum’s inching slowly onto the seat, gripping the granite breakfast bar for dear life.

At last, somehow, they’re both perched up safely on the steel seats, looking all self-conscious as though they’re on a TV talk show.

“Are you all right?” I say anxiously. “Because I could go and get some different chairs…”

“Nonsense!” says Dad at once. “This is very comfy!”

He’s lying. I can see him clenching his hands round the edges of the slippery seat and glancing down at the slate floor below as though he’s balanced on a forty-fourth-floor ledge.

“The seats are a little hard, aren’t they, love?” ventures Mum. “You should get some nice tie-on cushions from Peter Jones.”

“Er… maybe.”

I hand Mum and Dad their cups, pull out a bar stool for myself, and nonchalantly swing myself up onto it.

Ow. That hurt.

God, they are a bit tricky to get onto. Stupid shiny seats.

“So… are you both well?” I say, reaching for my coffee.

There’s a short silence.

“Becky, we came here for a reason,” says Dad. “I have something to tell you.”

He looks so grave, I feel worried. Maybe it’s not the house after all. Maybe it’s something worse.

“It’s to do with me,” he continues.

“You’re ill,” I say before I can stop myself. “Oh God. Oh God. I knew there was something wrong—”

“I’m not ill. It’s not that. It’s… something else.” He massages his temples, then looks up. “Becky, years ago—”

“Break it to her gently, Graham!” Mum interrupts.

“I am breaking it to her gently!” retorts Dad, swiveling round. “That’s exactly what I’m doing!”

“You’re not!” says Mum. “You’re rushing in!”

Now I’m totally bewildered.

“Break what to me gently?” I say, looking from face to face. “What’s going on?”

“Becky, before I met your mother…” Dad avoids my gaze. “There was another… lady in my life.”

“Right,” I say, my throat thick.

Mum and Dad are getting divorced and that’s why they’re selling the house. I’m going to be the product of a broken home.

“We lost touch,” Dad continues. “But recently… events have occurred.”

“You’re confusing her, Graham!” exclaims Mum.

“I’m not confusing her! Becky, are you confused?”

“Well… a bit,” I admit.

Mum leans over and takes my hand.

“Becky, love, the long and the short of it is… you have a sister.”

A sister?

I stare at her blankly. What’s she talking about?

“A half sister, we should say,” Dad adds, nodding earnestly. “Two years older than you.”

My brain is short-circuiting. This doesn’t make any sense. How could I have a sister and not know about it?

“Dad has a daughter, darling,” Mum says gently. “A daughter he knew nothing about until very recently. She got in touch with us while you were on honeymoon. We’ve seen each other a few times, haven’t we, Graham?” She glances at Dad, who nods. “She’s… very nice!”

The kitchen is completely silent. I swallow a few times. I can’t quite take this in. Dad had another child?

Dad had another—

“So…” I falter. “Who was this other lady in your life?”

I can’t believe I’m asking my own father about his love life. Even if it is his love life of thirty years ago.

Dad doesn’t flinch at the question.

“Her name was Marguerite,” he says with a steadfast gaze. “I was traveling a lot for business then and she was a stewardess on the 7:40 London to Carlisle train.”

A stewardess on a train. I have a sudden image of a young Dad sitting in a pale 1970s suit with flappy lapels, smiling up at a uniformed girl as she pours him coffee. She brushes against him as she moves the trolley on…

OK, I’m not sure I want to think about this.

“Daddy was very handsome then,” Mum puts in. “When he had his mustache.”

I gape at her. Dad had a mustache? God, how many secrets does our family have?

Then all of a sudden it hits me.

“That girl! The day we got back.” My heart is pounding. “The one you were with. Was that…?”

Mum glances at Dad, who nods.

“That was her. Your half sister. She was visiting us.”

“When we saw you, love… we didn’t know what to do!” says Mum, with an anxious laugh. “We didn’t want to give you the shock of your life!”

“We decided we’d tell you when you’d settled in a bit,” chimes in Dad. “When you’d got a bit sorted out.”

Now I feel totally dazed. That was her. I’ve seen my half sister.

“What’s… what’s her name?” I manage.

“Her name’s Jessica,” says Dad after a pause. “Jessica Bertram.”

Jessica. My sister, Jessica.

Hi. Have you met my sister, Jessica?

I look from Dad’s worried face to Mum’s bright, hopeful eyes, and suddenly I feel very weird. It’s like a bubble is rising up inside me. Like a load of really strong emotions are pushing their way out of my body.

I’m not an only child.

I have my own sister. I have a sister.

I have a SISTER!


Nine


FOR THE PAST week I haven’t been able to sleep. Or concentrate on anything. All I can think about is the fact that I have a real, blood sister.

At first I felt totally shaken up. It’s OK for Mum and Dad; they’ve had weeks to get used to the idea. But to find out Dad had an affair years ago… and got somebody pregnant… I never thought Dad was like that, to be honest.

But he’s been really sweet about it. The day he and Mum came round to tell me, he could see I was a bit shell-shocked. So he sat down on the sofa with me and told the whole story. He kept reiterating that this all happened before he even met Mum, and that he had no idea he’d fathered a child. Apparently Marguerite the stewardess broke off their relationship with no warning. Dad got on the train one Monday morning, and she just wasn’t there. Another stewardess told him she’d had a whirlwind romance and married another passenger, who owned a frozen food business. Dad was so crushed, he started taking another train. And then they moved his work to Birmingham… and that was the end of it. He had no idea there was a baby.

But there was. A little girl called Jessica. All my life, without knowing it, I’ve had a sister, growing up miles away, with no idea I existed either.

And today, at last, I’m going to meet her!

Just the thought makes me feel exhilarated and jumpy all at once. How will we be the same? How will we be different? What will her voice be like? What will her clothes be like?

“Do I look OK?” I ask Luke, while anxiously surveying my appearance in the mirror. We’re in my old bedroom at my parents’ house, and I’m putting the finishing touches to my meeting-my-long-lost-sister outfit. It’s taken me several days, but after a lot of thought I’ve decided on my most flattering Seven jeans, some boots with spiky heels, a gorgeous pale pink Marc Jacobs jacket, and a T-shirt made ages ago for me by Danny.

“You look great,” Luke says patiently.

“It’s like… balancing formal with informal,” I explain. “So the jacket says ‘This is a special occasion,’ whereas the jeans say, ‘We’re sisters, we can be relaxed with each other!’ And the T-shirt says…”

I pause. Actually, I’m not sure what the T-shirt says, apart from “I’m friends with Danny Kovitz.” And I’m not even sure how true that is anymore. He hasn’t called back, even though I’ve left two messages.

“Becky,” says Luke, “I don’t honestly think it matters what you wear.”

“What?” I wheel round in disbelief. “Of course it matters! This is one of the most important moments of my life! I’ll always remember what I was wearing the day I met my sister for the first time. I mean… you remember what you were wearing when you met me for the first time, don’t you?”

Luke looks blank.

He doesn’t remember? How can he not remember?

“Well, I remember,” I say crossly. “You were wearing a gray suit and a white shirt and a dark green Hermès tie. And I was wearing my short black skirt and my suede boots and that awful white top which made my arms look fat.”

“If you say so.” Luke raises his eyebrows.

I smooth down my T-shirt. “I just want to look right. Like a sister.”

“What do sisters look like?” Luke asks, looking amused.

“They look… fun!” I think for a moment. “And friendly. And supportive. And like they’ll tell you if your bra strap is showing.”

“Then you do look exactly like a sister.” Luke kisses me. “Becky, relax! It’s going to be fine!”

I know I’m a bit wound-up, but I just can’t get over the idea of having a sister after being an only child for so long.

Not that I’ve minded being on my own or anything. Mum and Dad and I have always had a great time together. But sometimes I’ve heard other people talking about their brothers and sisters and wondered what it was like. I never thought I would actually get to find out!

What’s really spooky is that all this week, I’ve suddenly been noticing sisters. They’re everywhere! For example, the film of Little Women was on telly the other afternoon — and right after was a program about the Beverley Sisters! And every time I’ve seen two women together in the street, instead of just noticing what they were wearing, I’ve thought, “Are they sisters?”

It’s like there’s a whole world of sisters out there and finally I’m part of it.

I feel a smarting in my eyes and blink hard. It’s ridiculous, but ever since I heard about Jessica, my emotions have been all over the place. Last night I was reading this brilliant book called Long-Lost Sisters: The Love They Never Knew They Had and tears were streaming down my cheeks! The stories were just amazing. One was about these three Russian sisters who were in the same concentration camp during the war but didn’t know it. Then there was this woman who was told her sister had been killed but she would never believe it, and then she got cancer and there was no one to look after her three children, but they found the sister alive, just in time for them to say goodbye…