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By Root 1759 0

God, I'm so thirsty. I was so nervous I had a whole glass of wine!’ She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and turned to me. ‘She used to work in a bank, Bella, and she started writing one day, under the desk and got the sack. She was really upset 'cos she had no money, and a baby, of course, but actually she said she was quite relieved too, because she hated Stacey being in day care, and so at first she was like – bloody hell! – but then she was like – right, damn it, and she wrote this book. Finished it in six months, sent it off and it was published – and she was like, oh my God! Isn't that an amazing story? Just like J. K. Rowling – well, the single mum bit.’

‘Amazing.’

‘And now she's written four more,’ she refilled her glass, ‘and they've all been published – abroad too – and Stacey wants to write as well. She's going to read English, which Dad's so pleased about, aren't you, Dad? He went all pink when she told us. At his old college too. How cool is that!’

‘And you didn't feel –’ my voice was strained, unnatural. I didn't recognize it. I was aware of Ant in the doorway – ‘a tiny bit jealous? A bit… I don't know, resentful?’ I gave a cracked laugh. ‘This – this strange person, sort of – invading your territory?’

‘D'you know what I felt, Mum?’ She put down her glass. Her eyes were huge, candid. ‘I felt – how amazing. I've got a sister. I honestly, honestly didn't feel a twinge of jealousy, and I so thought I would. Thought I'd want to kill her and like – you know – strangle her, right there at the table, with my bare hands.’

I nodded encouragingly. Yes. Or with string.

‘But it was so weird. I didn't.’ Her brow puckered in an effort to explain. To understand. ‘Maybe… maybe if she hadn't been so nice… and so worried about how I'd feel. If she'd been pushy, or cocky, but she wasn't. She was more like, worried, nervous. Kept saying – you must be so shocked, must hate me, but I just couldn't. She was trembling, wasn't she, Dad? But not at the end. At the end we were all laughing.’

Laughing. And I was finding it hard to breathe.

‘I felt… d'you know, I felt almost guilty? That here she was, Stacey, sixteen, with no father, and I'd had Dad, my dad – our dad – had his love all those years, and she hadn't.’ Her guileless eyes filled with tears as she looked behind me to Ant. Despite myself, mine did too. Could have been for Stacey, could have been for Anna, could have been for me. Hard to tell.

‘And I also thought – there we'd been, sisters. I'd had a sister, Mum, and I'd not had the pleasure of it. Always been an only child.’

‘You said you didn't mind that. Always said you liked being an only, all the attention, the love—’

‘I know, 'cos that's what I was. But today I was like – God, all those wasted years.’

Wasted! My heart curled into a tight little ball in my chest in defence. Tucked itself in. I clenched my teeth tightly.

She took another gulp of water, gazed over my head, thoughtful, her eyes shocked. ‘And I really didn't think I'd feel like that. But I honestly feel… I've found her.’ She brought those astonished blue eyes back to me. ‘Found a sort of… missing link.’ She gave her head a bewildered little shake. ‘I can't explain it, Mum. Maybe it's because she looks so like Dad. Maybe that makes it easier.’

Easier! Don't faint. Don't faint.

‘And it's odd, because if you'd told me that before, that she looked so like him, I'd have said that would have made it worse. But we look alike too. We look like sisters!’ Her face was alight, on fire. ‘Don't we, Dad?’

Ant had hung his jacket on the back of a chair. He looked up slowly. ‘Yes. You do look alike. Anna, you've got a clarinet lesson later. D'you want to have a go at that Schubert?’

‘No, it's OK. I know it pretty well.’

‘Anna, go and do some practice! Your father and I want to talk!’ I yelled, fists clenched.

She looked at me astonished. We didn't say things like that. Ever. ‘Your father and I want to talk.’ We were a modern, emancipated family. We all talked together. But I was back at the farm. I was Mum. No, I was Dad. Both of them.

There was