Just Like the Other Girls - Claire Douglas Page 0,48
little girl again. Small, vulnerable and in dire need of love and reassurance.
‘You know I don’t like to talk about her. She hurt me.’
‘I know.’
‘I’ll never forgive her.’
‘I know that too.’
How unyielding and conditional her love is, Kathryn thinks. She’d forgive her own two sons anything.
Elspeth sighs, her breath fogging in front of her. ‘But yes … yes, I miss her.’
Kathryn pats her mother’s hand, wishing she’d never asked the question.
Kathryn is surprised to see the lights on in the sitting-room window when they arrive back at The Cuckoo’s Nest. She was expecting Una to be out with the man she pretends isn’t her boyfriend.
‘I think you should be careful about ordering too many of Fleur’s paintings,’ Elspeth is saying, while Kathryn shrugs off her coat. ‘They’re an acquired taste.’
‘I think they’ll sell.’
‘Let’s hope so, because we need to see the gallery making a profit. Sales have certainly dipped in recent months.’
Elspeth hangs up her coat and Kathryn follows her into the sitting room. They both halt in surprise to see Una sitting on the velvet chesterfield sofa with a man. He’s handsome, Nordic-looking and, for a sudden, heart-stopping moment, she wonders if he’s related to Matilde.
Una stands up when she sees them. She looks awkward and keeps playing with the ends of her long hair. ‘Hi. This is Peter.’ She indicates the man on the sofa, who also gets to his feet. He’s very tall, towering over Kathryn’s five-foot-ten-inch frame. ‘This is Jemima’s brother.’
Jemima’s brother. Of course. Now Kathryn can see the resemblance. The same platinum hair and ice-blue eyes. She’d always thought Jemima’s hair was dyed that colour.
Her mother finds her voice first. ‘I’m so sorry to hear about Jemima,’ she says, her tone imbued with a warmth Kathryn rarely hears.
It seems to throw Peter, who mumbles, ‘Thanks.’
‘Can I offer you some tea? Coffee?’
Peter asks for tea and Una starts to leave the room but Elspeth stops her, her voice crisp. ‘You stay here, Una. Kathryn can fetch the tea.’
Damn it. Kathryn wanted to hear what Peter had to say. Goodness knows what her mother will reveal in her absence. She hopes Aggie is in the kitchen.
But the kitchen is empty. Kathryn boils the kettle and gets the tray ready with her mother’s tea things. Within five minutes she’s back upstairs.
‘I’m just trying to understand what happened,’ Peter is saying, when Kathryn re-enters the room. She places the tea tray on the coffee-table but only Una thanks her.
Her mother is sitting upright in her favourite armchair, looking like a formidable headmistress, her glasses on a chain around her neck.
Kathryn perches on the chair next to Elspeth. When there is a pause in the conversation, she asks Peter to help himself to the tea. When he doesn’t move she pours him a cup and he takes it, almost absent-mindedly, his gaze focused on Elspeth. ‘She would never have killed herself. Please. Can you talk me through that last day?’
Elspeth sits up a little straighter. ‘Well. I had to go to a meeting. Jemima would normally have accompanied me but she said she had a headache. She was acting a little oddly –’
He jumps in. ‘In what way?’
‘I didn’t really think much of it at the time, but in hindsight she seemed jittery. Almost a bit nervous. I sensed she was lying about the headache. And when I got back she had gone. I thought – I assumed she’d been unhappy here and didn’t have the nerve to tell me she wanted to leave.’
‘That would have been out of character for her,’ insists Peter. ‘Did you owe her any wages?’
‘I paid her the day before. I pay my staff weekly.’
Kathryn is proud of her mother. She’s giving nothing away.
‘When I spoke to your daughter, a few days later, she told me that Jemima had left after a disagreement.’
All heads swivel towards Kathryn. She clears her throat to give herself time to respond. ‘I didn’t say there was a disagreement. I wasn’t here. I just said there may have been a disagreement. My mother isn’t known to hang on to her staff.’
He frowns and inches forwards in his seat. ‘Wasn’t the last girl with you for two years? I remember my sister saying as much because she felt she had big shoes to fill.’
Kathryn wants to tell him to fuck off. Him and his probing questions. ‘Well, yes, she was …’