Sisters - Michelle Frances Page 0,65

day, here in this house, she was upset that Ellie was getting on well with Matteo.’

Gabriella raised a quizzical eyebrow.

‘Matteo is Abby’s husband,’ explained Susanna. ‘I was with Abby when she overheard the two of them talking. Ordinary stuff, you know, just friendly conversation. But Abby hated it. She won’t let go. She has everything she could wish for – a nice house, a great life – but she isn’t happy.’

‘What will make her happy?’ asked Gabriella, her voice soft with anticipation.

‘Ellie out of her life.’

‘And how do you think she will do that?’

Susanna felt tears spring up behind her eyes. ‘Any way she can. The most devious, calculating, duplicitous way she can devise.’

‘Un-fucking-believable,’ cut in an icy voice.

Startled, Susanna turned, realizing too late that she’d revealed the full extent of her peeling face to the camera. Behind her, Gabriella was grappling with the irritation of the interview being interrupted against what looked like a dramatic turn in the story. She signalled for Paolo to continue filming.

Susanna looked up into the eyes of a woman whom she hadn’t seen in thirty-seven years.

Her mother’s cold, hard gaze made her flinch, and then she spoke.

‘What the hell have you done to your face?’

FORTY-SIX

‘Turn it off!’ shouted Susanna, frantically waving her arms at Paolo until he reluctantly lowered the camera.

‘How much are they paying you for this sordid little tale?’ asked Kathleen.

‘None of your business.’

‘You always would do anything for money.’

Susanna bit back the tears. ‘That is a nasty thing to say. And it’s not true.’

‘Really? Working in some tawdry shop selling clothes?’

‘I had to get a job.’

‘Well, you know why that was.’

‘Yes, because you and Daddy cut me off.’

Kathleen gave Susanna a withering stare. ‘You had your warnings. We said that man was nothing but a cad and we were right. But you still ran off with him. You made your bed, you had to lie in it.’

It was as if it had happened only yesterday, the way her mother was speaking. Susanna was instantly transported back to the young woman she’d been all those years ago, quivering in front of her mother, buckling under the weight of her disapproval. She took a deep breath, tried to regain her composure, then forced herself to look at her.

Kathleen still dressed impeccably but her blonde hair was now all white. She wore it in a different way to what Susanna had been used to – a more age-appropriate bob that showed off her heart-shaped face. But there was something about her mother’s face that shocked Susanna. It was hard, entrenched in bitterness, and for a moment she couldn’t understand why. Then it hit her. Her mother was still angry. Her features had been chiselled over the years by a reaction to something that had happened over three decades ago.

For the first time in her life, Susanna woke up to just how penetrating her mother’s sense of disappointment was. And for a brief second she felt an unexpected flicker of satisfaction, one that withered in fear almost as soon as it had appeared.

‘Why are you here?’ Susanna asked her.

‘Matteo rang me,’ said Kathleen, indicating the door, where Susanna saw him standing, leaning against the frame. On the other side of the room, Gabriella was listening, watching, poised.

‘I think you’d better leave now,’ said Susanna apologetically.

‘But we haven’t finished the interview,’ said Gabriella.

‘Get out of my house,’ said Matteo, holding the door open. Gabriella weighed up arguing it out but, recognizing defeat when she saw it, she gathered up her things and left the room without even a backwards glance, Paolo trailing behind her. Susanna heard Matteo close the front door after them before coming back in.

‘So, are you going to tell me what’s going on here?’ asked Kathleen.

Susanna quivered but held it together. She mustn’t let her mother’s voice, that paralysing tone of disapproval, reduce her to a child again.

‘Well, Abby has spun a load of lies to Ellie and persuaded her to go on the ru—’

‘I know all that,’ snapped Kathleen. ‘I mean, what are you doing to bring my grandchildren back?’

Susanna stared. ‘They’re grown women. Not naughty children. Anyway, the police . . . They’re searching.’

‘And what are you doing?’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Or rather, what have you been doing? To drive them away? Because you have a habit of losing your children, don’t you, Susanna?’

Susanna felt a rush of blood to her head. She glanced up at Matteo, hoping he hadn’t clocked this comment, but he was frowning, looking between the two of them.

‘What