had gleefully regaled her with her regular jet-setting jaunts to meet the stars. If she wasn’t in LA interviewing A-listers, she was on tour with pop stars. Lauren has lost count of how many times Kate had attended the red carpet at the Oscars, but she knows that she was loaned a couture dress on every occasion. Lauren doesn’t even own a dress, aside from her midwife’s uniform, as Simon only likes her to wear trousers these days.
‘But Kate’s life just looks more exciting,’ Rose had said, in an attempt to pull Lauren out of a downward spiral of low self-esteem when she was eight months pregnant with her third child. ‘What you do is far more worthwhile.’ But it didn’t feel like it, at two o’clock in the morning, when sick and hungry children had not yet let her sleep and she’d received a picture of Kate in a stunning red dress, holding a bottle of champagne in one hand and some kind of award in the other.
Woo-hoo! Guess who’s showbiz reporter of the year?!? she’d written on the group text.
Naturally, it was their father who had replied the fastest. That’s my girl!
Lauren looks at Kate now and battles the inferiority complex that always hits her whenever her sister’s in the room. ‘It is what it is,’ she says, and immediately regrets how laissez-faire she sounds.
‘It is what it is?’ repeats Kate irritably.
‘I didn’t mean to sound so glib,’ says Lauren. ‘But it’s up to each of us, as individuals, what we choose to do next.’
‘And you choose to do what?’ asks Kate.
Lauren clears her throat. ‘I’d like to get to know her, and I’d really like you to get to know her as well.’
Kate tsks and Rose looks from one daughter to the other. ‘You can’t honestly expect me to take on your father’s child with another woman.’
‘If that’s even who she is,’ says Kate.
‘For God’s sake,’ snaps Lauren. ‘Listen to the pair of you. We’re talking about a young woman who is trying to find her way in life. Trying to find where she belongs. Imagine looking for your father for years, only to find him ten months too late.’
‘Well, she doesn’t belong here,’ says Rose defiantly. ‘This is my family and I will not let some interloper come in and destroy it.’
‘I can’t imagine how hard this must be for you, Mum,’ says Lauren, going to Rose and crouching next to her. ‘But this doesn’t have to mean that everything will change. We’ve still got each other and you’re right, no one should ever be able to take that away. But getting to know Jess and letting her into the fold might do us some good.’
‘Well, you can count me out,’ says Kate acerbically.
Rose gets up, throwing Lauren’s hands off her lap. ‘I can’t believe you would do this,’ she says. ‘Why couldn’t you just leave things be? You had no right.’
‘She has a right to know her family,’ says Lauren, incensed. ‘To know where she’s from. Are you honestly going to deny her that?’
‘She’s not from here,’ screeches Kate. ‘And she’s not my family – she never will be.’
Lauren refuses to let the tears fall. Why is everybody conspiring against her, when all she ever wanted to do was bring her family closer together?
10
Kate
Kate is still seething as she sits on the train back to Canary Wharf, unable to believe her mother’s reluctance to stand up for their father, and Lauren’s naivety. The man opposite looks at her oddly and she glares back with a look of defiance, but then she realizes that her lips are moving, so if she’s not been mouthing her dissension, she’s been saying it. She wonders which would have made her look madder.
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake,’ she says out loud as the train sidles into North Greenwich station. She knows that despite the call of the office – she’s got a thousand and one things she should be getting on with – she’s not going to be able to ignore the pull of her flat and what’s hidden there.
She’d not wanted to root around in the eaves cupboards to find it – she didn’t think she would ever need to, but now that Jess has turned up, she doesn’t feel she has a choice.
She knows where it will be; in the furthest, darkest corner, and she crawls behind the wall of their spare bedroom, using the torch on her phone to guide the way.
This box belongs to Kate Alexander.
Top Secret