by Kate Field
‘That was my dad’s name,’ she said. ‘Or so I was told.’ She looked at Lucas. ‘Surely it’s just a coincidence – two men with the same name. It’s not an unusual one, is it?’
‘It’s no coincidence. Dad told me about you and asked me to find you. I’ve been looking for a year. I’ve contacted loads of Miranda Browns but none of them were the right one. Then I saw this in the paper.’ Lucas waved the now crumpled cutting at Mim. ‘It said you’d come from Lancashire. You look like Dad. I had to come and see.’
Mim studied his face. Could this be true? Did she have a dad and a brother, a loving family of her own? She wanted to believe it more than she’d ever wanted anything in her life. But she mustn’t let hope become proof. She had a thousand questions first.
‘Everything okay, Mim?’ Howie paused by her table. ‘Not having any bother, are you?’
‘No. It’s fine. Better than fine. Howie, is there any chance I could take some time off? I need to talk to Lucas.’
‘Well, there’s only the two of us on tonight and it might get busy later. Can you do your talking here and come back behind the bar if you’re needed?’
Mim nodded and Lucas sat down at the table with her. He tipped a few more things out of his rucksack.
‘I’ve brought some ID so you can check who I am,’ he said. ‘Here’s my driving licence and passport, and my old student card.’
It hadn’t crossed Mim’s mind to check his identification. She picked up each item in turn, absorbing the details. He had a passport, so he’d travelled abroad at some point. He’d studied at the university in Keele and his driving licence gave his address in Blackpool. Even these three basic items painted a history of his life that was vastly different to hers.
‘I have these too.’ Lucas opened an envelope and took out a photograph and a piece of plastic. Mim picked up the plastic. It was like a tiny bracelet, cut open at one end, and her name and birth date were written on it. She rubbed her thumb along the letters, feeling dazed, wondering if something so small could really hold such huge significance.
‘It was your baby name tag from the hospital,’ Lucas explained. ‘Dad kept it.’
She looked at the photograph next but it only needed a glance. It showed a pair of teenagers with a baby. She knew every detail of it already because she had an identical copy. She made an odd noise, half gasp, half sob. Was it too soon to believe this was real? Should she wait, insist on some kind of test, some actual, scientific proof? But she didn’t need science when every instinct told her it was true. It wasn’t too soon. It was years later than it should have been. But not too late. It could never be too late.
She looked up at Lucas.
‘Is our dad here with you?’
She knew the answer before he spoke and she slumped back in her seat. It was too late. The grief was still fresh on his face.
‘He died last summer,’ Lucas said. ‘He had a tumour. There were only two weeks between the doctors finding it and him going. It was horrible.’
His shoulders shook and he bit his lip, trying not to cry. He looked so young and lost that there was only one thing Mim could do. She went round the table and hugged him, and as he hugged her back the truth sank in. She was a sister. She had someone to look out for, like the Howards looked out for each other. She had a role and a purpose that had been missing until now. She had someone to love. As Lucas’s tears dampened her shoulder, she made a silent vow. She was going to be the best sister possible, whatever it took, whatever the cost. It felt like she’d found the missing piece of her world that Bea had talked about – not romantic love, but sisterly love. Nothing else mattered.
Over Lucas’s shoulder, she saw Corin walk into the pub, Dickens trotting at his heel. She watched as he scanned the bar and then spotted her in the corner. He hesitated, his smile wavering, and then wandered over to speak to Howie, who shrugged in response to whatever Corin said. Mim turned away and resumed her seat.
‘Tell me everything,’ she said to Lucas. ‘I want to know all about you.’
She was thrilled to hear what a happy, conventional life he had led: brought up by the sea in Blackpool with married parents who clearly adored him, especially when no other children followed. He’d had grandparents from both sides and his maternal grandmother was still alive. There were aunts, uncles, and cousins on his mother’s side, and they’d enjoyed holidays and Christmases together. He’d been average at school and had obtained a degree in Biology but was now training to be a plumber. He lived at home with his mum, and yes, he had a girlfriend but it was early days, he admitted with red cheeks when Mim asked what she thought would be an obvious big-sister question. And she learnt as much from what he didn’t say as what he did. He was quietly spoken, shy, and clearly didn’t enjoy talking about himself. He loved his family and had no desire to move away from them or from Blackpool. Mim liked him, genuinely liked him.
‘What about you?’ Lucas asked at last. ‘It said in the paper that you’d been sleeping in your car. That’s not right, is it? What about your mum?’ He flushed. ‘Sorry. Has she died too?’
‘I don’t know.’ Mim shrugged. The story of her life sounded even more tawdry after hearing about Lucas’s upbringing, but she wasn’t going to shrink from it now any more than she had in the past. It wasn’t her fault. Gordon had instilled that belief in her and it was the best inheritance he could have given her. ‘She had problems and had a habit of picking the wrong men. I was taken into care when I was eight. I moved in and out of foster homes for a while, because she kept promising to sort herself out. But she didn’t and I ended up in a care home. We didn’t have any contact after that.’
There were many gaps in the story and she noticed Lucas’s gaze flick to her arm, where the scarring was clearly visible below the sleeve of her T-shirt. Perhaps one day they would build a relationship and she could tell him everything. Or perhaps not. He looked so young, so innocent. Perhaps it was the role of a big sister to protect him from some truths.
‘You must hate me,’ Lucas said. ‘I’ve had such an easy life. Dad can’t have known what was happening to you. He was a good dad.’
‘I’m glad.’ She would never wish her childhood on anyone else. She was happy for Lucas, not jealous of him. But Lucas had said he’d been looking for her for a year. Where had her dad been for the thirty-three years before that? ‘Did he never mention me?’ she asked. Lucas shook his head.
‘Not until the end. He told me and Mum, when he knew he wasn’t going to live. She hadn’t known about you either. She was furious with him.’
‘I’m not surprised. It’s a pretty big secret to keep from your wife.’
‘Yeah, it wasn’t that. She wasn’t furious with him for herself. It was for you, because he’d never made an effort to find you.’
‘And what does she think about you trying to find me now?’ Mim asked.
‘She’s been helping me. Dad asked us to do it. It was all he was bothered about in those last two weeks.’ Lucas looked tearful again. ‘And anyway, she wanted to find you as much as I do. You’re family. You’re one of us.’
The next few days were strange and wonderful. In between shifts at the pub, occasional work for Paula, and dealing with emails and admin for As You Like It, Mim spent as much time as she could with Lucas. He was staying in a B&B nearby, and each day he would cycle over to Littlemead and they would walk along the coastal path or sit in the caravan if it rained, trying to fill in the separation of the past and build a foundation for the future.
For the first time, she had to turn down a request from Bea to drive her on an errand.
‘Would tomorrow morning be too late?’ Mim asked. ‘Lucas is coming over this afternoon.’
‘Lucas?’ Bea repeated. ‘Do you have a boyfriend, Mim dear? Corin said he’d seen you with a young man in the Boat. It wasn’t anyone he knew.’
‘He’s not my boyfriend. He’s my brother.’ Mim grinned. It was still an amazing thing to say those words. She told Bea the whole sto
ry about Lucas seeing the article in the newspaper and tracking her down.
‘And so now you have your own family. I can’t tell you how pleased I am for you.’ Although Mim didn’t think she looked entirely pleased. Was there a trace of sadness in Bea’s expression? It soon passed. ‘Of course the errand can wait, or I’ll risk Lia’s driving. Family must always come first.’ She smiled. ‘Why don’t you bring him to dinner so we can all meet him? I’ll ask Mrs Dennis to make something special.’
Mim couldn’t imagine Lucas coping with a room full of noisy Howards.
‘Thanks, but he’s quite shy and I’ll be working at the Boat every night. I’m sure you might bump into him soon though. He cycles here most days.’
Corin hadn’t been in the Boat since the night Lucas had introduced himself. Mim thought he must have gone away on one of his educational trips until he wandered into one of the caravans as she was making the beds ready for their half-term visitors.
‘Have you heard the news?’ she said. She’d been dying to tell him and had been disappointed not to see him in the pub. ‘I have a brother. His name’s Lucas. He’s twenty-four and he’s training to be a plumber. Can you believe it?’
‘Mum mentioned it. Congratulations.’
Corin bent to tuck a sheet under the mattress. He did a proper hospital corner, which might have impressed Mim if she hadn’t felt so disappointed by his muted reaction to her news.
‘Aren’t you happy for me?’ she asked. ‘You know how much I’ve wished I had a family.’
‘I know. But have you checked it out properly? Are you sure it’s real?’
His words felt like a pinprick, puncturing her happiness.
‘Why, do you think he might be a scammer, trying to steal my worldly goods?’ she said. ‘He’s a daft one, if he is. The train fare down here probably cost more than everything I own. I can’t think of any reason why he would make this up. He hasn’t made it up, I know it.’
‘Has he shown you any proof?’
‘Yes. His dad – our dad – kept one of my nametags from the hospital where I was born. We have identical photos of me with my parents. It checks out. I thought you would understand what this means to me,’ Mim said, thumping a pillow so violently that it looked flattened rather than plumped. Corin grasped her hand.
‘I do understand. That’s why I’m worried. I don’t want you to be hurt.’
Mim looked down at their joined hands. His thumb stroked slowly across the back of her hand.
‘Come to the Boat and meet him,’ she said. ‘He’ll be in tonight. Then you’ll see. It’s not a con. He’s not like that. He’s quiet and sweet.’
Corin smiled.
‘Are you sure he’s related to you?’ He laughed and let go of her hand. ‘I’ll be there.’
Lucas was becoming cheeky.
‘Are you sure he’s not a boyfriend?’ he asked Mim for the third time since she’d mentioned that Corin wanted to buy him a drink that night. She couldn’t be annoyed if he asked her thirty times. He was teasing her, in the way that Corin and Lia teased each other, and she loved that she had someone to do that to her.
‘Absolutely sure,’ she replied. ‘You’ll see why when you meet him. He’s from a different world than us. He’s so posh that it feels like talking to a member of the Royal Family.’
‘What does he want to drink with us for then?’ Lucas asked. ‘Aren’t we too common for someone like that? Or does he like showing off by flashing his cash around?’
‘No, he’s not like that at all.’ Her response was instinctive and Mim had to smile; she was defending Corin from exactly the assumptions she’d made about him when she’d first met him. Her opinion could hardly be more different now, after months of getting to know him. How could she begin to explain? ‘He’s nice,’ she concluded, feeling the full inadequacy of her words. ‘You’ll like him.’
She hoped it was true, but she needn’t have worried. Although Lucas looked uneasy when Corin shook his hand and started to speak, within a few minutes he appeared more relaxed, and by the time that Mim took them a couple of fresh pints, they were chatting and laughing like old friends.
‘I’m taking Lucas out on a fossil hunt tomorrow,’ Corin said. ‘It’s not my day for a public tour, so we’ll just look on the village beach but we might find something. We’ll have to set off around eight. Why don’t you come?’
‘I can’t. I’ll be swimming then.’ Mim couldn’t hide her disappointment. ‘Will there be time for me to join you after that? I’m still determined to find a proper ammonite. You will wait for me, won’t you?’
‘Don’t let Lia catch you sounding so enthusiastic,’ Corin said. ‘She’ll think I’ve poisoned your mind.’ He smiled at her, a warm smile that reflected in his eyes. ‘I promise we’ll wait. We won’t leave the beach until you’ve finished your swim.’
The noise struck Mim first, even though her head was partly in the sea and water was clogging her ears. It started as a low rumble and turned into a roar, ending in a crash like the longest, loudest clap of thunder that Mim could imagine. Her feet found the sea bed and she wiped the water from her face so she could see what was going on. In the distance, on the far side of the beach beyond the village, a huge cloud of brown dust rose into the air, covering the shore.
‘It’s a land slip,’ she heard Karen shout. She didn’t wait to hear any more. She waded out of the sea, ignoring the tired ache in her legs, and started to run down the beach, slipping and sliding on the pebbles, struggling for each breath but determined not to slow down. Lucas had gone that way with Corin on their fossil hunt this morning. She had waved at them when she arrived to swim, happy that they were getting on so well. Where were they? Were they safe? Water ran down her face and she wiped it away, but it made no difference. She couldn’t see them. She fixed her eyes on the distance, willing them to appear, but there was no movement at all. Her heart thumped against her chest. She’d only just found a brother. She couldn’t lose him now.
‘Lucas,’ she yelled. Her foot slipped off a stone and she fell to her knees with a painful bump. She got straight back up again. ‘Lucas!’
She hobbled on, concentrating now on where she placed her feet so a few seconds passed before she looked up and saw a figure running in the opposite direction, away from the dust. She hesitated, trying to work out who it was, then picked up speed again until she met Lucas near the path back to the village centre. She threw her arms round him, not caring how wet she was, and hugged him tightly, relishing each ragged breath she could feel shuddering through his chest.
‘Thank God,’ she said. ‘You’re alive. When I heard the noise…’ She closed her eyes and rested her head against his, unable to finish the sentence. Memories of Corin’s safety talk at the fossil hunt had rushed back in as soon as Karen had said the words ‘land slip’. All she’d been able to think about was those pictures of huge fallen boulders and how Corin and Lucas might have been crushed underneath something similar. She shivered, horrified by the idea of what might have been.
Then she opened her eyes and looked over Lucas’s shoulder. Corin… She’d assumed that he had followed Lucas. She’d assumed they were both safe. But all she could see behind Lucas was a huge pile of rubble and the dust that continued to billow everywhere. There was no one else in sight. Her heart wasn’t thumping now. It seemed to be frozen.
‘Where’s Corin?’ she shouted, pulling away from Lucas. ‘Lucas, what’s happened to Corin?’
‘I don’t know. He was further down the beach. He yelled at me to run this way and I did.’
Mim didn’t stop to think. She started running again, on towards the huge pile of rocks that now created a barrier over halfway across the beach, ignoring the shouts of Lucas, Karen, and Heather urging her to turn back. Her legs ached down to the bones and every breath was a struggle, but still she pushed herself on. She had to find Corin. She would find him. Corin couldn’t be under those rocks, she told herself as she ran, skirting towards the sea and well away
from the cliff, because he knew about geology and things like that. Corin couldn’t be under the rocks because he was far too clever to be caught. She’d heard him warn people to stay away from the foot of the cliffs, so he wouldn’t have been there himself. Corin couldn’t be under the rocks because… The truth struck her with the speed and force of her own emotional rock fall. Because she couldn’t imagine life without him if he was.
She ran past the barrier of rocks towards the next section of beach, waving her hands to shift the dust that was still flying in the air. She picked her way forward across the pebbles, looking up and down the beach, desperately scanning the shore again and again. He wasn’t there. She couldn’t see Corin anywhere. He wasn’t in the sea and he wasn’t on the beach. That only left…
Mim sank down onto the stones, wracked with coughs as the dust caught in her throat. This was her fault. She’d insisted that Corin stay on the beach until she’d finished her swim. She remembered the warmth of his smile as he’d promised to wait for her. Had he been trapped because he was keeping his promise to her? How would Bea and Bill ever get over this? How would she?
And then, as she became aware of a crowd gathering on the beach from the village, she heard a quiet bark. Dickens! She hadn’t given him a thought. She scrambled up towards the foot of the cliff, hardly caring whether it was safe or not, and as the dust finally settled she saw a sight that made her heart flicker back to life. Corin was sitting close to the fallen rocks, cradling Dickens in his arms. He looked dazed, dirty and undoubtedly alive.
‘Dickens strayed too close to the cliff,’ he said. There was the slightest shake in his voice. ‘I couldn’t leave him. He mustn’t have paid attention to the safety talk.’
