The Other Family

by Joanna Trollope

  ‘Gimme—’

  ‘How dare you,’ Tamsin said to Scott. ‘Have you got absolutely no sensitivity? How—’

  ‘Give me that!’ Amy said, trying to reach her phone. ‘What are you doing on my phone? I’d only gone to the loo. Give it—’

  ‘Take it,’ Tamsin said furiously. She flung it across the table, where it skidded to the far side and fel down beside the radiator. Amy darted after it.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘That man,’ Tamsin said between clenched teeth. ‘That man. From Newcastle—’

  Amy was under the table. Tamsin bent down so that she could see her.

  ‘What’s he doing, ringing you? What’ve you been up to?’

  Amy retrieved her phone and held it to her ear.

  ‘Hel o? Are you stil there?’

  ‘Are you OK?’ Scott said. ‘Is that Amy?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Amy said. ‘I’m under the kitchen table.’

  Tamsin straightened up. She thumped hard on the table above Amy’s head.

  ‘What was that?’ Scott said.

  ‘My sister—’

  ‘Don’t talk to him!’ Tamsin shouted. ‘Don’t have anything to do with him!’

  Amy took the phone away from her ear. She shouted back, ‘We’re not al witches like you!’ and then she said to Scott, ‘Why are you ringing?’

  ‘Sorry if it’s not very tactful,’ Scott said, ‘but I was wondering when it’d be OK to col ect the piano.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Have I rung at a bad time?’

  ‘It’s al pretty bad just now.’

  ‘Look, forget it. Sorry. Leave it. I’l ring another time. In a few weeks. It was just my mam—’ He stopped.

  Amy watched Tamsin’s legs move very slowly towards the door.

  Scott said, ‘Are you real y OK?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you stil under the table?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Look,’ Scott said, ‘I’l ring off now. You’ve got my number. You ring me when things have calmed down a bit.’

  Amy said, clearly so that Tamsin could hear, ‘It’s your piano, you know.’

  Tamsin’s legs stopped moving.

  ‘No hurry,’ Scott said. ‘I’l leave it to you. OK? You ring me when you can.’

  ‘Cheers,’ Amy said. She clicked the cal to end. Then she sat crouched and stil under the table.

  Tamsin came back and bent down again.

  ‘What are you playing at, you disloyal little beast?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Amy said.

  ‘I heard you,’ Tamsin said, ‘I heard you. Talking to him al nice as pie. I heard you.’

  ‘He said to leave it. He said he didn’t mean to upset anyone. He said he’d leave it til we’re ready.’

  ‘We’l never be ready.’

  ‘We’ve got to be,’ Amy said. ‘We’ve got to, one day. It’s their piano.’

  Tamsin straightened up again.

  ‘Come out of there.’

  Amy crawled slowly out from under the table, and stood up. She was wearing a green sweatshirt and cut-off jeans, since her school did not require uniform in the sixth form.

  ‘You wait,’ Tamsin said. ‘You just wait until Mum hears about this.’

  Amy raised her chin, just a little.

  ‘OK,’ she said.

  Donna, having left Scott in bed that morning with what she felt was admirable sophistication, found that she couldn’t concentrate at work. It seemed that the price of being mature enough to leave a sleeping lover without a word of affection from him was that the maturity was only temporary, and the need to be reassured came back later, in double measure, as a result of being initial y repressed. So, after two hours of fiddling about pointlessly at her computer, Donna made a plausible excuse to her nearest col eague, and headed for what she hoped would be the reward for her early-morning restraint.

  Scott shared a room at work with two others. The room was at the back of the building – only the senior partners’ and the boardroom looked out on the river – and they needed to have the lights on, even in summer, on account of the new building behind it being constructed so close that Scott and his col eagues could see if the people working across the way were playing games on their computers. They had been provided with blinds, heavy vertical panels of translucent plastic, but by tacit agreement the three of them found it more amusing to have the blinds at their widest setting, giving a clear view into the opposite office. In any case, there were some good-looking girls in the opposite office, and, for Scott’s gay col eague, Henry, there was a particular guy, who, Henry knew, just knew, was aware of being watched and liked it.

  When Donna came into the office, it was empty. She had checked that both Henry and Adrian were at the Law Courts that morning, and she had reckoned on finding Scott alone. She had spent ten minutes in front of the mirror in the Ladies on her floor, and was planning to breeze in, kiss Scott’s cheek, wink, say something like, ‘Just fabulous,’ and then swing out again, leaving a seductive and tantalizing breath of Trésor on the air, which would drive him to seek her out later in the day and hint that she might like to cook him supper.

  But Scott’s chair was empty. His jacket was not even on the back of it. But his screen was on, and his mobile – not one she recognized – was lying in the chaos of papers across his desk. There was also a tal takeaway cup – cold, when she touched it – and a half-eaten Snickers bar, the wrapper peeled roughly back like a banana skin. Donna sat down in his chair. The document on his screen showed a series of mathematical calculations, one column entirely in red, and was no doubt something to do with one of the VAT cases in which he was becoming something of a specialist. If Scott had taken his jacket, he’d gone to do more than have a pee, but if he hadn’t taken his phone then he hadn’t left the building.

  Donna sighed. If he came back and found her in his chair, he would be able to assume the initiative in any future development between them, and that was absolutely not what Donna wanted. From past experience, Donna knew that, if Scott had the initiative, he just left it lying about without using it until it ran out of its vital initial energy, and simply expired. She lifted one leg and flexed her foot. What a waste of spending al morning in four-inch heels it might turn out to be.

  On the desk in front of her, Scott’s phone beeped twice and jerked itself sideways. Donna leaned forward so that she could see the screen.

  ‘One message received’, the screen said.

  Donna hesitated. She glanced at the doorway. Then she stretched her arm out and touched Select.

  ‘Amy’, said the message box.

  Donna uncrossed her legs and sat straighter. She touched again.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ Amy had written.

  Donna peered at the screen. That was al there was. ‘Sorry about that.’ No signing off, no x’s, no initial. She scrol ed down. Nothing but a mobile number and the time of the message. Sorry about what? Donna put the phone down. She stood up. She felt, abruptly, sick and angry and guilty. She also felt consumed by disappointment, waves of it, rol ing and crashing over her in just the way they had when Scott had told her that she was a fantastic fuck but that didn’t mean he loved her, because he didn’t.

  She walked – with difficulty, her knees seeming to have locked rigid with shock – to the window. Ten feet and two windows away, a girl in a short skirt and knee boots was perched on the edge of a man’s desk, and he was leaning back in his chair with his fingers interlaced behind his head, and they clearly were not talking about the cost of insurance of cars with two-litre engines. Donna felt hot tears spring up and flood her eyes. She swal owed hard and tossed her hair back. No crying, she told herself. No crying and no softness over what her Irish father would have cal ed feckin’

  Scott Rossiter.

  ‘Oh, hi,’ Scott said from the doorway.

  Donna whirled round. He was in his suit, but looking slightly dishevel ed, and he had a plastic cup of water in each hand. Donna glared at him.r />
  ‘Who is Amy?’ she demanded.

  ‘Look,’ Scott said later, stretched on his sofa and replete with a Thai green curry Donna had made with real lemon grass and kaffir lime leaves purchased in her lunch hour, despite the four-inch heels. ‘Look. That was great, last night was great, but I am completely bushed and you’ve got to go now.’

  Donna had kicked her shoes off. She had removed the jacket of her work suit and replaced it with a little wrap cardigan that tied meaningful y under her bosom, of which she was proud. She looked at the remaining wine in her glass.

  ‘I’m not suggesting a repeat of last night,’ Donna said.

  Scott repressed a groan.

  ‘But it’s nice,’ Donna said, stil looking at the wine and not at Scott, ‘to have a bit of support at family times like this. Nice for you.’

  Scott said nothing.

  ‘It’s a comfort,’ Donna said. ‘It’s a comfort not to be alone.’

  Scott closed his eyes. Then he made a huge effort and swung himself upright. He looked directly at Donna.

  ‘I want to be alone,’ Scott said.

  Donna regarded her wine in silence.

  ‘You’re right, it is a family time,’ Scott said. ‘But it’s my family and my difficulties, and you don’t know any of them.’

  Donna let a smal pause fal , and then she said, ‘But I could.’

  Scott stood up. His clothes were deeply rumpled.

  ‘No.’

  Donna leaned forward very slowly and put her wine glass down among the dirty plates on the coffee table.

  She said, ‘I thought you said Amy was just your kid half-sister.’

  ‘She is.’

  ‘Who you’ve seen but never spoken to except on the phone.’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘Then why are you making such a big deal about this piano and Amy and everyone? Why do you have to do anything about her or anyone else, except your mother? Why don’t you want me to help you?

  ‘Because,’ Scott said, looking down at her, ‘it’s none of your business.’

  ‘Thank you!’ Donna cried. She waved wildly at the curry plates. ‘After al I’ve—’

  ‘I didn’t ask you to!’ Scott shouted. ‘I didn’t ask you to snoop round my office and check my phone! I didn’t ask you to be a shoulder to cry on because I don’t want one, I don’t need one, I never have, my family is my business and always has been and I’l deal with it my way and on my own as I always have!’

  Donna leaned out of her chair and found her shoes. She put them on and stood up, with difficulty.

  She said, ‘I think it’s disgusting, getting fixated on an eighteen-year-old, especial y if she’s your half-sister.’

  ‘I’m not fixated,’ Scott said, ‘I’m just trying to get this bloody piano to Newcastle. And before you start spreading the news that I’m some sort of perv, let me tel you something, something that’s none of your bloody business, but I’l tel you to stop you making mucky trouble. When my father left, Donna, there was no one to comfort me. Yes, there was my mother but she was in her own bad place and, anyway, she wasn’t a child like me, his child, I was on my own there. And al I’m trying to do now, Donna, is to help Amy a bit because I know what it’s like. I’m trying to do for her just a little of what no one did for me. OK? Get it?’

  Donna turned to look at him. Her eyes were huge.

  ‘I just love it,’ she said softly, ‘when you play the piano.’

  Scott closed his eyes. He clenched his fists. He heard Donna’s heels approaching, not quite steadily, across the wooden floor, and then felt her wine- and food-scented lips on his cheek for what was plainly intended to be a significant number of seconds. Then the lips were removed, and the heels tapped unevenly away across the floor, paused to open the door, tapped outside and let the door bang behind them. Scott let out a long, noisy breath and opened his eyes. Then he fel back on to the sofa and lay there, gazing at the girders of the ceiling and resolutely refusing to let his brain change out of neutral. His phone beeped. He picked it up and eyed the inbox warily. Donna. She could hardly have left the building.

  ‘Grow up Scottie. U R 37 not 7. Little girls not the answer.’

  He deleted the message and struggled to sit up. The mess on the table revolted him, the mess of the last twenty-four hours revolted him, the mess he stil seemed bril iant at getting himself into revolted him beyond anything. He looked at his phone again and retrieved Amy’s message.

  She’d said once that she played the flute. Scott got up and went to the window and looked at his view, glittering under a night sky. He stared out into the darkness, at the lines of light the cars made, at the dramatic glow of the Tyne Bridge. There was something very – wel , clean was the word that came to mind, about picturing his half-sister – yes, she was his half-sister – with her hair down her back, playing her flute. He closed his eyes again, and rested his mind on this mental image, with relief.

  ‘I think,’ Chrissie said, ‘that we need to talk.’

  She closed Amy’s bedroom door behind her. Amy was on her bed, propped up against the headboard, with her flute in her hands. She hadn’t been playing anything in particular, just fiddling about with a few pop tunes, but it had been absorbing enough to prevent her from hearing Chrissie coming up the stairs, and when the handle of the door turned she’d given a little jump, and her flute had knocked against her teeth.

  ‘Ow,’ Amy said, rubbing.

  Chrissie took no notice. She turned Amy’s desk chair round so that it was facing the bed, and sat down in it. She was wearing camel-coloured trousers and a camel-coloured sweater and a rope of pearls. She looked extremely considered and absolutely exhausted.

  ‘Now,’ Chrissie said, ‘what is going on?’

  Amy polished her flute on her T-shirt sleeve.

  ‘Nothing.’

  Chrissie looked up at the skylight.

  ‘Tamsin tel s me you spoke to Scott about moving the piano to Newcastle.’

  ‘Sort of,’ Amy said.

  ‘He rang you.’

  ‘Yes,’ Amy said.

  ‘How,’ Chrissie said, ‘did he know your number?’

  Amy put the flute down beside her, and laid her hands flat on the duvet. She looked directly at Chrissie.

  ‘Because I rang him once.’

  ‘And why did you do that?’

  Amy thought for a moment. She was conscious of a dangerous energy beginning to surge up inside her, an energy compounded of apprehension at Chrissie’s imminent anger and distress, and excitement at defending her own position.

  She said slowly, ‘It was an impulse.’

  ‘Inspired by what?’

  ‘Newcastle,’ Amy said truthful y.

  ‘ Newcastle?’

  ‘I Googled it.’ She got off the bed and reached up to slide the envelope from behind the Duffy poster. ‘And I also found this.’

  Chrissie took the envelope and opened it. Amy watched her. Chrissie glanced at the photograph, and then held it and the envelope out to Amy.

  ‘Please put that away.’

  ‘It’s Dad!’ Amy said.

  ‘I know it’s Dad.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Look,’ Chrissie said, suddenly agitated. ‘Look. I know he came from Newcastle. I know he was born on North Tyneside. I know his parents struggled for money and his mother adored him. I know al that. But I can’t bear to know it. After everything that’s happened, after everything he’s done and we’ve discovered, al his life in the North, al his loyalties in the North just seem like a betrayal to me. Perhaps you can’t feel it because he never let you down, but, Amy, having you talk to that man, having you making plans with that man, and without tel ing me, just makes me feel worse, it makes me feel that I can’t trust you, that you’re taking sides with people whose existence has made my life so difficult for so long and stopped me having what I real y wanted, what I should have had, I should, I should.’

  Amy sat down on the edge of the bed and held the photograph b
etween her hands.

  ‘I wasn’t making plans.’

  ‘But you were, about the piano, Tamsin—’

  ‘Tamsin answered my phone,’ Amy said. ‘I was in the loo, and she answered my phone.’

  Chrissie began to wind her pearls in and out of her fingers.

  ‘Did you hear a word I’ve just said?’

  Amy nodded.

  ‘Do you have any idea of what I’ve been through?’

  Amy looked up.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Then how can you? How can you talk to that man about the piano behind my back?’

  ‘He’s not that man,’ Amy said, ‘he’s Dad’s son. He’s our half-brother.’

  ‘Don’t you care at all?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You said that already.’

  ‘Mum,’ Amy said, suddenly al owing the dangerous energy to spurt out like hot liquid, ‘Mum, it’s not al about you, it’s not al about Tam or Dil y, or me, either, it’s about other people too, who never did you any harm except by existing, which they couldn’t help, and who didn’t ask for the piano or expect the piano, they just politely wondered when it would suit you to have them arrange for it to go. Don’t take your anger at Dad out on them, it isn’t fair, it isn’t OK, it isn’t like you.’

  ‘Amy! ’

  Amy slid the photograph back into the envelope.

  ‘How dare you,’ Chrissie said. ‘How dare you speak to me like that?’

  Amy’s head drooped. She felt the energy drain away and be replaced by a tremendous desire to cry. She put the back of her hand up against her mouth and pressed. She was not going to cry in front of her mother.

  Chrissie stood up.

  ‘I want you to think about what I’ve just said to you. I want you to think about family loyalty. I want you to use your emotional intel igence and feel the shock this has al been.’

  She moved to the door and put her hand on the knob.

  ‘Amy? ’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Wil you?’

  Amy nodded. Chrissie turned the doorknob and went out into the little landing outside, not closing the door behind her. Amy waited a few moments and then she tipped backwards on to her bed, and rol ed towards the wal , her knees drawn up, the photograph in its envelope held against her chest. Only then, as quietly as she could, did she al ow herself to cry.