by Lisa Jewell
Because there were now two matches showing on the Donor Sibling Registry.
Two.
A man and a woman.
The male match had come up last night.
The female match had still not responded to her request for contact. It had been three weeks since she’d tried, but still there was nothing. Lydia was trying very hard not to take it personally. Why would you sign up to an agency like that if you had no interest in making contact with your siblings? It made no sense. No, she reasoned with herself, this person was on holiday. Yes, that’s what it was. She was away. She was eighteen years old so maybe she was having a gap year. Or studying abroad. She pictured this girl sitting in an internet cafe in Delhi, accessing her e-mails, finding one from the Registry. She imagined her with a female friend, saying, ‘Wow, look at this, I’ve got a sister!’ and then going off to see the Taj Mahal or something.
Or maybe she was ill? Maybe she’d been taken suddenly unwell and was now in a hospital ward somewhere, fearing for her life, unaware of the contact request from the Registry. Maybe her gravely concerned mother couldn’t bear to bring it to her attention in her current state. Or maybe she’d just lost her internet connection. Or maybe she’d gone to the countryside to stay with an elderly aunt. Or maybe she was doing it, right now, filling in the form, giving the agency her permission to share her personal details. Lydia still checked her e-mails obsessively. The preoccupation with waiting to hear from her sister had taken the place of the preoccupation of waiting for a match. Was this what this experience was destined to be? she wondered. Waiting and waiting and waiting?
And just as she’d fully assimilated into her existence this desperate game of waiting and making excuses and inventing more and more unlikely scenarios for the lack of contact, there was another one. A man this time. Twenty-one years old. Now the whole thing would begin all over again. Her nerves were ragged. She could no longer concentrate on anything for longer than about half an hour before it came hurtling back to the surface of her mind. Brother. Sister. Contact. Waiting. She almost wished she’d never signed up in the first place. She hadn’t expected it to be like this. She hadn’t expected it to be such agony.
Juliette walked out on the terrace then, two small cups and saucers balanced on a tray with a selection of biscuits and two glasses of water. Lydia jumped to her feet to take the tray from her. Juliette tutted good-naturedly and said, ‘No, you sit. Sit.’
Lydia felt a small wave of embarrassment for the overly formal and solicitous nature of the delivery of the coffee. It was all so unnecessary. She didn’t need all this five-star frippery. She just wanted someone to keep her house nice for her.
‘Juliette,’ she said, to break the awkwardness, to humanise her, ‘I’m not sure I’ve ever introduced you properly. This is Bendiks. Bendiks is my fitness trainer. Bendiks, this is Juliette. Juliette looks after me.’ She ended this on a nervous laugh. Looking after her made her sound like a crazed old maiden aunt with a tendency to walk out of the house in her nightdress.
Juliette smiled suspiciously at Bendiks and barely brushed the solid hand he offered her to shake. ‘Nice to meet you,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ said Juliette, circumspectly, before turning on her heel and heading back into the house.
Bendiks laughed. ‘She is very protective,’ he said.
Lydia considered that and thought it was probably about right. Lydia paid Juliette to look after her and her house, and anything not written into that original agreement – cats, visitors – was dismissed off the cuff.
‘Yes,’ she agreed, ‘but she is very, very good at her job. As far as I’m concerned she’s an investment. I pay her to keep my house looking exactly the same as it did when I bought it. If I lived here on my own it would look like a student house share. You know, I’ve lived here for a year and there is not a speck of limescale anywhere. And it’s things like that that make a house keep its resale value.’
Bendiks smiled at her. ‘It is OK,’ he said. ‘I’m not English. You don’t need to justify these things to me. Where I come from, anyone who could afford a housekeeper would have a housekeeper. Where I come from, people would think you were mad if you didn’t. You English. You’re very strange about these things. So ashamed of money and success. So ashamed of your trappings. You should celebrate! A beautiful young woman, self-made, set for life. Wow. You should be shouting it from the rooftops! You should be proud of yourself!’
Lydia blinked at him. Had he just said that? she wondered. Had he just said she was beautiful? Lydia had no idea if she was beautiful or not. The mirror told her different things every time she looked in it. Nobody had ever told her she was beautiful. But then nobody had ever told her she wasn’t. It had been left to her to draw her own conclusions, and she had failed to do so. But this compliment from Bendiks, it acted as a small weight in the balance towards believing that maybe she was nice-looking. He had no reason to say that to her. Nothing to gain from it.
And as she sat there on her terrace, the sun warming her face, her cat smiling at her dreamily from Bendiks’ lap, Bendiks himself looking at her with a mixture of pride and affection, and a growing sense within herself that maybe she wasn’t a freak after all, it occurred to Lydia that for the first time in her life, the pieces of her own personal jigsaw were coming together. It was almost as if she were finally starting to make sense of herself. The cat, the trainer, the potential new housemate, the letting go of Dixie, the fact that she did not share her DNA with a man she hated, the siblings she was hoping to meet, even this house, this stupid big house: it all felt like it meant something. The stage was set. The timing was right. Now all Lydia needed was for someone to get in touch with her and say they wanted to meet her.
ROBYN
Sam gazed at Robyn over the top of her bunched up knuckles. Her eyes were serious and sad. By her elbow was a mug of peppermint tea that Robyn already knew she would not drink. There was too much talking to be done.
‘Why are you hurting my son?’ Sam asked, quietly.
Robyn flinched. She had not been expecting those words. She had expected Sam to know exactly why she was hurting her son. Because he’s my brother, of course! a small voice inside her head shouted out.
‘Do you not know?’ she asked, picking at a loose thread in the tablecloth, unable to meet Sam’s intense gaze.
‘Know what?’ asked Sam.
‘I thought you knew,’ she muttered.
‘I’ll tell you what I know, young lady, and that is that my son has never felt the way he feels for you about anyone else. He’s a sensitive young man, a beautiful, gentle, wonderful man, and he’s given you his heart in a bag. And he thought – and I thought – that you felt the same way. It’s been clear to me that you’re both crazy about each other … and now you’ve just left him in limbo and I know he’s a grown man and I know it shouldn’t be any of my business and I shouldn’t be here and that I should just butt out but I can’t, because he’s my only boy and I love him so much and I can’t stand what you’re doing to him. I can’t stand it!’
Her voice caught on the last words and Robyn looked up at her. She was crying.
Robyn looked away again. ‘Look, it’s not as simple as that,’ she began. ‘It’s – I thought you knew. Do you really not know?’
‘Know what?’
‘Jack’s father – was he really a Barnardo’s orphan? Did he really die in a car crash?’
Sam blinked away her tears and glanced at her in horror. ‘What?’ she asked, blankly.
‘Is it all true? The story about Jack’s dad?’
‘Of course it’s true.’
And as she said the words, Robyn knew they were true and she felt everything inside her fall and flood, like a sluice sliding open in a dam. Her legs weakened and her heart slowed and then it picked up again as she felt a huge burst of maniacal laughter forming in her chest. She swallowed it and smiled calmly at Sam. ‘Really?’ she said.
‘Yes. Of course it is. Why on earth would I
lie about a thing like that? And what on earth does it have to do with you and Jack?’
Laughter bubbled under the surface. Robyn’s smile widened. ‘I thought – you’re going to think I’m mad – but I thought he might be my brother.’
‘What!’
‘Yeah, I know, it’s nuts, isn’t it? But there were so many things … we look so alike, and then I signed up to the Donor Sibling Registry and they told me I had a brother born in 1983. And I just thought … And you!’ she remembered suddenly. ‘You were so weird, that night at your house, when we were talking about me being a donor’s child. You were looking at me so strangely …’
Sam blinked at her and shook her head. ‘Was I?’ she said.
‘Yes! Like there was something you were thinking. Like you’d used a donor yourself.’
Sam laughed. ‘Really?’ she said. ‘I honestly don’t remember. But if I was looking at you strangely it was probably because I just find anything to do with parentage interesting. Because Jack doesn’t have a father. I suppose I’m always subconsciously looking for reassurance, for other views, for different ways of looking at things. Because I’ve felt guilty all my life that I couldn’t give him a dad.’
Her strong face softened then and she put one large hard-skinned hand against Robyn’s. ‘Oh, sweetie,’ she clucked. ‘Sweet girl. I can’t believe you’ve been going around all this time, thinking that you were doing something wrong. You should have come straight to me, sweetie. I could have put your mind at rest a long time ago and saved you all this pain. Because you and Jack, well, you’re perfect together. And, trust me, I will do anything it takes to support the pair of you. I believe in you two, and that is a hard thing for me to say. This is my boy, my only child, no one was ever going to be good enough for him. But you are. I honestly believe that. I mean – why else would I be here?’ She paused for a moment, her mouth still open from her last syllable, her hands spread wide in front of her. And then she leaned back in her chair and laughed.
Robyn smiled. Finally. It was over. She felt all the wrong-ness inside her melt away. She had not slept with her brother. She was not a pervert or a freak. She was normal. She was totally, splendidly, beautifully, utterly normal.
‘So,’ Sam continued, leaning back towards the table, ‘is that it now? Are you reassured?’
‘Yes,’ smiled Robyn. ‘I am. But promise me one thing? Please?’
Sam looked at her, expectantly.
‘Don’t tell Jack. Please don’t tell him. I’d hate to think of him knowing about all the weird shit I’ve been worrying about. I just want everything to go back to normal …’
Sam smiled and nodded. ‘Don’t you worry,’ she said, ‘your secret is safe with me.’
*
The first thing Robyn did when Sam left half an hour later was to call Jack. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry. I’ve been freaking out. And I’ve been crazy. But I’m not crazy any more. I’m totally sane. I’ve missed you. I love you. I’ve got your keys in my hand. I’m ready to go. Can I still move in?’
There was a moment’s silence and then Jack laughed. ‘What, now?’
‘Yes,’ Robyn said, breathlessly, ‘why not? I can be packed and there by early evening.’
Jack laughed again. ‘Wow,’ he said, pensively.
‘You OK?’
‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘I’m great. I’m good. I’m just, shit, I don’t know. I’ve been so … God, I can’t even put it into words. I’ve just been totally desperate. I’ve missed you so much. I thought …’ He paused and sighed. ‘I thought it was all over.’
Robyn smiled and breathed lovingly into the phone. ‘I hate myself,’ she said. ‘I hate myself. And this – this isn’t me. Honestly. I don’t do this kind of thing. But then, no one ever asked me to live with them before.’
‘It’s my fault. I knew it the minute I said it. I knew it was too much. You’re so young. We’ve only just met. I was an idiot.’
‘No!’ she cried. ‘No! You weren’t an idiot. I was an idiot. An idiot ever to think it wasn’t a great idea. I’ve been ill. I’ve lost half a stone. I look awful. I love you. I really love you. I’m going to pack. I’ll see you in a few hours. I love you.’
‘I love you too,’ laughed Jack.
‘Shh, now. Let me go. I love you.’
‘I love you.’
‘Stop telling me you love me! I love you!’
‘I love you more.’
She sighed. ‘You win. I’ll see you soon.’
She switched off the phone and she rested it on the kitchen table and she grinned at it. She tried to stop smiling but she could not. Her smile was stuck. She glanced then around her parents’ kitchen. She looked at the biscuit-coloured tiles impressed with purplish bunches of grapes, the chunky ceramic pots in a line: TEA, COFFEE, SUGAR, with their fat cork lids. She looked at the magnetic noticeboard studded with plumber’s bills and dental appointments and receipts for wheelbarrows and car batteries, at the stable door hung with stained aprons and rusty barbecue forks. This had been her kitchen since the day she was born. The kitchen had changed not one iota, just tarnished and faded and cluttered itself. But Robyn had changed. Not slowly, not in barely perceptible increments, but overnight, from the moment she met Jack. And now that change was taking her away from here, away from Essex, from her parents’ home. And she was ready now. Ready to be an adult. Ready for Jack. Well and truly.
Except, it wasn’t that simple. Because somewhere inside the grubby chaos of the past few weeks she had brought something else into her world. Two brothers. And a sister. She’d never wanted to know about them. She’d had no interest in these people. They were not relevant to her journey. But now they were here. The ‘sister’ person had requested her information. And now there was another one. He’d signed up just last week. It was the younger of the two brothers. And there they were, in black and white. Real people, fleshed out from translucent shadows to two dimensions, one click of a button away from standing in front of her complete with smells and voices and blemishes and preconceptions and needs and wants. She kept trying to force them back into the box of her past but they refused to stay, bursting out of the sides like excess clothing in an over-packed suitcase. She’d breathed life into these people and now that she was done with them they refused to die. Sister. Brother. Brother. Sketchy, indistinct, sinister as ghosts.
‘What are you going to do about them?’ her mother had asked her the night before.
‘Nothing,’ she’d replied, knowing even as she said it that it wasn’t true. However much she wanted it to be.
Her mother had stopped stirring the gravy granules in a Pyrex jug on the kitchen counter and Robyn had seen her inhale, breathing away her natural reaction. A moment passed and then slowly she’d begun to stir rhythmically at the gravy again. She was trying to find the right words.
‘Well,’ she’d said, eventually, resting the jug in the middle of the table, ‘maybe not now. No. Maybe later on. When you’re more settled.’
Robyn took her mother’s well-intended words and let them sit with her for a short while before saying, circumspectly, but not without feeling, ‘Yes. Maybe later. Maybe soon.’
The conversation was over. Dinner was served.
DEAN
He could hear her in the background. A small, keening noise, like a bird on a windowsill. It shocked him. He’d never heard her cry. The last time he’d seen her – the first time he’d seen her – she’d been muted by tubes and machinery. There’d been no lusty cry of indignation as she was pulled from her mother’s belly, just pathetic silence. The sound both alarmed and reassured him.
‘Is she OK?’ he asked Rose.
‘Yes, she’s fine. She’s just wanting a cuddle, aren’t you, sweetheart?’
He heard Rose move closer to the keening sound, and then he heard snuffling and waffling sounds of flesh against speaker, and then the keening sound stopped and he heard Rose saying: ‘There, there, my beauty. There, there, my angel. That’s bett
er, isn’t it? There.’
There were half a dozen different sentiments buried inside Rose’s tone of voice and Dean could read them all. Listen, she was saying, that is the sound of your motherless daughter crying. Listen, this is the sound of me instinctively knowing what your crying daughter wants because I have done this so many times before and am doing a much better job than you or your feeble mother could ever hope to do. But listen also to the sound of parenting, this is what you should be doing right now. I should not be soothing this crying baby. You should be soothing her. Although, the subtext continued, I don’t want you anywhere near this baby, you hear me. This is my baby. My baby’s baby. You have lost any stake in this baby with your gutless and self-centred behaviour of the past ten weeks.
As much as Dean disliked his late girlfriend’s mother, he had to concede that she had a point. He was only on the phone to her now because the council had been in touch about getting the flat back from him and he needed the baby’s birth certificate to try and take it over in his own name. It was a cowardly and feckless thing to be doing because he knew deep down inside himself that he had no intention of ever living here with the baby. The best he could conceivably envisage was that the baby might come here for the odd overnight stay if Rose needed to be elsewhere. But really, this flat would never be a home to his daughter. And he would never be her father. The truth was that he was using the fact of the baby’s existence to try and wheedle himself a home out of the government. He was a loser. He could see Sky now, with her big swollen belly, sitting on that chair opposite him, saying: ‘You’re pathetic, you know that? You’re fucking pathetic.’ And she was right.
