We Are Family

by Emlyn Rees

  At first, she felt as if time were warping. She told herself that it was an hallucination, that it simply couldn’t be Sam, but someone else connected to Rachel, her family, Tony, this place, the coffin in front of her. But she knew from the helter-skelter ride her insides were taking that this was real. That the man who had come in late, the man who was speaking, was the only man who’d ever broken her heart.

  Laurie’s whole body adrenalised as she listened to him read a love poem, looking all the time at Rachel. She glanced along the pew to where her aunt was clutching the hand of a young woman. Were she and Sam . . . ?

  Laurie couldn’t watch. She felt sickened by the irony of the words coming out of Sam’s mouth. How dare he speak of love? How dare he sound like he meant every word? How dare he be connected to Rachel? Rachel was her new aunt and here he was spoiling everything.

  Laurie couldn’t help herself watching him finish the reading and come and sit back in the pew, as if he were the head of the family. She watched Rachel lean over and kiss him. Then, as she watched the woman next to him smile sadly and stroke his cheek, a part of her withered inside.

  Then the service was over and she was on her feet moving towards the end of the pew where Rachel was waiting. She looked so serene in her black dress and hat, and her eyes had a misty quality to them that was almost beyond tears.

  ‘Laurie,’ she said, stretching out both her hands. ‘This is Claire.’

  Laurie forced her head to turn robotically to the pretty woman next to Rachel. Claire. Of course it was Claire. When Rachel had mentioned her the previous evening, it hadn’t even crossed her mind that it might be the Claire. But how could she have known? Sam had never told Laurie his girlfriend’s surname. And now, here she was, in the flesh.

  ‘Ah, you’re Laurie,’ Claire said.

  She’d been crying during the service and her eyes were puffy and her nose blotchy, but even so, Laurie could tell that she had flawless skin and the kind of swishy long dark hair that could only be achieved with extremely regular visits to a salon. In fact, the more Laurie studied her new relation, the more she could tell that Claire was a different breed of woman from her entirely. She was the type that Sam had once claimed he despised: the manicured type, the type whose outside mattered more than the inside. Nevertheless, Laurie immediately felt old and unfashionable next to her.

  A hundred questions filled Laurie’s head. What if Sam had told her? What if Claire knew all about their affair? What if she made a scene? Laurie felt desperate. She didn’t want her credibility blown with Rachel, especially not here.

  ‘I’m sorry about Tony,’ Laurie said, her voice croaking unattractively as she shook Claire’s hand. She could tell Claire was scrutinising her, but she couldn’t tell how much she knew about her. ‘It must be terrible for you . . .’

  She mumbled herself into silence, but Claire didn’t seem to mind. Instead, she tugged enthusiastically at Sam’s arm.

  ‘This is my husband, Sam,’ she said, pulling Sam forward. ‘And you’ll meet Archie, our son, later. He’s at the house. We didn’t think we should bring him . . . Sam, this is her, this is Laurie, the mystery cousin.’

  Sam Delamere. After all this time, in the most unexpected place imaginable, Laurie was face to face with her ex-lover. And he was married. To her. To Claire. The girl he’d claimed he didn’t love, but clearly did. And they had a child.

  In all the times Laurie had imagined seeing Sam again, she had never once considered that he would be a father. The knowledge filled her with such a surge of foolish jealousy that she had to clamp her hand shut to overcome her desire to slap his face.

  ‘How nice to meet you, Laurie,’ he said. The familiarity of the way he said her name filled her with anger, her sense of betrayal threatening to engulf her. For one moment, she was tempted to say something facetious, to blow his cover and expose him. She could feel Rachel watching her and time seemed to stop. She imagined turning to Rachel and telling her that she knew all about Sam. That he was a liar. A cheat. A breaker of promises.

  Instead, she found herself scooped up into his net of lies. Dismayed and powerless, she fell in with his face-saving strategy, hardly betraying any of the tension she felt. She forced herself to meet his outstretched hand with her own sweating palm. As they touched, the surface of her skin flushed with goose pimples.

  ‘Hi,’ she said. She only managed to look at his chest.

  ‘We’re going to the crematorium,’ Rachel said.

  ‘Just the close family,’ Claire added. ‘But obviously you’re welcome . . .’

  Laurie shook her head.

  ‘There’s at least two cars,’ Rachel said, appealing to her, but her usual clear-headedness seemed to have vanished, as if she’d let go and Claire was now in charge.

  ‘I think it’s better if I see you back at the house,’ Laurie mumbled, as Claire linked arms with Rachel to gently chaperone her down the aisle.

  ‘Are you sure, Laurie?’ Claire asked, her look concerned. Laurie smiled feebly and nodded. ‘Then we’ll chat later,’ Claire said over her shoulder, as she passed. ‘We won’t be long.’

  Then, as Sam stepped in behind them, he looked at Laurie. Just for one second. The merest glance, but still it hit her as if he’d fired a shot from a pistol straight into her chest at point-blank range. She watched in slow motion as he blinked and walked away from her.

  Of course she’d run away. There’d been no other choice. She’d been too dismayed by the cruel coincidence, too baffled and shaken up by the twist of fate that had thrown Sam in her path again. There had been no way she’d have been able to face Rachel or to have made small talk with Claire.

  As soon as she’d returned to the safety of her life in London, she’d decided to cut Rachel out of her life for good. Her father had been right. She’d lived for long enough without Rachel to know that she could do it perfectly well. What good could possibly come out of being connected to a family of which Sam was such a central part? Instead, she’d forced herself to focus instead on James and on moving out of the flat before Mike and Tamsin took it over as their own.

  But still Laurie had been angry. She hadn’t told anyone about her meeting with Sam, but his presence in her life again festered inside her, refusing to go away. And then she’d told her father about going to the funeral and his stubbornness had just made her more confused.

  And then right in the middle of it all, Rachel had called and had offered her the use of her villa in Mallorca for a couple of months. Laurie had been dismayed by the timing of her aunt’s call. She hadn’t given her a decision straight away, but as she put the phone down, a sadistic, nasty, but nevertheless delicious thought struck Laurie. Taking Rachel up on her offer was the perfect way to get at Sam. The perfect punishment for everything he’d done.

  The fact that she was Rachel’s newly favoured niece, the fact that she would be right under Sam’s nose – not that she had any intention of seeing him – would mean that he’d be reminded every day of his deceit. Her presence in Mallorca would make him squirm, and for once, he’d be the one plagued by questions. Yes, she thought, she would give Sam Delamere a taste of his own medicine.

  Which is why she’d called Rachel back and gratefully accepted her offer. The very next day, with James’s help, she’d moved her stuff out of the flat into storage and she’d felt immediately better. She had a house for the summer and James promised that he’d be out to see her as soon as he could find a break in his schedule.

  But now, as she lay in the sea, Laurie’s cold-hearted need to get at Sam didn’t equate to the reality of being in Rachel’s home. It had already wrong-footed her and she’d only been here for an hour.

  Laurie put her feet down in the water and swept her hair back from her face and stood up. She shouldn’t get sunburnt on her first day, but she felt better for floating for ages. She walked slowly out of the water, feeling resolute. She’d made her choice to accept Rachel’s offer; whether through desperation, revenge or greed, or a mixture of
all three, she was here now. And she was here to work.

  It was only when she went to pick up her sarong that she saw that somebody was on their way down the path from the house. As Laurie snatched up the sarong to cover her body, she recognised the swishy-haired designer-clad figure, waving excitedly. And, with a sinking sense of dread, she suddenly realised the hidden cost of staying at Sa Costa: Claire Delamere had come to pay her a visit.

  Chapter VIII

  Stepmouth, April 1953

  Most of the men Tony knew – from school, the pub and snooker halls – only talked about practical matters: where to go, how to get there and what to do when they did. They were always busy breaking things, or making things, or grunting at each other over diagrams and illustrations of things. Either that or getting so drunk that they didn’t have to think or talk about anything at all.

  Girls, though, girls seemed to be able to talk about anything. Even stuff that wasn’t there to touch. Like moods and dreams and gossip. Give a girl an hour and she could fill it with words. And Tony loved that most of all: the listening. It was what he missed most about school. He’d been a good student and would easily have passed his exams, if he hadn’t been kicked out. Even now, he read a couple of books – novels, histories, travel journals – each week. He loved learning new things and hearing about places he’d never been.

  And that was why he loved being around his new boss, Emily Jones, who could talk faster than a horse-race commentator, and who’d seen more than Tony Glover could even imagine.

  ‘Not that Jones is strictly my name any more, you understand.’

  It was mid-morning and Tony and Emily were sitting on the back doorstep of the Sea Catch Café. Potato peelings were piled up like wood shavings at their booted feet, next to a dented metal bucket full of peeled spuds. River water chuckled by at the end of the yard and the sun beat down from a clear sky.

  ‘Not in the eyes of God,’ Emily continued. She was wearing loose-fitting jeans and a white short-sleeved shirt, which she’d tied in a knot at her waist. ‘Not the way Mum sees it. According to her, you marry a man and you take his name and you do it for life. Even if that man is one she thoroughly disapproves of. And even if that man turns out to be a total prick.’

  Tony gagged on the swig of hot sweet tea he’d just taken. Emily was talking about her ex-husband, Buck, the American soldier she’d married and moved to America to be with after the war (and whom she’d subsequently divorced and returned home to escape).

  ‘I said that last bit, of course, not her,’ Emily added. ‘And not to her face, of course, because that would only have made her cry. Not that Mum would probably even know what a prick was,’ she reflected. ‘Not if it came up and shook her by the hand. Not that it would.’

  Tony snorted with laughter.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ she asked, taking a long contemplative drag on her cigarette.

  But she was smirking, too, because she already knew exactly what it was: the swearing, the lavatory humour. She’d picked it up from cooking in Buck’s uncle’s New Jersey restaurant six nights a week, fifty-two weeks a year. And now there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it. The same as the accent, it had stuck.

  ‘Nope, Mum says God doesn’t recognise divorce, and so neither does she. According to her, my name’s still Emily Drane. And will stay that way till the day I die. Drane,’ she said sourly. ‘I ask you. With a surname like that, you’d have thought I’d have guessed that Buck would turn out to be full of shit.’

  Tony smiled. ‘Would you ever marry again?’ he asked, accepting the lipstick-stained Pall Mall cigarette she passed to him.

  ‘Maybe. If the right guy came along. But it’s not something I’m planning on rushing into.’ A blackbird burst from the cherry tree in the centre of the yard. Blossom exploded like flak into the air. ‘Nope, once bitten, twice shy, that’s me.’

  Tony brushed a fleck of ash off his baggy blue kitchen trousers. ‘What about dates?’

  ‘Why?’ she asked coyly. ‘Do you know someone who’s going to ask me out on one?’

  Tony blushed. Talking to his new boss about this kind of thing was taking some getting used to. All her parents had ever really done was order him around. ‘No,’ he said, ‘but someone’s sure to. They’d be crazy not to,’ he added truthfully. If he’d been a few years older, and not so preoccupied with someone else right now, he might even have tried his luck himself.

  ‘If someone did and I liked them well enough, I’d probably go. Only I wouldn’t go mistaking fun for love this time, you know? Not like with Buck. How about you? Have you asked Rachel Vale out yet?’

  The question caught Tony off guard. His heart punched his ribcage. He stared at her, baffled.

  This time, it was her who was grinning. ‘Because it’s only a matter of time before you do,’ she went on. ‘Or she asks you . . .’ She nudged him teasingly. ‘Come on, don’t be so uptight. I saw the way you two were looking at each other when she called round. Or not looking at each other, which is even more obvious . . .’

  Tony’s mind spun back, remembering how excruciatingly awkward it had been, the two of them, him and Rachel, alone in the café, while Emily had gone to fetch the nylons. He remembered the nylons, too, and how he’d felt lying awake in his grandad’s shack that night, picturing Rachel in the arms of someone else at the dance he hadn’t gone to, because he’d had no money to spend. He’d imagined how the nylons might have felt to touch . . . and how her warm skin might have felt beneath . . .

  ‘I bet she’d say yes,’ Emily declared. ‘I bet she’s sitting at home right now, hoping you’re going to call round and ask. And you should, you know. Because she won’t wait around for ever, a pretty girl like that. Before you know it, there’ll be someone else knocking on her door and you’ll have missed your chance.’

  ‘How do you know they haven’t already?’ It was the first time he’d admitted to anyone that he’d given Rachel a second thought. It felt like walking on rotten floorboards that could give at any second.

  ‘I don’t. And neither do you.’

  ‘Forget it,’ he said, as much to himself as her. ‘It would never work.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because there are things about me and the Vale family that you don’t understand.’

  ‘Like what your brother did to Mr Vale? Like Mrs Vale ending up in that wheelchair? Or Bill Vale blaming you because your brother’s no longer here to hate?’

  ‘So you’ve heard.’ Of course she would have. This town was too small for secrets. Just because he’d never discussed it with her didn’t mean she wouldn’t have already found out.

  ‘Dad told me,’ she admitted.

  ‘Then you’ll also know why nothing’s ever going to happen between me and Rachel.’

  ‘Dad also said you were a good kid. A hard worker. And I happen to agree.’

  ‘Some people don’t see it that way.’

  ‘Like Bill Vale?’

  ‘And his mother.’

  ‘But not Rachel?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He remembered sitting with Rachel on the wall of St Jude’s Cemetery after he’d fought with Cunningham. Could it really have been jealousy that had made her throw that paint? Or was he kidding himself even to hope that? ‘Maybe,’ he said.

  ‘So find out.’

  He flicked the cigarette away. He didn’t want to find out, in case he found out he was wrong.

  ‘You’ve got to think positive,’ she said, as if reading his thoughts.

  He wished she was right: that enthusiasm would be enough to make it happen. Because he did want to see Rachel again, just to talk to her, even if only to see her smile one more time.

  ‘Bill would kill me if I even went near her,’ he said.

  ‘Not if you had a good enough reason, he wouldn’t . . .’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  But Emily was already standing and stretching, smoothing her jeans down. ‘Time we got back to work,’ she said.

/>   An armoury of pans hung from the kitchen rafters. Bunches of basil, rosemary, parsley and thyme were laid out on the worktop, making the air smell soupy and dense. Emily inspected the thin strips of linguine which she’d supervised Tony painstakingly rolling out on the stained wooden chopping board before they’d gone out for their break. He’d only ever seen pasta in a can before.

  Without being asked, he pulled down a deep pan and half filled it with cold water. Guy Mitchell was singing ‘Look at that Girl’ on the crackling radio and Tony hummed along as he set about quartering the potatoes so they’d cook quicker, dropping them one by one into the pan. They lay there submerged, like scoops of vanilla ice cream.

  ‘Cattle food on,’ he announced, setting the pan on the stove.

  Cattle. That’s what Emily called the tourists who came to eat in the Sea Catch Café. Cattle, because they acted like a herd. And cattle, because all they wanted to do was eat the same old food day in, year out.

  The sepia menu in the café’s window hadn’t changed in the eight years that Emily had spent in America. All the dreary British staples were present and correct: tea and biscuits, jam and toast, and not forgetting, of course, potatoes. Potatoes with everything: fried potatoes with liver and onion; boiled potatoes with cabbage and tripe; chipped potatoes with fish on a Friday; mashed potatoes with chicken on Sunday.

  ‘We’re going to change all that,’ Emily had informed Tony the first day her mother had agreed to let her take over the kitchen. ‘Little by little. You and me, Tony, working as a team, we’re going to teach these people how to eat.’

  Previously, all his chores had been menial: floor scrubbing, vegetable prepping, washing up. The cooking had been done by Emily’s mother, while Emily’s father had managed the café.