My Sister's Lies

by S. D. Robertson

  ‘Oh, hello,’ he said to a barrel-chested man, who looked to be somewhere in his late fifties or early sixties. He was a little shorter than Mark but stood ramrod straight in jeans and a tight black T-shirt that emphasised his soaring broad shoulders and a set of biceps like cannons. There was a sizeable gut there too, but he carried it well, oozing strength and self-confidence. What little remained of his balding white hair was shaved short; his skin had the kind of brown, leathery hue that spoke of years spent outside in the sun.

  ‘I’m looking for Diane Wells,’ Mark said after his initial greeting failed to elicit any further response. Realising that his smart business attire might be giving the wrong impression about his reason for calling by, particularly if Diane was in financial trouble, he added: ‘I’m her brother-in-law, Mark Cook. Mia’s currently saying with me and my wife, Hannah, in Manchester.’

  The explanation appeared to work, as the man’s face softened before Mark’s eyes. ‘Oh, right,’ he said, his lips rising very slightly on one side in an almost-smile. ‘Hello, in that case. I’m Rod. I live next door.’

  Seizing the moment, Mark held out his right hand. ‘Pleased to meet you, Rod,’ he said.

  With a subtle nod of his head, Rod reached out and accepted the handshake, almost crushing Mark’s fingers in the process. ‘You too. Matt, did you say?’

  ‘Mark.’

  ‘Right. Diane mentioned that Mia was staying with relatives up in Manchester for a bit.’ He squinted at Mark as he continued: ‘She didn’t say anything about anyone coming to visit, though.’

  ‘No, she wouldn’t have. I happened to be working nearby as a last-minute thing, so I thought I’d surprise her. It doesn’t look like she’s home, though. I don’t suppose you have any idea where she is, do you? I was about to phone her mobile …’

  Rod shrugged. ‘Sorry, no idea.’ He turned around and scanned up and down the street for a moment. ‘Nope. Can’t see her car.’

  Of course, Mark thought. Why hadn’t he checked for the white Astra? He could picture Diane in it now, driving away from him in that Manchester car park, having handed over her incendiary letter.

  ‘Is she usually out at this time, or—’

  Rod frowned. ‘I’m her neighbour, not her keeper, son. I have better things to do than monitor her every move.’

  ‘What about work?’ Mark was on treacherous ground here, since all he’d gleaned about her job these days was that it involved recruitment; knowing so little might sound odd to Rod’s ears.

  Diane had had various roles during the time he’d known her up north – mainly office-based – but none had lasted particularly long. The only occasion he could remember her staying in one place for any significant period had been the job she’d been doing when she fell pregnant, which had been something to do with insurance. She’d timed that just right to get her maternity entitlement and then, thanks to the office being relocated, had picked up a redundancy payment only a few weeks after returning to work. Otherwise, she’d flitted from one job to another, quickly growing bored of whatever she was doing and moving on. Whether that was still the case today or she’d found herself a proper career, he had no idea.

  ‘What about it?’ Rod asked, helpfully.

  ‘Could she be there now?’

  ‘Possibly. I don’t think she’s been at work much recently, though. When we bumped into each other the other day, she said she hadn’t been feeling well. She looked under the weather too. I assumed that was why Mia was staying with you, to be honest.’

  ‘Right,’ Mark said, nodding his head like he knew what Rod was talking about.

  Realising this conversation wasn’t getting him anywhere, he reached for his mobile. ‘I’d probably best try calling her again, then.’

  But before he had a chance to do so, he heard the sound of a car and looked up to see Diane’s Vauxhall pulling into a spare space on the street. For a long moment she stared at him wide-eyed from behind the wheel, barely moving; then she stepped out of the car and found a smile to paint over her confusion.

  ‘Mark!’ she said, approaching him and his new acquaintance while slowly shaking her head. ‘Well, this is a surprise.’ Her smile vanished as quickly as it had arrived when she asked him, frowning: ‘Is everything okay in Manchester? Is Mia all right?’

  ‘Yes, she’s absolutely fine,’ Mark replied. ‘There’s nothing to worry about. That’s not why I’m here.’

  Relief washed over her face. ‘Good. You had me worried for a moment.’

  Turning to her neighbour, she said: ‘Hello, Rod. I see you’ve met my, um, brother-in-law. I would have mentioned to you that he was coming, but er—’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Rod replied. ‘He already told me you weren’t expecting him. I actually thought he was up to no good when I spotted him poking around, but – well – I’m glad to see his story holds up. Anyway, I’ll leave you both to it. I’m on my way to the offie for some beers. Feeling any better today, love?’

  Diane, dressed in skinny jeans and a green tank top, smiled at him. ‘Yes, not too bad, thanks.’

  On the contrary, Mark thought she looked pretty rough: pasty-skinned in the absence of make-up, noticeably thinner than her sister and with dark bags under eyes that spoke of several sleepless nights.

  ‘I suppose you’d better come in,’ she told Mark in a quiet, monotone voice once Rod had strode off along the pavement. ‘Then you can explain what the hell you’re doing here.’

  CHAPTER 11

  Mia Wells looked across the table of the restaurant at her aunt and smiled. She was so like her mum and yet, at the same time, so very different. This thought seemed to bob to the surface every time she found herself alone with her, like an obstacle to them getting along: a constant reminder her mum wasn’t there.

  Maybe this was why she’d found it easier to click with her uncle so far, even though he was around a lot less and was generally less chatty. There was also the fact that, until recently, Hannah and her mum hadn’t spoken for such a long time. Mia had no idea what had gone on between them. Her mum had refused to say. But it must have been something pretty major to last all these years – and for this reason part of her felt like getting too close would be a betrayal.

  Her mum had specifically told her not to think this way, mind. ‘Don’t you worry about what went on between us,’ she’d said in the car on the way up to Manchester from Bournemouth. ‘It’s ancient history and not something you should think about.’

  ‘But I don’t know her,’ Mia had replied. ‘She’s never even sent me a birthday or Christmas present. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t have an aunt.’

  ‘That’s not fair,’ her mum had retaliated, much to Mia’s surprise. It was the first time she’d ever heard her defend her sister. ‘Hannah and Mark both spent a lot of time with you when you were little. I’m the one who ended that by moving away and cutting off all ties with them. They don’t even know where we live to send you a present.’

  ‘Well, Grandad does. They could have gone via him, couldn’t they?’

  ‘No, they couldn’t actually. He’s always refused to get involved or to be any kind of middleman. He’s so determined to stay neutral, he avoids even talking about either of us to the other.’

  Remembering this conversation, Mia realised she really ought to give her aunt more of a chance. Since she’d been in Manchester – effectively thrust upon her without warning – Hannah had shown her nothing but kindness and hospitality. She’d even helped her to find a friend around her own age in Todd. This evening, with Mark away down south, she’d offered to take Mia out for tea at a restaurant of her choice in the city centre.

  She’d picked a burger place in the Northern Quarter that Todd had mentioned eating at once on a previous visit. Hannah hadn’t looked particularly thrilled at this outcome, but she’d gone along with it nonetheless and now here they were, each staring at a menu, trying to make up their minds what to eat.

  ‘So what are you going to have, Mia?’ Hannah aske
d her. ‘There’s certainly a good choice of burgers, isn’t there?’

  ‘There are other things too, on the back of the menu,’ Mia replied, pointing her aunt in the right direction. ‘You know, if a burger isn’t your thing. But I think I’ll go for one with cheese and bacon.’

  After the waiter had taken their order, with Hannah opting for fish and chips, Mia felt her mobile vibrate in her pocket. She almost reached for it, keen to see who was contacting her, but managed to resist, adhering to her aunt’s rule of no mobiles at the table. The last thing she wanted was to have it confiscated again, as her mum had done on the way up here when she’d answered her back one too many times, sulking about being taken away from her friends back home.

  But now she wondered if the message actually was from her mother, perhaps in response to Mark’s visit. It wouldn’t be before time, if so. She’d barely been in touch at all since leaving her here alone so unexpectedly. Mia hadn’t heard a peep from her since that one brief phone call last week. She had ‘really important things to sort out’ apparently, whatever that meant. It was all very weird – not least the part about her staying with her estranged aunt and uncle. But Mia preferred not to think about it, because doing so only made her anxious. She’d been there, done that too many times already over the past week or so. It led to her coming up with all kinds of scary potential explanations – and she didn’t want to go there any more.

  Her mum, who’d uncharacteristically burst into tears when they’d first spoken about it in private, had made it abundantly clear she didn’t want to share the details with her daughter. She obviously had her reasons for this. From what Mia had gathered during her time with them so far, Hannah and Mark were similarly in the dark.

  As much as she wanted to get home to her friends, her bedroom and all her stuff, Mia now figured the best thing she could do was bide her time here until her mum had got herself sorted. For a while, mainly at the beginning of her stay in Manchester, she had secretly been considering running back home. The desire to do so had been particularly strong during Diane’s initial period of silence, before she’d eventually phoned her and apologised for not being in touch sooner.

  Even after that, Mia hadn’t ruled out heading home under her own steam, largely due to worrying about her mum and feeling lonely. That first time she’d gone to Central Library alone, she’d even made a detour to the bus and train stations in order to familiarise herself with them just in case. The money her mum had put into her bank account could fund a ticket if necessary. However, she’d knocked this plan on the head, at least for the time being, after finding a friend in Todd and learning of her uncle’s own trip down to Bournemouth to check on Diane.

  ‘Have you heard anything from, er, Mark?’ she asked, stirring the straw in her lemonade so the ice made a clinking sound in her glass. She was glad her aunt and uncle had told her to call them by their first names, but it still felt a bit unnatural, particularly having known them for such a short time. At school she was used to having to call her teachers ‘Sir’ and ‘Miss’. The only other adults she tended to call by their first names were far more familiar, such as parents of her close friends.

  Hannah shook her head as she took a sip from her glass of white wine. ‘No,’ she replied with a satellite delay. ‘Not yet. I’m sure he’ll call later on, though. He should be in Bournemouth by now. Hopefully he’s with your mum.’

  Imagining her uncle down there, Mia was struck by an unexpected wave of homesickness: a longing for familiar surroundings; a desire not to miss any more of the beach parties her pals kept messaging her about; all of her pent-up concerns about her mum.

  ‘Sorry, I need the toilet,’ she told Hannah, disappearing before she said or did something embarrassing and, once there, locking herself in a cubicle and having a little cry.

  It wasn’t the first time this had happened since her mum had left her in Manchester, but previously she’d always been alone, usually in the privacy of her bedroom, late at night. After a couple of minutes, she pulled herself together, wiped away her tears with a tissue and strode out towards the sinks to splash some cold water on her reddened cheeks.

  Fortunately, none of the others in there asked if she was okay, which would have probably set her off again. She spent a few moments in front of the mirror tidying herself up. It was an easier job than it might have been, since she’d recently stopped wearing her dark make-up, having decided to take a break from all that while in Manchester. She’d been thinking of making a change to a more natural look for a little while. Doing so here, where she didn’t have to face the inevitable comments from her friends and her mum, was the perfect opportunity. It had always wound Mia up when her mum had disapprovingly referred to it as her ‘war paint’, like she had to Hannah when they’d first arrived here. How patronising was that? If anything, such comments had encouraged her to slap it on even thicker and darker. But her mum wasn’t around at the moment and Mia missed her more than she wanted to annoy her right now. Apparently it was true what they said about absence making the heart grow fonder.

  Mia and Diane had always been really close until the last few years, when they’d increasingly started to clash about things such as bedtimes and curfews, household chores, ‘respectful behaviour’ (one of her mum’s pet phrases), and not treating their home ‘like a hotel’ (another favourite). However, since Diane’s departure and subsequent lack of contact, Mia had increasingly found herself focusing on the countless good times they’d spent together over the years, rather than the negative stuff.

  There were so many happy memories: strolls and running races along the beach, plus the times they flew – and crashed – kites there on gusty days; watching the latest Pixar movies at the cinema while sharing a huge box of popcorn; that camping holiday in Cornwall where it rained so much one night that they had to abandon their tent and cuddle in the car.

  For some reason, Mia also kept thinking back to when she was eleven and, for months on end, the pair of them had become hooked on the feel-good American TV show Gilmore Girls. The appeal was obvious, since it was about a single mum and daughter with the perfect relationship. They were basically best friends. Diane had come home with the box set one day, saying she’d heard good things about it, and watching several episodes back-to-back on a Friday night had soon become their little ritual, often extending to Saturdays and Sundays. Mia remembered those times so fondly. And how she wished she and her mum had that same perfect relationship as the central characters, Lorelai and Rory. She’d settle for them being as close now as they had been when they’d watched it. Was it her fault things between them had changed? Was that why her mum had left her here in Manchester with her aunt and uncle?

  Mia shook her head clear of such thoughts and headed back to the table, but only after checking her phone to see who the message she’d received earlier was from. It turned out to be Todd, saying he hoped she liked the restaurant. She fired off a quick reply: So far, so good! :-)

  ‘Oh, there you are,’ Hannah said when she returned. ‘I was about to send out a search party.’ She smiled at Mia, but this quickly morphed into a look of concern. ‘Is everything all right, love? You look like—’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Mia snapped, more abruptly than intended. ‘I had something in my eye. It’s out now.’

  ‘Okay,’ Hannah replied. Her mouth opened a little, as if she was about to say something else. But instead she reached for her drink and took a slow sip, no longer meeting Mia’s gaze.

  Thankfully, a few seconds later their waiter returned with a plate of nachos smothered in melted cheese, sour cream and guacamole, which they’d ordered to share as a starter.

  ‘Wow, this looks good, doesn’t it?’ Hannah said, her wide smile giving away her relief at having something else to talk about other than her niece’s red eyes.

  ‘Definitely,’ Mia replied, smiling back in a bid to ease the tension.

  Digging into the large plate together, and both getting rather messy in the process, did wonders fo
r the mood at the table. Soon they were chatting away more comfortably than they had at any other time previously, discussing all sorts, from her day-to-day life in Bournemouth to places they’d both been or wanted to go on holiday. Somehow being there, just the two of them in a public space, rather than Hannah’s home, made all the difference. So much so that at certain moments it reminded Mia of being out with her mum – in a good way, when they were getting along well together – which in turn led to a few flashes of guilt. She did her best to ignore these, though, by focusing on the conversation.

  ‘So is Manchester like you expected?’ Hannah asked her after their mains arrived, to which she replied – honestly – that it was much nicer than she’d thought it would be.

  ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ she added, ‘I’d prefer it if there was a beach and it was a little warmer. But no, it’s a nice, friendly city – and there’s loads going on. I might even prefer it to London. I’ve only been there a few times with Mum, but it’s so big and impersonal, I don’t think I could ever feel at home there.’

  ‘So you could feel at home in Manchester, then?’ Hannah asked, grinning. ‘There are some excellent university options here … Just saying.’

  Mia was shocked to hear this. ‘University?’ she said. ‘I am only fourteen, you know. I’m not sure if I’m even … I don’t know. It’s so expensive too.’

  ‘I’m only pulling your leg, Mia. There are good universities all over the country. But you should definitely start thinking about it. I’m not saying it would be the right thing for you or not. What do I know? But you seem like a bright girl to me and getting a degree opens a lot of doors. It is expensive, I agree. I don’t approve of the tuition fees young people have to pay nowadays. It wasn’t like that for my generation, so I don’t see why it should be for yours. Do you have any idea what you’d like to do in terms of a job or is it too early for that?’

  Mia felt her face flush as she replied: ‘Um, I do, but you’ll probably think it’s silly.’