What's Yours Is Mine (8 page)

My hand trembles as I raise my glass to my lips. Already she's weaving her web, inserting herself into other people's lives, whether they realize it or not. I paid for her
to come home because I felt it was the right thing to do, because I'm her sister, because despite everything I love her and I couldn't bear the thought of her losing her mother without having had the chance to say goodbye. But now I wish I'd never picked up the phone.

“Will you be seeing Davey and Donny while you're over?” I ask overloudly. “Or will you be
too busy
with everything else to have time to drop in on your sons?”

“It's not about what I want, Grace,” Susannah says coolly. “It's about what's best for them.”

I can't help a snort of derision. “Since when?”

“I don't want to get into it now. If you had kids of your own, you'd understand.”

It surprises me every time. The pain. I've learned to avoid the obvious dangers—I cross the road so I don't have to walk past the Mothercare store, I time my journeys to avoid the school run—but I'm still ambushed a hundred, a thousand, times a day. A lost pacifier in the street. A pregnant woman on the Tube. A child screaming at the supermarket checkout, a TV ad for Pampers, a leaflet through the door about family insurance. Every single time it's as raw and bitter and new as the day I walked out of Janus' surgery.

“If I had kids of my own,” I spit, “they wouldn't have been living with complete strangers for the past five years while I spent my time screwing anything in trousers.”

This time, the silence is absolute.

“Grace—”

“Oh, come on, Tom!” I cry, rounding on him. “Don't
tell me you're defending what she did! She walked out on those boys! She left them; she dumped them in foster care, so she could run off to America with her new boyfriend. She's been here for weeks and hasn't even
tried
to see them!”

“Grace, we can discuss this later.”

Susannah is staring at the table, as if fascinated by the wood grain. Her face is pale, with two high spots of color on her cheeks.

My anger leeches away as abruptly as it flared. I feel sick at heart.

I stand up and smile stiffly. “I'm so sorry. Will you all excuse me? I think I'll make myself some tea and go to bed. I really do have a bit of a headache.”

In the kitchen, I lean against the counter and briefly close my eyes, hot with shame.
How could I say that?
Even if it's true, how could I say that, in front of everyone? What is it about my sister that brings out the worst in me?

It's not your fault. She'll understand, when you explain everything. She knows she's made mistakes. All she's looking for is a second chance
.

“Oh, Mum,” I whisper. “Why aren't you here when I need you?”

This isn't about Susannah, not really. I hate what she's done, but I love her, truly I do. She just reminds me fiercely of all I've lost; of all I can never have. To throw her motherhood away so carelessly—I can't bear it.

“What is it, Grace?” Claudia asks softly from the doorway.

I press the heels of my hands against my eyes. “I'm just tired. I need to get some sleep.”

Claudia takes the kettle from my hands. “Grace, I know what you're thinking. I'm exactly the same when my brother comes home. Susannah is interesting and different, but she isn't you.”

It's not a competition. Only you ever thought it was
.

I laugh shortly. “You sound like my mother.”

“I know how hard this has been on you. You and Catherine were so close—”

“
Are
so close. We
are
so close.”

She flushes. “Of course, I didn't mean—I'm sorry.” She hesitates. “Look, Grace, is there something else? Something you're not telling me? I don't want to pry, but you haven't seemed like yourself for weeks. If it's about Tom, you know you can tell me. I won't say a word to Blake—”

“It's not Tom.” I bite my lip. “Well, not in the way you mean.”

Claudia waits. She has an extraordinary way of making you feel like you have all the time in the world; that you are the only person in her life who matters at this moment.

“I didn't tell you,” I say. “I couldn't—I wanted to, but I couldn't. It was about me and Tom, and I was so sure I could fix it—and then I couldn't, but you were pregnant … how could I tell you then, how could I ruin it all for you—”

She wraps her arms around me, and finally it all spills out as I sob into her shoulder: the waiting; the tests; the
hard, inescapable truth that I will never have a child of my own. After all these weeks of bottling it up, trying not to burden Tom with my grief when he is already dealing with his own, it's such a relief to finally tell someone.

“If only you'd said something.” Claudia sighs, when I've finally finished and have reached the ragged, hiccupping stage. “I can't bear to think that you went through this alone.”

“I had Tom.”

She hands me a box of tissues. “Yes. You had Tom. So, what will you do now? Adopt?”

“No. I'll get a cat. Lots of cats. I'll be the lady with the cats, I'll smell of pee and die alone, with my cats. Children will cross the road when they see me coming.”

“They already do. Grace,” she says, quietly, to be sure I'm listening. “Grace, you know I'd have a baby for you if you asked. After the current tenant has vacated, of course,” she adds, glancing down at her belly. “I mean it. You know that, don't you?”

For a moment, I'm too moved to speak.

I blow my nose noisily. “Forget it. They'd never let an old crone like you be a surrogate. You'll be forty at Christmas. Your eggs are practically on walkers.”

“I make beautiful babies,” Claudia says, mock-indignantly.

“Yes. You do.”

She gives my hand a quick squeeze. “And you make a beautiful godmother.”

I'm about to make a snappy reply, something witty
involving coaches and horses and fairy godmothers, but my attention is caught by a movement in the darkened hallway. My sister has her back to me. She's standing on tiptoe, her short black skirt
—my
black skirt, I realize—riding up as she flings her arms around Tom's neck.

I have no idea what she's so excited about, but knowing Susannah, it can only lead to trouble.

Grace is seriously pissed off at me. I can always tell. God knows why: these are all her bloody friends. You'd think she'd be pleased I've organized this party. If things were left to her, she'd have no social life at all.

She gulps back her wine, glaring at me over the rim of her glass. I ignore her, and turn my baby blues on Blake instead.

“I'm thinking of giving up tattooing anyway,” I say, treating him to an unrestricted view of my cleavage.

He swallows. “Oh? What'll you do instead?”

“Lap dancing,” I deadpan.

I could pole dance around Blake's cock, judging from the expression on his face. If I crook my little finger, he'll come running, gorgeous pregnant wife or not. Men. They're all the same.

Grace's eyes bore into me. God, she's so fucking
anal
. She looks like she's got a broom stuck up her arse, and if she grips that glass any tighter, it'll shatter. It's not my fault she's got the hots for Blake; not that she'll ever admit
it. I don't want to rain on her parade, but he'd never give her a second glance in a million years. She's
so
not his type. Even if she did throw caution to the winds and open her legs, who'd want to have a fling with a goody-two-shoes like her? Blake must get enough of that missionary-position, no-swallowing crap at home.

“Susannah doesn't need a job,” Grace blurts out suddenly. “She's not going to be staying much longer.”

Uhh-ohh.

“Grace!” Tom exclaims.

“Well, she can't stay here forever. She has a life to go back to. A job. I'm sure she wants to get back to the sunshine as soon as she can.”

“Actually, Grace,” I say, crossing my fingers and hoping she doesn't totally freak out. “About that. Me staying here, I mean. There's a bit of a problem with my visa …”

I was right to tell her in front of everyone, I think. Grace always knows when I've pulled a fast one. She'd have chucked me out on the street if we'd been on our own. But because her friends are here, she keeps quiet. Poor, pathetic Grace. Always needing to be
liked
.

Tom and Claudia try heroically to steer the conversation back into calmer waters, but it's a lost cause. I brace myself. It takes a lot to make my uptight big sister lose her cool, but when she does, she flips big-time.

“Susannah had a place at the Slade,” Tom is enthusing. “I think you did a year or two, didn't you?”

I flick open my cigarettes. “I left at the end of my first year.”

“Oh, yes. You got pregnant with Davey, didn't you?” Grace snaps.

Bitch. She didn't have to tell everyone. That baby cost me my career.

I'd never have got pregnant at all if Brady hadn't gone on and on about how much he wanted to be a father, what beautiful babies we'd make. OK, he didn't actually
tell
me to come off the Pill, but that's clearly what he meant. He was thirty-seven, nearly twice my age; I figured he was ready to settle down. Talk about naive. He kept saying how thrilled he was, until one day he stopped being quite so thrilled, and ran for the hills. He didn't even pack.

By then, I was seven months pregnant, too late for an abortion. So there I was: nineteen, stuck in a crappy bedsit on my own with a screaming baby. Mum helped out with money, but Dad didn't even talk to me for a year.

“Will you be seeing Davey and Donny while you're over?” Grace demands now. “Or will you be
too busy
with everything else to have time to drop in on your sons?”

Great. Rub it in that I fucked up
twice
, why don't you?

“It's not about what I want, Grace. It's about what's best for them.”

“Since when?” she sneers.

It's so goddamned easy for her, isn't it? Amazing Grace, mistress of all she surveys. Perfect life, perfect house, perfect husband, perfect job. She doesn't know what it's like to have everything you touch turn to shit. She's got no idea what it's like to be alone. She's always had Tom. She's never had to struggle for anything, it's all just been handed
to her on a plate. No doubt when she decides she's got time in her perfect little life for a couple of perfect children, she'll have them on demand, a boy and a girl, born bang on their due dates so she can get right back to work.

I didn't
want
to give up my kids. I didn't have any choice. My marriage to Donny's father had broken up before Donny was even born, and he didn't pay a fucking penny in child support. I'd like to see how Grace would've coped. Where was she when I was stuck in that crappy council flat with two screaming kids, no money, no job, and no bloody man? I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat; I was down to less than six stone, and some days I couldn't even face getting out of bed. Grace never even came to visit me in the hospital after I OD'd on my antidepressants and had to have my stomach pumped. So, she paid for a private room. So what? I'd just lost my kids—Social Services stuck them into foster care before I'd even come around—and needed a bit of TLC from my sister, not a fucking open checkbook.

I stub out my cigarette, my hand shaking. “I don't want to get into it now,” I say. “If you had kids of your own, you'd understand.”

“If I had kids of my own,” Grace snaps, “they wouldn't have been living with complete strangers for the past five years while I spent my time screwing anything in trousers.”

Nobody breathes. I bite my lip, unable to believe she just said that, in front of everyone. How
could
she?

Does she think I
wanted
to fuck up my life? That I used
to lie in bed when I was a little girl and dream of reaching the age of thirty-four with three divorces under my belt, a father who hasn't spoken to me in ten years, and two boys by two different men who wouldn't recognize me if they passed me on the street? Some happy-ever-after. I haven't done a single worthwhile thing in my entire life; except, perhaps, letting my sons go so they could have a chance of a better life without me.

“She didn't mean any of that,” Tom says, as Grace runs into the house.

“Yes, she did, Tom.”

Claudia stands up. “Let me go and talk to her.”

“Grace isn't herself at the moment.” Tom sighs, as Claudia goes inside. “She's been having a difficult time recently. She's just lashing out, and you're an easy target.”

I push back my chair. “She's right. I can't stay here forever. The doctors have no idea when Mum's going to wake up, and you don't need a permanent houseguest. I'll go in the morning.”

“Don't be silly. It'll blow over. Anyway, where would you go?”

He has a point. But I don't want to stay, not if it's going to be like this. I'd rather take my chances with U.S. Immigration. I thought Mum being sick might bring us closer together, but Grace is just a total bitch. To think I actually felt sorry for her at the hospital because she was so upset about Mum! I can't believe we're even related, never mind sisters. We're not friends. We're never going to be. The sooner I leave, the better for all concerned.

I go into the house, pausing only to get a new pack of smokes from my bag on the hall table. There's a low murmur of voices in the kitchen; and then I hear the sound of someone sobbing.
Grace
.

OK, I know I shouldn't listen. But Grace crying? Grace
never
cries. Not even when our marmalade kitten, Orlando, climbed into the wheel arch of next-door's car for a nap and got turned into roadkill when Mr. Tanner left for work. Buttoned-up, freaky-calm Grace doesn't do excessive displays of emotion. She'd spontaneously combust before she lost it over a man.