Rainy Day Sisters (9 page)

Her mother, obviously.
I spent three hundred thousand dollars on your education so you could pour people coffee?

Lucy had replied, as cheerfully as always, that it was a little more complicated than that. She could operate fairly complex machinery, after all. But she'd taken her mother's point. How could she not?

“In what subject?” Alex asked, and Lucy dragged her mind back to the conversation.

“Art. I know, I know. Most useless degree ever, but I really did want to have a career as a serious artist.”

“You still could,” Alex answered. “You're what, twenty-six? Not many people are making it professionally as artists by then.”

“My mother was.” Actually, her mother had been thirty when she'd gotten her big break, winning an emerging female artist award. Lucy braced herself for the obvious question about who her mother was, but Alex didn't ask.

“Well, like I said, you still have time,” he said after a moment, shrugging as he took a sip of coffee. Lucy felt a rush of relief that he wasn't going to press. Maybe he wasn't that interested.

They both lapsed into silence, and Lucy gazed out the rain-smeared window, wondering if she'd ever pick up a paintbrush again. The funny or perhaps the sad thing was, she didn't feel tempted to. She didn't miss painting, so maybe her mother had been right.
The brushwork is amateurish at best, revealing a lack of both focus and passion.

And the whole world had read that. The whole world knew she sucked at art.

“You're frowning.”

Lucy jerked her gaze back to Alex. “So are you,” she answered, and his usual scowl morphed into a small smile.

“So I am. I was thinking about Charlie. I really should take him to obedience school.”

He glanced away, and Lucy had the distinct feeling that he hadn't been thinking about Charlie at all. “No time, you said,” she said lightly.

“Right.”

“How long have you had him?”

“Eighteen months. He's seven, though. I got him from a rescue center. His last owner had died.”

“Eighteen months,” she repeated, and he nodded in answer to her silent question.

“Since Anna died. I got him for my two daughters, because they'd been begging for so long.” He glanced away again before turning back to her with a wry smile that wrapped right round her heart. “But a dog doesn't make up for a mother.”

“No.” Belatedly she registered what he'd said:
two
daughters. Just like Thomas had two sons. But it was stupid to compare Alex to Thomas; yes, they were both single dads, and yes, they both happened to be teachers. And yes, maybe they both had a bit of a pompous thing going on, but really, the similarities ended there. And in any case, she wasn't going to date Alex.

“Looks like it's clearing,” he said, nodding towards the window. The sun was emerging from behind wispy white clouds, and though the horizon was still dark, bits of blue were breaking through. Perhaps it was because of the discussion of her degree, but Lucy could suddenly imagine how she'd paint the scene: the contrasting darkness and light, the choppy waves breaking on the shore. She'd do it in oils, maybe, rather than her usual watercolors—an insipid medium, her mother had called it. But oils . . . thick, dark oils soaking into the canvas seemed right for such a scene of wild beauty.

“So it is.” She turned back to Alex, sensing the dismissal. Twenty minutes of small talk was all Alex was up for, although actually it had ended up not being all that small.

“I should head back.” He stood, awkwardly, and Lucy reached for her purse. “I'll pay for the coffees,” he said, and she glanced up, frowning.

“I was the one who—”

“I know, but I should have suggested it first,” he said firmly. “And a couple of coffees really isn't all that much.” He left enough change on the table to cover the coffees and they went out to collect the dogs, saying stilted good-byes over tangled leads before they finally managed to separate.

They ended up walking in the same direction back up the beach road, smiling self-consciously as they fell into step without speaking. The silence stretched on, even more awkward than their good-byes, and so when Milly and Molly stopped to sniff something in the bushes lining the road, Lucy indulged them, letting Alex walk far ahead of her before she tugged on their leads.

Juliet hadn't returned by the time she got back to Tarn House, dried off the dogs, and left her mud-caked Wellies out by the front step. She made herself a cup of tea and stood in the kitchen, the sun streaming through the window, and wondered what she should do. She didn't feel like kicking around Tarn House by herself, and so after finishing her tea and then giving the dogs treats to keep them occupied, she headed back out into the sunshine to explore a bit more of Hartley-by-the-Sea.

The village, she'd already surmised, was made up of only two main streets: the high street with the school, the pub, and the post office shop, and the beach road that stretched through sheep fields towards the sea. Lucy headed up the high street, past the Hangman's Noose and the school, to the top end she hadn't yet seen.

With the sun shining brightly and the sea glinting in the distance, the air fresh and clean, and the only sound the distant bleating of sheep, Lucy decided Hartley-by-the-Sea was just as charming as she'd hoped it would be.

It seemed hard to believe that just weeks ago she'd been in Boston, surrounded by strangers and high-rise buildings. Now she had sheep and the sea. And, as Juliet had told her, a decent fish-and-chip shop five miles away in Whitehaven.

Yet she wasn't missing the culture or restaurants or even a proper
caffé latte
as she continued up the high street, the road becoming both steeper and narrower, the houses now older, low-lying stone farmhouses with slate roofs and tumbled outbuildings, the sea twinkling like a promise when she glanced between them.

She felt as if she were going somewhere, although in reality she suspected the village's main street would peter out to yet more sheep fields. At least there would be a decent view, and she could certainly do with the exercise. And with each step she felt her mood improve, her natural optimism strengthening into determination. She could make this funny little life of hers in funny little Hartley-by-the-Sea work. She could make friends, even with the stony-faced Alex Kincaid, and she could do her job well and she could reconcile with Juliet.

It was the last thought that had her slowing her step, bending over, and resting her hands on her thighs as she tried to catch her breath. She could do it, she told herself. She could do it all. And she'd start today, when Juliet returned from Carlisle. Lucy had no idea how she'd broach that topic of conversation—
Why do you resent me?
seemed like a bit of a loaded question—but she was determined to try.

She wasn't running away anymore.

She was almost at the top of the street; the only buildings she could see ahead were a stucco-fronted bungalow that looked like an afterthought and an abandoned stone barn with its roof fallen in. She took the last few steps; as she'd suspected, the high street fell away to fields, but the long grass glinted gold in the sunlight, and from this vantage point she could see the sea stretching all the way to the horizon, flat and sparkling, and the hazy, violet shape of the Isle of Man in the distance.

A boy she recognized from school came careening around the bungalow, wearing a Manchester United jersey and kicking a battered soccer ball. He came up short at the sight of her.

“Hey there,” Lucy said cheerfully. She felt a sudden, overwhelming benevolence towards all of humanity, even this gap-toothed, tousle-headed kid.

He stared at her, nonplussed, and then he stuck out his tongue.

Lucy blinked in surprise and then she stuck out her tongue right back at him. He grinned, unexpectedly, before he kicked the football across the weedy garden and ran off after it.

She laughed aloud then, so thankful to feel genuine joy. She'd been miserable for so long, trapped by her mother's scorn and expectations, clinging to her optimism by her fingernails, always waiting for things to happen. For her art to take off. For Thomas to make their relationship more serious. For life to begin.

Well, it was beginning now. She'd just pushed the start button. Humming softly under her breath, she started down the street, back to Tarn House. Impulsively she ducked into the post office shop and bought a newspaper. Dan Trenton was at the till, looking as surly as ever.

“So what brought you to Cumbria?” Lucy asked, determined to make the man speak more than a monosyllable. “Or are you from here?”

He stared at her for a moment and then said, “I left the army after half my men were killed in a raid in Afghanistan.” His voice was as flat as his stare. “Found out my wife was cheating on me with my brother, and decided I needed to do something different.” Lucy stared at him openmouthed as he pushed twenty pence across the counter. “Here's your change.”

Juliet

JULIET HEARD THE FRONT
door open and then the sound of Lucy humming under her breath. Her half sister was in a good mood, apparently, or at least in a better mood than she was. She'd spent the hour drive from Carlisle alternating between despair and determination.

So the sperm donor thing probably wasn't going to work. The pregnancy thing wasn't going to work, not with her dodgy medical history. She veered away from that line of thinking, though, because to remember those bleak days alone in the hospital, everything in her aching, was a form of self-torture she did not intend to practice.

Anyway, she'd told herself as she drove past Workington, she was fine as she was. She enjoyed her work and her guests; she was a productive member of her community; she had a couple of friends. What was there to complain about?

By Whitehaven she'd had to pull into a lay-by. She'd pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes and drawn one long, shuddering breath. Then she dropped her hands, checked her mirrors, and pulled back onto the A595. She didn't think about anything at all for the five miles back to Hartley-by-the-Sea, and she was still wrapped in that much-needed numbness now as she tidied the kitchen—tea bag left in the sink, sugar sprinkled across the countertop—and heard Lucy come in.

“Juliet!” Her sister sounded happy to see her, which didn't make sense. “How was your appointment?” Lucy asked, and Juliet turned to the sink, taking her time to wring out a dish towel.

“Fine.” She kept her back to Lucy as she hung the towel on the rail of the Aga, made sure it was straight. “Would you mind putting the tea bags in the compost bin instead of leaving them in the sink?” It was a reasonable request, yet it was met with silence. She didn't trust herself just yet to turn around, and so she straightened the dish towel some more.

“Juliet . . .” Lucy's voice sounded soft and sad. “Do you . . . do you regret inviting me here?”

Oh, not this.
Not now.
Not when she was feeling so raw and revealed already. “Don't be stupid, Lucy,” she snapped, and then steeled herself to turn around. “I was just asking you to tidy up a bit.”

Luck blinked in that kicked-puppy way of hers that Juliet was really starting to dislike. “I know that. I didn't ask because of the tea bags. It's just that ever since I've arrived, you've been acting like you don't like having me here—”

“Oh, so it's my fault?” Juliet cut her off, the words exploding out of her with far too much anger. “I'm not welcoming enough, am I? Not spoiling you and saying ‘Poor Lucy, put your feet up while I get you a cuppa'?” Juliet heard the sneer in her voice and she knew Lucy did too. A distant part of her was shocked at the vitriol spewing out of her, and another part felt the relief of saying it all, like ripping a plaster off a wound. Painful but necessary. “I suppose you came here expecting to be coddled and fussed over. You've had
such
a hard time, with your mother slagging off your paintings. Poor,
poor
Lucy.” She shook her head, felt the ugly way her features had contorted, and couldn't seem to get her face back into its normal, sane shape. She turned away from Lucy, whose face had drained completely of color. Damned if she'd apologize. It was no more than the truth.

“Is that what you really think?” Lucy finally asked in a low voice.

“And if it is?” Juliet answered. She had her hands on the Aga's railing, her fingers curling around the metal bar so tightly her knuckles stood out like bony little hills.

“Then . . . then why
did
you invite me, Juliet? Why on earth did you invite me, when you seem to hate me so much? I barely know you. You've hardly ever spoken to me, and yet you act like you've had all this
experience
—” She broke off, and Juliet stared down at her hands.

“I've seen your updates on Facebook,” she said, which was about the lamest response she'd ever heard. Lucy must have thought so too, for she let out a snort of disbelief.

“Oh,
okay
, then,” she said. “And we all know how Facebook updates are an accurate picture of someone's life, someone's soul.”

“Don't be so melodramatic.”

“I'm not the one who started this,” Lucy shot back. “I'm actually
trying
—”

“You don't think I tried?” Juliet demanded. “I invited you here—”

“And it seems you'd rather I left!” Lucy took a deep breath. “
Would
you like me to go?”

“Where to? You have a job, remember—”

“I don't mean leave Hartley-by-the-Sea,” Lucy said, and shock jolted through Juliet. “I mean leave here. You.”

The flatly spoken statement, the rejection of it, made Juliet recoil. “No,” she said, and knew as she spoke that she meant it. “I don't want you to leave.”

“But I don't think you want me to stay, either.”

Juliet let out a long, weary sigh. “Look, Lucy, I admit I haven't been all that friendly. I didn't . . . I didn't expect to feel so . . .” She broke off, unable to put into words just what she'd felt at having Lucy catapult into her life. Opening the door and seeing her half sister there, the daughter Fiona had chosen, had actually
wanted
 . . . “This isn't about you,” she finally said. “I know it's unfair of me to take it out on you.”

“You mean it's about Mum,” Lucy said, and Juliet didn't answer. She'd never, not once, called Fiona
Mum
, not even as a child. Fiona had never wanted her to. “What happened between the two of you?” Lucy asked, and Juliet pushed away from the Aga, reached for a sponge.

“I told you before, nothing happened. She never wanted me, that's all.” She swiped at the already-clean counter.

“And you think she wanted me.”

“Considering she went the sperm donor route to get you, yes, I'd say so.”

Lucy didn't say anything and Juliet kept wiping the counter. “I didn't feel all that wanted,” she said after a long moment, and Juliet stilled for a nanosecond before she continued cleaning. “Trust me—”

“No,
you
trust
me
,” Juliet cut her off. She was, quite suddenly, nearly shaking with rage. She could not,
would not
listen to poor little Lucy's sob story about how she'd felt ignored. How Mummy hadn't hugged her enough at bedtime. “You have no idea what it feels like not to be wanted. No bloody idea, Lucy.” Juliet could feel Lucy's shocked silence, and she turned around. “When you were six, Fiona threw you a pony party. Do you remember?”

Lucy blinked. “I think so,” she finally said hesitantly.

“You think so? Well, I remember it perfectly. She hired a pony to come give rides to all your friends, your entire class, in our back garden. And there was a cake, this huge pink sparkly thing with a little porcelain pony on top. And you had a new dress, as well as the most ridiculous little outfit for riding that damned pony. She bought a six-year-old
jodhpurs
.”

Lucy blinked again. “None of that stuff—”

“Mattered? Well, it mattered to me.” Lucy looked confused and Juliet clarified impatiently, “I didn't want a stupid pony party. I was seventeen. But it mattered because Fiona had never even acknowledged my birthday, not once, much less thrown me a party or given me a present.” She threw the damp sponge into the sink, where it landed with a wet thwack. “So yes, it mattered,” she said, quietly now, her rage depleted. “Stupid as that may sound.”

“It doesn't sound stupid,” Lucy answered after a moment. She sounded shaken. “I just never knew . . .”

“Well,” Juliet said tiredly, “now you do.”