Between Sisters (29 page)

‘Yes, because I knew this was all her idea—’

‘She’s lonely, Cass, that’s all.’

‘And
I
don’t get lonely without you?’

It sounded so stupid once the words were out of her mouth, but she did feel lonely. The girls were growing up so quickly, they needed her in different ways, and she needed the stability of her relationship with Shay. Except that felt as if it was gone too. She came last with him and she couldn’t bear that.

‘Why didn’t you say that then?’ he roared in exasperation. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? I’m not a bloody mind reader.’

‘I tried to talk to you,’ said Cassie coldly. ‘How many times did I say to you please stop running to your mother like a lapdog every time she clicked her fingers? How many times have we had this conversation over the last four years? I know she misses your father but she’s trying to replace him with you. That’s not how it works. When the girls are older, if they’re married and something happens to me, will you expect them to run back to you just because I’m not here anymore?’

Shay looked at her as if he didn’t even understand this convoluted line of female thought.

‘No,’ she said, ‘neither of us would, because that wouldn’t be fair, because that’s not what parenting is about – something your mother has conveniently forgotten. I’m fed up of your mother and I’m fed up of you.’

The words ‘crazy mother’ kept running through her brain. She was
nothing
like her mother. She’d worked so hard to create the perfect family, to be everything to everyone. She was nothing like the woman who’d walked out on her.
He
was that person. He was the one who was doing the leaving all the time.

Finally, all this in her mind, Cassie went over the edge. ‘If you really want to be with her, I’ve gathered all your stuff in bin bags. You can walk out this door right now.’

As soon as she’d said it, she knew she’d gone too far.

‘What?’ For the first time, Shay was well and truly jolted. ‘You’ve packed my stuff?’ he said, his voice dangerously quiet.

‘Yes! If you want to live with Mummy dearest, far be it from me to stop you. I’ve packed it all up, it’s in the utility room ready to go, so you can move in with her tonight. Don’t let us keep you away from where you really want to be.’

‘I can’t believe you’re doing this.’

‘Believe it,’ said Cassie shakily. ‘I got left before and yes, maybe I do have some issues with abandonment and maybe I did have a “crazy mother”, as you so eloquently put it, but I’m nothing like her. I’d never leave Beth and Lily. This time
I’m
not going to be the one being abandoned. I’m going to be the one saying “go”. Now get out of this house.’

‘You can’t mean that,’ he said. ‘Over something so stupid. I know I should have told you, Cassie, but—’

‘I mean it,’ she hissed. There was no coming back from this. ‘Now get out and tomorrow morning I’ll be seeing my lawyer.’

‘Our lawyer,’ said Shay absently.

‘Our lawyer can be your lawyer,’ she said with grim determination. ‘I’ll be going to find my own lawyer, some absolute killer, and who knows, in the divorce I’ll get to keep this house and then you and your mummy can live together happily,’ Cassie said, knowing she sounded vicious but unable to stop it.

The combination of fear and rage had taken over. Shay had chosen someone else over her and their children, he’d said she was like her mother, and she’d never forgive him for any of those things.

Shay looked at her coldly. ‘If that’s what you want,’ he said.

‘That’s what I want,’ said Cassie.

She ran upstairs and found Fluffikins on their bed, on Shay’s side. That cat was spooky, she thought, before she lay down on the bed and began to cry.

Seventeen

LONDON

Elsa knew she must look tired when a young guy wearing headphones on the Tube got up and let her have his seat.

‘Thank you,’ she said, feeling as if this little bit of unexpected kindness might break her. She had so many friends, so many do-
anything
-for-her friends, and yet, occasionally, she felt the loneliness of a lack of family with a bone-deep pain.

‘No hassle, man,’ said the guy, and then stuttered, ‘er, missus.’

Despite her exhaustion, Elsa smiled. ‘Missus’ was in the same location as ‘ma’am’, a vaguely regal name for any woman who could no longer fit into the middle-aged category and was now shuffling along in the ‘old lady’ box in the mind of anyone under thirty.

But elegant ma’am types didn’t take the Tube first thing in the morning and face the massed humanity pushing along, determined to get into work on time. And ma’am types wore low, sensible heels, but in honour of her meeting in the TV studios, Elsa was wearing her high but comfortable Vivier heels and a midnight-blue trouser suit that Mari – her oldest friend in London – insisted looked like Dior but was a fraction of the price.

‘It’s Zara, just fabulous. Looks expensive with that silk blouse,’ Mari had said when they’d bought it. She’d accessorised the whole thing with a second-hand Hermes scarf that Mari had given her as a gift, with some exquisite embroidery stitches hiding the jagged tear along one edge.

After the production company meeting, Elsa and Mari had a date for lunch.

They’d climbed the same difficult path together and had a friendship that would endure anything. Elsa knew that whatever she faced in her life, Mari would be there, holding her hand.

Production meetings at Smart TV were a buffet with phone calls, in Tanya’s mind, as she talked incessantly on her smartphone as if to prove that she was wildly important and her time was more precious than gold. She always nibbled up the nicest snacks and left half-filled skinny cappuccinos all over the place because she was permanently putting them down and forgetting she’d had them in the first place. Then some poor runner would be sent off to get another one.

When Elsa walked in, she could hear nothing above the husky growl of Tanya telling someone that: ‘Yes, of course it sounds like a good opportunity, but is it worth my time?’

Stanley, producer of the show and a man who’d had to gently coax reasonable behaviour out of Tanya for ten years, grinned hello at Elsa from one side of the long boardroom table.

Tanya was determined to move her career along. Ten years of what she sometimes called ‘daytime hell!’ meant she felt she’d served her time and was due a starry TV break.

‘
Strictly Come Dancing
or
Dancing With the Stars
, I’d shine on those,’ she’d said a few times to Elsa and Malik, the child psychologist, who were both well-trained enough to hide their shock. ‘I honestly don’t know why they haven’t asked me yet. Or the ice dancing one.’

It wasn’t so much that Tanya couldn’t dance. This factor was not the one in question. The issue was that without the façade of caringness of
The Casebook
and Elsa and Malik to hide behind, Tanya’s basic competitiveness was going to burst out like the alien from John Hurt’s chest. People were going to see that her attempts at sweetness were about as real as her eyelash extensions.

Elsa hated to see anyone hurt publicly and it would only be a matter of time before Tanya’s social veneer shattered, and what would follow would be the inevitable ripping apart by media like so many hyenas. Tanya would behave behind scenes in the same way as she behaved behind the scenes in their show: screeching at lower-level staff, talking to wardrobe as if they were serfs, demanding coffee, complaining if it was too cold or too bitter. This would infuriate the show’s team and the news would inevitably get out.

No matter how bitchy Tanya could be on a daily basis, Elsa was therapist enough to see it was all born out of pain and fear, and she wouldn’t wish the inevitable public humiliation on anyone.

‘Are you sure about this?’ she asked slowly, wishing she could be honest and tell Tanya that this plan was filled with danger.

But Tanya wasn’t listening, eyes trained on some distant spot as she imagined herself suddenly transformed from daytime queen to general TV queen – Oprah without the TV station.

‘
Big Brother
, even.’ She was on a roll now. ‘I could be the normal one in the house, the kind one who helps everyone.’

Malik and Elsa exchanged sympathetic glances.
The normal one?

‘With that much filming and very little time onscreen, they absolutely cut the show’s footage to suit what they want, you know,’ Malik offered tentatively. ‘You don’t always come out the way you really are in these reality TV shows. I mean, we cut things to suit our audience too, Tanya.’

Briefly, Tanya came back to earth. ‘I know that,’ she said scathingly. ‘Having toiled away within the system for years, it’s not as if I don’t know how to work it.’

Stanley, the producer, and Luigi, the director, and the top researchers all arrived, and everyone chatted about the forthcoming shows for an hour until eventually, when Tanya got bored, she said that if this was all they had to talk about, she had places to go, people to see.

‘Bye,’ she said, grabbing her phones, her big leather handbag and her jacket.

Tanya was always eager to be out of the room, any room. Probably keen to meet her agent and discuss great new plans she had for her burgeoning new TV career, Elsa thought without rancour.

She was slightly fascinated by Tanya. It was interesting to watch someone who was so dedicated to their personal growth curve that they noticed absolutely nothing else around them. For example, Tanya never noticed when anything was wrong with any of the crew or any of her co-workers. Or if Stanley, who had an autistic son, was looking particularly down or weary. No, Tanya was oblivious to it all. Today she hadn’t even noticed that there was a faint air of tension in the room, something that could often be put down to Tanya herself and whatever mood she was in.

As soon as she left, the tension evaporated. Stanley pushed his chair back, rested his hands behind his bald head and stretched. He looked relaxed for the first time, as did Luigi, the director. They exchanged glances and Elsa watched them, thinking that they were gearing up for another conversation and she needed to be out of there soon. She’d arranged to meet Mari but she’d wait a few minutes, ask Stanley how his small son was, how his wife was coping, how was the new school working out.

They talked for a little while but Elsa could see Stanley had something else on his mind, so she bent down under the table and was picking up her handbag when Stanley said: ‘Elsa, could Luigi and I have a chat with you in my office?’

She looked up at him in surprise. The show meetings were always held in the conference room. Tanya was the person who got offices for confabs with her agent, where sometimes the walls shook from shouting.

‘Sure,’ said Elsa.

She wondered if she was about to be fired. If Tanya’s jealousy had finally won the day and Elsa was to be shown the door.

Stanley’s office was large and full of pictures of his small family. He offered her tea or coffee again. Sustenance for the condemned woman?

‘No, I’m fine,’ said Elsa, thinking of Mari, who’d be at the restaurant soon. She’d picked a Greek place not too far away: cheap and cheerful, the sort of place they liked to meet.

Whatever happened, she’d weather the storm. Losing a job was hardly the worst thing to have happened to her in her life, she thought with a sad smile.

‘The thing is,’ began Stanley, ‘we’ve been thinking about, well, broadening the series.’

‘OK,’ said Elsa, nodding. Broadening, she could go along with that. It sounded better than being fired.

‘Actually, broadening’s perhaps not the right word,’ said Luigi, looking at his producer. ‘Changing is what we’re talking about. You see, we’d like to do something else. Do you remember that long-lost family segment we did?’

Elsa could remember it very clearly. Sisters, reunited after twenty years apart. A stupid family row, she remembered. The sisters’ show had nearly broken her. It was the first time the past had ever threatened to shake her working life. She’d managed the right responses and when Stanley said he could see it was upsetting her, she’d cobbled together a reply about how this was so hard to deal with even for a professional, seeing all the time that could never be recovered. She’d pretended that she felt uplifted at the end when the sisters were reunited, when their families met, cousins who’d never even seen each other since they were tiny babies. Instead, she’d felt empty.

‘We were thinking,’ Stanley went on now, ‘that we could do another show, slightly more in-depth, along those lines. Not just reuniting families but bringing more to it. Doing several episodes on the same family, bringing them together, seeing that magic moment, and then following through, seeing them later. Helping them come to terms with finding their family after many years apart.

‘It would be quite a project, possibly filmed over a period of a year, and we could perhaps do eight or nine families, and we could get eighteen to twenty episodes out of it. We could do a couple of families per show and then follow them.’

‘OK.’ Elsa’s mind was whirling as she took it all in. She kept her breathing as steady as she could, tried to keep calm, thinking of the past and how she could possibly cope with an entire series of reuniting families parted for so long.

She couldn’t; she knew she couldn’t.

‘The thing is,’ Stanley went on, ‘we’ve had some focus groups working on our show lately and the feeling from the groups is that Tanya’s too abrasive.’

Luigi snorted. ‘We don’t need focus groups to tell us that!’

‘The ratings have been dropping too. Of course, television is cyclical and this particular series has been running for quite a while, so it is time to change it, but I think we need to change it and leave her behind. We want to broaden it and we’ve researchers working on it all already. We’re getting a lot of hits, ones from Ireland too. We also thought we might do a few Australian shows, you know, move the idea out around the world. It could be fabulous.’ He paused. ‘The focus groups like you, Elsa. They think you’re real, authentic, that you actually care. That you’re not faking it.’

Elsa stared at him and kept her rueful grin to herself. She’d had to fake it for the sisters reunited show because her real responses wouldn’t have been appropriate.

Instead, she said: ‘I’m not faking it. Sometimes I want to go home with them and help fix it, which is not what a psychoanalyst is supposed to say, because –’ she held her fingers up in quotes – ‘“There is no fixing it, there’s only understanding.”’

Luigi clapped his hands. ‘That’s what we love,’ he said jubilantly. ‘That’s what we love about you: that reality. Those brilliant phrases, things that people will remember and quote. We could call it
The Dr Elsa de Marco Show
. We can go upmarket with this. What do you think?’

Elsa felt hollow. She would never be able to do these shows. It would break her heart. And she could imagine the press around it. Even though she looked so different and had a different name, people might finally link her with the woman who’d abandoned her own two little girls all those years ago. She could not do this to them, not after all this time, not knowing how they felt about her.

‘I’ll have a think,’ she said, managing a smile. ‘But now I have a lunch date, guys. I’ll be in touch and we can talk.’

She left the room gracefully, knowing she would have to get her agent to phone them and say no. She had her private clients and she loved that. This TV career had been a glorious piece of joy in her life, but that was over now. Life moved on.

Mari was tall with long blonde hair, cut so that it fell in blades around her perfect face.

Once a catwalk model, at fifty-eight she still had the poise that turned heads, but had none of the clothes that she’d been given by the suitcase-load. They were all gone – lost in hotel rooms, forgotten in seedy motels and bars, left in airports around the world – because addiction had stopped Mari from looking after herself, never mind her things.

‘I do regret the clothes,’ she sometimes said, and would then instantly laugh. ‘I know, don’t regret the past or wish to shut the door on it,’ she paraphrased. ‘But Elsa, the stuff I
owned
! If I sold it now, I’d make a fortune. I could open my own blooming vintage shop.’

Mari was already in the small Greek restaurant when Elsa walked in, and as usual, people were studying her. Even now, with no money for the cushioning effects of a few injectables here and there, Mari was stunning. Elsa watched people surreptitiously watching her friend. Today, Mari was channelling the seventies, with a cream jacket and a long suede skirt that nobody would ever guess had come from the Cancer Research charity shop.

It was Mari who dressed Elsa for her TV shows, Mari who’d shown her how to look both authoritative and nothing like that naïve, lost and broken woman from many years ago. Given free rein, Mari would have made Elsa grow her hair long so it curled down to her shoulders, but Elsa said no. Long hair was from her past; her present was this very short, chic, brushed-back style. It framed her face with its dark eyes, strong brows and wide mouth. There was plenty of grey in her hair now, and one pure white stripe that swept back from her forehead in a striking manner.

She knew some people in the restaurant might recognise her from television. The elegant suits she wore for the show had that effect. Once she wasn’t working, she slipped back into simple jeans and soft floral blouses, wearing the necklaces she’d collected on her travels over the years. Nobody ever seemed to recognise her then. It was as if the woman with the turquoise knot necklace she’d bought in Santa Fe, with the scarf wound casually around her neck, was a different woman from the starkly dressed therapist from the television. When nobody recognised you, you could melt into the crowd and nobody knew your secrets.