she clammed up. ‘I better get some work done, Colin,’ she said brightly. ‘Get rid of those holiday cobwebs.’
‘Egypt, was it?’ Colin enquired, knowing he was being dismissed but not wanting to leave yet. ‘Did Pete enjoy it?’
Emma couldn’t resist. She widened her eyes dramatically. ‘Pete didn’t go, Colin,’ she said. ‘See you later.’
Leaving an astonished Colin to interpret that bit of disinformation, Emma sorted through her post. At least having a bit of drama at work took her mind off the crises in her personal life.
From her seat near the escalator, Emma could see Kirsten striding along through the afternoon crowds in the shopping centre looking exactly what she was: wealthy, perkily pretty and utterly sure of herself. And she was only fifteen minutes late, which had to be a record, Emma thought, watching her sister’s progress through the centre, her step as confident as a supermodel. She looked amazing, as usual. Kirsten’s hair, currently a rich chestnut crop, contrasted perfectly with the tiny butter-coloured suede jacket she wore over a tummy-skimming white T-shirt and faded blue jeans. Emma knew she’d have looked ridiculous in an outfit like that, but Kirsten carried it off with ease. People who knew Emma were always amazed to meet Kirsten purely because they looked so utterly different, like the before and after pictures in some glossy magazine feature.
‘I’d never have guessed you two were sisters,’ they’d gasp, staring at Kirsten, who was the picture of adorable modern chic beside deeply conservative and almost old-fashioned Emma. Kirsten looked at home in cute jewelled hairslides and bounced around in clunky contemporary shoes, while Emma wouldn’t dream of using anything other than plain kirby grips to hold her hair back and was a fan of loafers and nice court shoes.
But different hair, clothes and make-up aside, the two sisters actually had incredibly similar features. Both had the same long nose, pale amber-flecked eyes and thin lips. There the resemblance ended.
Kirsten’s irrepressible self-confidence gave her an impish beauty that Emma was convinced she’d never achieve. Emma waited until her sister was half-way up the escalator and began waving to attract her attention.
When Kirsten spotted her, she walked over slowly and sat down on the other seat with a sigh, rifling through her small Louis Vuitton handbag for her cigarettes. Like the square-cut emerald on her wedding-ring finger, the bag was genuine.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ she said, as she always did when they met up. ‘I was on the phone to one of the girls on the committee and I couldn’t get rid of the stupid bitch. I knew you’d get a coffee and sit down if I was late.’ She lit up and inhaled deeply.
Emma couldn’t stop herself from looking reproving. She worried about her younger sister and wished she wouldn’t smoke.
‘They’re Silk Cut White, for God’s sake, Em,’ Kirsten said pre-emptively. ‘There’s so little nicotine in them you’d get cheekbones like Tina Turner sucking to get any hit at all.’ Kirsten grinned evilly. ‘Very useful practice for Patrick, all that sucking. Not,’ she added thoughtfully, ‘as if there’s much of that these days. I’m going to have to order some Viagra if he doesn’t perk up soon.’
‘You’re terrible, Kirsten,’ Emma said mildly. ‘What would poor Patrick think if he knew the things you told me about him? He’d die if he knew you discussed your sex life.’ She was fond of her solemn, hard-working brother-in-law and often wondered how the hell he and Kirsten had managed to stay married for four years without one of them ending up in the dock on murder charges.
‘I only tell you these things, Em,’ protested Kirsten, looking innocent. ‘I have to talk to someone or I’d go mad. It’s work, work, work all the time these days,’ she grumbled. ‘He never stops. We never have any fun any more.’
‘Well, perhaps if you went back to work, you wouldn’t be so bored,’ Emma retorted, more sharply than she’d intended.
‘I’m not going back to work and that’s final.’ Kirsten shuddered and pulled Emma’s empty coffee cup over to use as an ashtray as they were sitting in the no-smoking section. ‘I don’t need the money and I’m not cut out for work, Em. I hated that bloody job in the building society, all that getting up in the morning and sitting in the traffic to be yelled at when I got in for being late. Besides, Patrick likes having his dinner on the table when he comes home. I couldn’t do that and work, could I?’
‘Kirsten, you don’t cook. If it wasn’t for Marks & Spencer’s ready meals, poor Patrick would be a stick insect.’
‘Stop nagging,’ Kirsten said good-naturedly. ‘Will I get you another coffee before we start shopping?’
Over coffee, they discussed their mission: to buy a birthday present for their mother, who would be sixty the following Wednesday.
‘It has to be special,’ Emma said, ‘but I’ve racked my brains and I can’t come up with anything.’
‘I never know what to buy for Mum. Come on, let’s hustle.’ Kirsten stabbed out her third cigarette, got up and led the way to the down escalator. ‘She’s getting worse to buy things for. I asked her the other day if she’d used that beauty salon voucher I gave her for Christmas and she said, “What voucher?” I swear she’s losing her marbles.’
The nagging worry at the back of Emma’s subconscious suddenly leapt to the front of the mental queue. ‘What did you say?’
‘That she’s losing her marbles. Well, she is, Em. Before you all went to Egypt, I was on the phone to her and she asked me how Patrick’s parents were. I mean, Jesus, his father is dead two years. Do you think she’s on something that’s making her dopey? That’s got to be it. You’d need tranquillizers to live with Dad, after all, so I couldn’t blame her…’
As Kirsten chattered away, Emma made herself face up to the notion that had been rippling through her head like quicksilver for months: there was something wrong with her mother. Something wrong with her mind.
All that panicking when they’d been away, the way she’d clung on to her Egyptian currency and refused to hand it over when she was shopping, convinced she was being fiddled by the vendors. She kept trying to go into the wrong cabin, which Jimmy had found irritating. And the way she kept losing things – her glasses, the thread of the conversation. It wasn’t normal, Emma knew it.
‘I think you’re right,’ she said shakily.
‘Really?’ Kirsten said, sounding pleased and running a hand through her glossy hair. ‘I thought you preferred my hair blonde. Patrick loves this colour, says it’s very sexy…’
‘No, I mean about Mum. I think she is losing her marbles. What a horrible phrase, it’s so demeaning. What I mean is that she’s confused and acting strangely. That sounds like…’ Emma hesitated, not even wanting to say the word, ‘…senile dementia.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Kirsten snapped. ‘She’s far too young for that. Old people get it, not Mum. Let’s not talk about it, right?’
Kirsten hated facing the harder side of life and as a child had often simply refused to talk about things which upset her, like her dreadful exam results and the scathing
