You were just a tot then.’
‘She’s still as beautiful as ever,’ Diane said, ‘but for some reason she likes to hide it away behind all that war paint.’
Mia scowled at her mother, next to her on the couch, who was chewing a fingernail like her life depended on its removal. The teenager gave a fleeting glance towards Hannah, perched on the armchair opposite, and shrugged her shoulders. Then she dipped her head forward so her green eyes, lined with dramatic, dark make-up, disappeared behind the long fringe of her straight, shoulder-length black hair. Although she was young to do so, Hannah was convinced she must have dyed it, as it had been dark brown when she was little.
Hannah had almost passed out at the sound of Diane speaking on the intercom earlier. She hadn’t seen or spoken to her sister for nearly eleven years. She’d all but resigned herself to never seeing her and her niece again. And now here they both were, sitting in her lounge.
It had taken Hannah a few moments to get over the shock of hearing her sister’s voice after so long. She’d actually dropped the intercom handset and let it swing against the wall on its coiled cord while she stood there wide-eyed, frozen to the spot; covering her open mouth with her hands, desperately trying to grasp what was going on.
Then she’d heard Diane’s voice again: a faint, tinny version this time, leaking from the speaker of the dangling telephone.
‘Hannah?’ she’d said. ‘Are you there or not? It’s Diane. I know you’re probably surprised to hear from me after so long, but I really need to see you. It’s important. I have Mia with me. Hannah?’
And so she’d reached over and buzzed them in. It was all she could manage at that point, needing the extra time it took the lift to reach the eighth floor to find her voice. And even then, seeing the pair of them appear at her door in the flesh – Mia unrecognisable from the child she’d adored – Hannah had struggled to find any words.
Instead, despite everything that had gone before, she’d instinctively hugged them both in one go and proclaimed how wonderful it was to see them. It had felt weird and awkward, so she’d ushered them inside, sat them down in the lounge and rushed to the kitchen to make a pot of tea. Because what the hell else was she supposed to do?
That was exactly the question she’d intended to ask her husband when, while in the kitchen alone, she’d phoned his mobile. Unfortunately, she’d got his voicemail, meaning he was probably in a meeting.
‘Mark,’ she’d said, trying to keep her voice steady as she left a message. ‘Please get home as soon as you can. I’ve got a situation here.’ She’d taken a deep breath before adding: ‘You won’t believe this, but Diane and Mia have turned up. They’re here in the apartment right now. Call me.’
From her seat opposite the visitors in the spacious lounge, Hannah’s eyes moved from Mia’s low-hanging fringe to Diane’s continued nail biting and then on to her mobile, sitting next to her on the right arm of the chair. Come on, Mark, she thought. Phone me back so at least I have a good excuse to leave the room again. She’d already been to the toilet once and returned twice to the kitchen to get sugar and biscuits.
It was so damn awkward. And since they were in her home, she somehow felt like it was her responsibility to keep the floundering conversation going, which was ridiculous when she thought about it. It was Diane, not her, who’d upped and left all those years ago. Now her sister, looking gaunt and frazzled, wearing navy leggings, pumps and a white blouse, was the one who’d turned up on her doorstep unannounced and utterly out of the blue. So why wasn’t she discussing the reason for this? She always used to have plenty to say.
There had been an initial chat of sorts: a bizarre, staccato series of pleasantries about the weather, their car journey to Manchester from Bournemouth, her apartment, and other peripheral matters like the modernisation of the city. At one point she’d asked Diane how long she’d been wearing her hair, now dyed a striking burgundy colour, in a pixie cut.
‘Oh, I don’t know exactly,’ she’d replied. ‘Quite a while. A few years.’
Hannah hadn’t been able to think of a suitable response to this. Diane’s words served as a harsh reminder of how long they’d been apart; how little they knew about the present-day versions of each other.
Was her sister aware, for instance, that she’d long since quit her job as an advertising copywriter and somehow – miraculously – written her way through the eye of a needle to win the elusive publishing deal that had been her childhood dream? She very much doubted it. It was out there on social media, of course, but Diane wasn’t involved in any of that – not as far as Hannah knew. Nor, to her knowledge, was she in contact with anyone from their past who might have told her. Apart from their father, of course: the one person she knew to have kept in touch with Diane. However, after his initial attempts to mediate between the sisters had failed, he’d refused point-blank to take sides in what he referred to as their ‘foolish feud’. As such, and as long as it lasted, he’d sworn not to speak a word to either of them about the other in order to maintain his neutral status.
He was a stubborn man, Frank Wells, so she couldn’t imagine he would have breached his vow to reveal this one particular piece of news. While she could only assume he was the person who’d given Diane her address, this was no doubt with the intention that it might lead to their reconciliation.
As Hannah had lost herself for a moment in these thoughts, her guests had also kept quiet, leading to the first long, awkward silence of their visit. Suddenly aware of it and uncomfortable, she’d responded by taking the bull by the horns and attempting to get to the bottom of Diane’s shock return. ‘You said something before about needing to see me,’ she’d said, squeezing her palms together and raising her eyebrows. ‘That it was important?’
‘Yes, that’s right, but can we talk about it later?’ Diane had replied. ‘How’s Mark, by the way? He’s still at work, I assume.’
‘He’s fine, thank you. He should be home before too long.’
‘Good.’
Now Hannah, whose initial feelings of shock and panic had given way to unease and confusion, felt like asking Diane again why she was here and, if necessary, demanding an answer. It was definitely a reasonable question, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it after the last response. So instead she found herself trying again with Mia, who was, after all, an innocent party in the family feud that had kept them separate all this time. Losing touch with her niece – the closest thing she’d ever had to a child of her own – had been one of the most painful parts of the whole sorry affair.
‘So, Mia Wells, let me see,’ she said, trying not to think about all those years and milestones she’d missed from her childhood. ‘You must be fourteen now, right?’
Mia, who was pin thin and wearing skinny jeans with a black T-shirt, nodded without looking up at her.
‘So what school year are you in now?’
‘I’ve just finished Year Nine,’ she replied in a monotone voice.
‘Right,’ Hannah replied, nodding her head as she tried to work out what that meant, recalling that the naming system for year groups had changed since her and Diane’s schooldays.
‘It’s what we used to call Third Year,’ her sister chipped in, as if reading her mind. ‘From September she’ll be in the equivalent of Lower Fifth, working towards taking her GCSEs at the end of the following year.’
‘So
