‘It’s a second-hand machine?’ Kate recoiled.
‘There is nothing wrong with second-hand coffee machines, clothes – or anything else, for that matter.’ Bridie didn’t add that perhaps Kate should start getting used to the idea of shopping for second-hand items if they were going to see a drastic cut in their income – assuming Kate didn’t get a job back in banking any time soon. ‘You should check out the charity shop across the yard.’
‘I haven’t been there in years, not since I was at university.’
‘I know.’
‘Used to be fun, hunting through the racks and finding unexpected bargains.’
‘Remember we used to go together?’ Those occasions going shopping with her big sister had been rare, but Bridie remembered feeling so grown-up being out with her older sister.
‘It was fun,’ Kate said, surprising her.
‘Was it?’ She distinctly remembered that their parents had twisted Kate’s arm to take her shopping.
‘Yes. Although I was peeved that I had to take you. I was worried in case I bumped into my friends, wondering what they’d think if I was seen out with my little sister. You did dress a bit weird, like you were in some eighties pop group with your multi-coloured leggings, short dresses and spiky hair, and your grungy makeup.’
‘Honestly, I don’t know where that came from,’ Bridie said, cringing. She didn’t see what Jack, the cool guy at school, had seen in her. It had surprised everyone when they’d got together.
‘Funny thing was, my friends thought you were so cool.’
‘Really?’
‘Oh, yes. You see, I was the nerd, wasn’t I? And then I got my nose rather put out of joint when you got your first boyfriend at school. I didn’t have a boyfriend until I’d left home and met Andy. I really thought you and Jack … that he was the one.’
Bridie had thought so too until they’d fallen out over her plans to go to London. Looking back, there had been no reason why they’d had to split up. London wasn’t that far away. He could have gone too, or she could have commuted, maybe. But they had been just kids then, and that was all in the past.
She looked at her sister and still had no idea what she was doing there. Kate picked up a cushion and fiddled with the braid, avoiding eye contact. She said, ‘I didn’t want to tell them what had happened about my job.’
‘Yeah, I know the feeling.’ Bridie commiserated. ‘I was mortified when I lost my job. At least you didn’t make an utter fool of yourself on the stage and have it end up all over social media.’
‘Yeah, well, I still made an utter fool of myself going to see that woman in the other company, thinking I’d walk into another job just like that.’ Kate put the cushion to one side and looked at Bridie. ‘When Mum got back from Aldeburgh this morning and told me she’d bumped into you and now knew I’d lost my job, I thought you were getting back at me for showing her that post on social media.’
‘I wouldn’t do that. I’m not like that.’
Kate sighed. ‘I know. You’re a nice person, unlike me.’
Bridie didn’t know what to say. Although she did ask, ‘Mum didn’t … say anything else, did she?’
Kate shrugged. ‘Like what?’
‘Oh, nothing.’
‘Look, I’m sorry I showed Mum that post. Sometimes, I just don’t act my age, Bridie. I’ve just always been so jealous of you.’
Bridie was taken aback. ‘Why? Because I wore cool leggings as a teenager?’ she joked.
‘No, because whatever I did, even following Dad’s footsteps into working in a sensible job in London – a job I always hated, by the way …’
Bridie had not known that.
‘… you were always his favourite, and everyone knew it, even though you went into a line of work he detested.’
A line of work he detested. Bridie stared at her sister. She was thinking about Reggie’s shoebox, now upstairs in the flat, filled with memorabilia. Although she’d discovered the truth about her father’s past in the theatre – or some of it, at least – she still didn’t know what relationship, if any, he’d had with Isobel Raine. But her thoughts were consumed with the fact that her dad – both her parents, in fact – had lied to her about his past. Lied by omitting to tell her that he’d once been a stage actor.
Now staring at her sister, it suddenly dawned on Bridie that it wasn’t all about her, just because she’d chosen a career on the stage. He’d lied to Kate and Jeremy too. He must have loved the theatre once. Why hide it? Unless there had been more to his past than simply his work on the stage.
Bridie didn’t want to think about her likeness to Isobel Raine. The thought that the actress who had mysteriously disappeared might be her mother was ludicrous. Why would her mum have raised her as her own if her dad had had an affair? And how could they have got away with it, without anyone in the local community questioning where their third child had appeared from? None of her parents’ friends or the neighbours they’dknown since they were all little had ever once hinted that she was not who she thought she was.
