Rhianna was waiting for them in the hall. Brooke had texted her a brief account of what had happened while Hayden was driving them back, but she still looked anxious.
‘Mum.’ She let out a sigh of relief. ‘Thank God you’re home. I’ve worn a hole in the carpet.’
‘Oh, Rhianna. You and Brooke make such a song and dance. I’m a big girl, you know.’ Nevertheless, Janey looked rather pleased as she submitted to a hug from her eldest daughter.
‘I don’t think it’s unreasonable to worry when the police call to say your mum’s in their custody and won’t tell you why,’ she said, letting Janey go. ‘Pardon my language, Mum, but I’m bloody glad you’re safe. Did the police give you a grilling?’
‘No, they were nice. I think they just wanted to make sure I wasn’t covering up any abuse. It’s a sad world we live in, girls.’ She glanced at Hayden. ‘Thank God for the good men. Cheers for helping us out tonight, love. You feel like one of the family these days.’
‘My pleasure, Mrs P,’ Hayden said. ‘I’d better get home myself, before I give my own mum something to worry about. Goodnight, Padgetts all.’
He walked to the door that led onto the fire escape. Brooke went after him.
‘Er, hey,’ she said as she followed him onto the metal platform. ‘You were great tonight, Hayd. Honestly, I don’t know what I’d have done without you.’
‘No worries. I get time and a half for that, right?’ He smiled at her expression. ‘Kidding, Brooke.’
‘Sorry.’ She laughed, rubbing a hand over her forehead. ‘Sorry. I’m too zonked to have a sense of humour tonight.’ She gave him a hug. ‘See you Friday, eh? Thanks again.’
‘Anything for you, boss.’ He gave her a kiss on the cheek – soft, slightly lingering; something between a friendly peck and a lover’s goodbye. ‘Night, Brooke.’
Brooke watched him descend the fire escape steps, then went back inside. Her mum and Rhianna were still in the hall, both grinning at her.
‘What?’ she said to them.
‘Nothing,’ Janey said. ‘Nothing at all.’
‘Nice hug?’ Rhianna asked nonchalantly.
‘Yeah, it was nice. That’s the point of hugs, isn’t it? Their general sort of niceness?’ Brooke glared at them as they continued grinning. ‘Can you two stop smirking? I was just thanking a friend for doing me and my family a big favour. That’s what people do. Everyone does that.’
‘We didn’t say a word!’ Janey protested.
‘You didn’t need to. I’m fluent in eyebrow.’ Brooke’s tone softened. ‘You’re sure you’re OK, Mum? Getting hauled to the cop shop and questioned on whether you’re an abuse victim must shake you up a bit.’
Janey sighed. ‘It wasn’t exactly an interrogation, but I can’t deny I’m a bit on the trembly side. Not to mention having a rather bruised backside from the rockery, and a rather bruised ego from the rest of it. Shall we get the kettle on?’
‘Let me,’ Rhianna said.
Brooke followed her mum and sister into the living room. Rhianna disappeared into the kitchen.
‘She’s coming on, isn’t she?’ Brooke said to Janey. ‘When she got here, I didn’t think she knew how to use a kettle.’
‘I heard that!’ Rhianna called. She flicked the kettle on and came back in, sitting down next to Brooke. ‘Well then, Mum?’
‘Well then what?’
‘How was Mike? That’s what we really want to know.’
‘You agreed to go back to his place so I’m assuming things were going well,’ Brooke said, smirking.
Janey smiled. ‘He was… nice. Really nice.’
Rhianna clapped her hands. ‘Mum, that’s great! When are you going out again?’
‘Well, I’m going to have to pop over tomorrow and pick up my bag and phone. Then we thought we’d meet up at the Harrogate Flower Festival in a couple of weeks.’ She smiled at her daughters’ eager expressions. ‘Now, don’t look like that. I hate to burst your romance bubble, but it’s not a date.’
Brooke blinked. ‘Isn’t it?’
‘I’m afraid not. We got on well, chatting about the old days, and it was lovely to feel young and sexy again – he’s certainly a very competent flirt. But in the end, we both agreed we were more suited to being friends.’
‘Well, that’s disappointing.’ The kettle clicked off and Rhianna stood to go make the tea. ‘Why did you decide that?’ she asked as she headed to the kitchen.
Janey shrugged. ‘Different interests. Mike’s seriously garden-mad. I mean I like plants, but if things went much further there’d end up being three of us in the marriage: me, him and the wisteria.’ She smiled. ‘But I had a lovely time. It was nice to make a new friend.’
‘That’s positive, anyway,’ Brooke said as Rhianna came back in with their tea. ‘It sounds like a good date to ease yourself back into the swing of things. I mean, apart from your subsequent arrest, obviously.’
Rhianna sat down again next to Brooke. ‘We need to get looking for the next potential Mr Right then, don’t we? Who else is on your Tinder right-swipe list, Mum?’
‘I’d prefer to leave it a little while before diving back in. I don’t think my nerves could cope with another full day of worrying my date might be a potential murderer so soon after the last one.’ Janey sipped her tea thoughtfully. ‘I can’t help fretting about it, this internet dating lark. I struck it lucky with Mike tonight, but it feels like such a lottery. You know, four men have sent me photos of their todgers so far.’
Rhianna grimaced. ‘Sorry, Mum. We’ve been trying to vet them but there are bound to be a couple of weirdos who slip through the net.’
‘Oh, don’t apologise,’ Janey said, flicking a hand. ‘Your mother is a woman of the world, you know. Me and the girls in the Knit and Natter group have been having a good old giggle over them.’ She sighed. ‘Still, I do miss the old days. You know, when you could meet someone in a bar and chat to them for a bit before you agreed to a date. It’s not the same, trying to work out what someone’s going to be like from their photo and a bit of text their kids probably wrote for them.’
‘Can’t you do it that way?’ Brooke asked.
‘Who’s going to chat up an old lady like me?’
‘Well, other old people like you.’
‘Other old people assume folk their age are spoken for. I mean, unless either of you know of any uptown fleshpots catering specifically for the sixty-plus singles market.’
Brooke shook her head. ‘Sorry.’
‘I didn’t think so.’ Janey gazed pensively into her tea. ‘I think I’ll finish this in bed. It tires you out, a life of crime. Thanks for looking after me, girls.’
When she’d left them, Brooke flashed an awkward smile at her sister.
‘So. Nice to end the night with a spot of drama.’
‘God, I’m glad she’s OK,’ Rhianna said. ‘I was imagining all sorts of awful scenarios.’
‘I know. Me too.’
Rhianna smiled. ‘Accidentally called the police with her own bum. How Mum is that? Dad’ll be laughing like a drain.’
‘Won’t he just?’ Brooke glanced at her. ‘You miss him?’
‘Every day.’
‘Same.’
They were silent for a moment, alone with their thoughts.
‘It’s great she had a good night, even if Mike wasn’t the one,’ Rhianna said after a while. ‘She doesn’t take nearly enough time off from this place.’
‘Her and me both.’ Brooke put her tea down. ‘Look, Rhianna, about before—’
Rhianna held up a hand. ‘No, let me go first.’
‘All right.’
‘Brooke, I know you think I turn my nose up at everything to do with the pub but I’m genuinely not ashamed of you or Mum, or of this place. Taryn called and… like I said, I didn’t want her to imply I’d done the wrong thing in bringing the kids here – not when I was already riddled with guilt. You’re just so quick to get angry when you get it into your head that I’m embarrassed by you, I decided not to say anything. I knew you’d jump straight to that conclusion.’
‘Well, you were right. I did.’ Brooke’s gaze fell on the pencil pot she’d made for Rhianna twenty-odd years ago. ‘That’s not entirely surprising, is it? All those years at St Mary’s, hiding where you lived from your friends. Then you married James and it felt like we hardly saw you any more. I did resent it. What I resented most was losing the girl who for the first nine years of my life was my best friend.’
‘I wasn’t ashamed, you know,’ Rhianna murmured. ‘Back then, I mean. I know that was how it looked.’
‘Come on. You know you were.’
‘Maybe a little, after the peer pressure started,’ she admitted. ‘Embarrassed rather than ashamed, that my life was so different from the other girls’. But mainly I was just… weak. I wanted to fit into that new world, and I didn’t think about who I’d hurt trying to do it.’ Rhianna looked up, her eyes not sheltered as they so often were but wide and guileless. ‘I never wanted it to be you, Brooke. You were my sister and I loved you. That’s the honest truth.’
‘You could’ve talked to me, you know,’ Brooke said quietly.
‘You wouldn’t have understood. You were a child, and… there were things I couldn’t have explained.’ Rhianna glanced at a compass inked onto her sister’s left forearm. ‘Why have you got so many tattoos? No judgements. I just want to know how it feels.’
Brooke lifted her arm, patterned from wrist to shoulder with pictures in black ink. ‘I suppose… it’s a way of feeling in control. So many things are out of my control, like getting older or my health, but this is one thing that belongs totally to me. It’s kind of about defiance. A way of telling the world – and some of the men I’ve met in particular – that this is my body and I make the rules.’
‘I can understand that.’
Brooke tensed her arm so the pictures shifted on her skin. ‘How do they make me look? How would people from your world think I look?’
‘I think they make you look… broken.’ Rhianna met her eyes. ‘Are you?’
Brooke shrugged. ‘Isn’t everyone?’
There was a long silence.
‘Brooke, can I show you something?’ Rhianna spoke suddenly and quickly, as if she needed to hurry out the words.
‘I guess.’
‘You can’t tell Mum, OK?’
‘OK,’ Brooke said, blinking. ‘What is it?’
Rhianna rolled up her sleeve and presented her left arm, turning her face away so she didn’t have to look at it. Brooke took hold of it and stared.
‘Rhia,’ she whispered. ‘You didn’t do this?’
Rhianna nodded, her eyes closed. ‘A long time ago.’
Brooke traced one of the thick white scars with her finger. ‘But why did you… why would you…’
‘The same reason you get your tattoos. To stay in control. It felt like a way to focus all the mental pain and anxiety into one physical sensation before my brain exploded with it. Maybe that sounds crazy, but… that’s how it felt.’
Brooke couldn’t speak for a moment.
‘When?’ she finally managed to ask.
‘At St Mary’s. I was fourteen when I started, with one of Dad’s razor blades. It was all that got me through.’ Her face collapsed as emotion took over. ‘Brooke, it was so hard,’ she whispered. ‘I never said a word to Mum and Dad – I knew how hard they worked to get me everything I needed, and I didn’t want to seem ungrateful, but… it was so hard.’
‘What happened that made you feel you needed to do this to yourself?’
‘The bullying was unbearable. All seven years I was there. That’s why I was so worried when you said it might happen to Max. God, I never felt so much like cutting myself again, just to deal with that whirl of anxiety about James and the kids and… everything.’ She caught her sister’s worried look. ‘Don’t worry, I didn’t. I’ve been clean twelve years now. I don’t do that any more.’
‘Who bullied you?’
‘This group of girls in my year. Honestly, they made my life a misery.’
‘Because of where you came from?’
‘I thought so, then,’ Rhianna murmured. ‘I wondered, when I was older, if maybe they were envious too. That I’d got in on merit rather than my parents’ money. They targeted the other scholarship girls as well.’
Brooke scowled. ‘I bet they were jealous of you. Cruel, spoilt, nasty little brats who probably came from cruel, spoilt, nasty little parents. God, if I’d known, I’d have—’
‘I know you would’ve,’ Rhianna said with a sad smile. ‘That’s why I never told you. That’s why I asked Mum and Dad for expensive things; so I wouldn’t stand out and make myself a target. That’s why I got off the bus three stops early. That’s why I never brought any of the girls I knew from school home. The bullies tried to make me feel ashamed, and perhaps they succeeded. But mostly I just wanted to keep my head above water, Brooke. I came so close to being sucked under, and the only thing I could do to stop myself sinking was…’ She finally looked at her arm. ‘This.’
Brooke took her hand.
‘You should’ve told me,’ she said gently.
‘Sweetie, you were just a kid. What could you have done?’ Rhianna lifted her arm to examine the scars, wincing as if it hurt her to look at them. ‘James hated to see these. They didn’t fit with the image: the good little girl, the perfect wife. He was forever on at me to have cosmetic surgery, but I wouldn’t. I felt like I needed them, as a reminder of what I’d survived. Battle scars that told me I was stronger than James made me feel.’
‘That bastard,’ Brooke muttered. ‘I can’t think about him without wanting to slap something. Preferably his cheating fucking face.’
Rhianna gave a grim laugh. ‘Those girls at St Mary’s did him a big favour. They broke my nerve, so I was ready to be a passive little wifey for the first man who made me feel safe and protected.’ She looked at her sister. ‘Do you know how jealous I was of you? Of how confident and strong you were? I bet you’d have shoved that prenup right up James’s bum, wouldn’t you?’
Brooke blinked. ‘You were jealous of me?’
‘Of course. A million times I wished I had the ovaries to say exactly what I thought like you always did. The older I got, the more I felt intimidated just being around you. I felt so weak and pathetic beside you.’
‘You? Who survived years of those nasty little bullies without letting them break you? Who took your kids and walked out on your cheating prick of a husband with nothing but your self-respect?’ Brooke pressed her sister’s hand. ‘Rhia, I wish I had half the iron in my soul you do. I never realised how strong you were until recently.’
Rhianna gave a wet laugh. ‘Give up.’
‘I’m not kidding,’ Brooke said. ‘Do you know how jealous I was of you? My big sister, who had all the looks and all the brains? I wanted to be you for so long.’
‘Ah, but you got all the boys.’
‘Only because you were studying hard, like I ought to have been. I was just the runner-up prize.’
‘Rubbish. It was because you had all the charm.’
‘You mean I was a terrible flirt,’ Brooke said, laughing. ‘And then I was jealous because I knew you were Mum and Dad’s favourite.’
Rhianna blinked. ‘What? No I wasn’t. You were their favourite.’
‘Don’t be daft. I couldn’t compete with you, could I? The scholarship girl with her Oxbridge degree, and me with more ex-boyfriends than GCSEs by the time I left school.’
‘But you were the one who took after them. The one they trusted their business to.’
Brooke smiled. ‘Shall we wake Mum up and ask which of us they loved best?’
‘I think we can guess the answer,’ Rhianna said, smiling too. ‘She’ll tell us they loved us both the same.’
‘Then I suppose we’ll have to take her word for it.’ Brooke looked again at the thick white scars standing out against Rhianna’s skin. ‘God, Rhia,’ she whispered. ‘I thought your life was so perfect. I thought you had everything. These must’ve been deep, were they?’
‘They… could be. If I needed them to be.’
No wonder Rhianna had always kept her arms covered, even in the depths of summer. No wonder she’d refused to wear bikinis or revealing strappy tops when they went on family holidays…
‘My own sister and I never knew,’ Brooke murmured. ‘You know, for years I resented that school for stealing you from me. You were my total hero when we were kids, and then you started at St Mary’s and it felt like you became this complete stranger. And all that time…’
‘I’m sorry,’ Rhianna whispered. ‘I never stopped caring about you, you know. Life just got complicated, and I was too young to know how to deal with it.’
‘Come here.’ Brooke pulled her into a hug.
‘No more fights, all right?’ she whispered. ‘From now on, we’re a team. I promise to stop being so touchy if you promise not to turn your nose up at anything around here that’s different.’
‘Deal,’ Rhianna said. ‘And Brooke… I want you to know that if you’re set on keeping the pub, I’m behind you. I won’t say another word about selling. I’d like to be more involved too, if you and Mum will have me. Formally, not just the odd shift behind the bar.’
Brooke held her back to look into her face. ‘Are you sure?’
‘I’m sure. Well, it’s like you said, isn’t it? We’re a team.’ She glanced at the pencil pot Brooke had made her. ‘More than that. We’re sisters.’