Page 19 of The Sun Sister

‘Come and sit down and tell me everything that’s happened since I last saw you.’ Ally indicated a chair at the long table.

‘I will, but before I do, I’m just going upstairs to freshen up.’ I turned and walked out of the kitchen, suddenly feeling panicky. I knew how Ally liked to interrogate us all and I wasn’t sure I was up to it just now.

I grabbed my holdall, then climbed the stairs up to the attic – which really wasn’t an attic at all, but a spacious floor where us girls had our bedrooms – and opened the door to mine. Everything looked exactly as it had when I’d left home for Paris as a teenager. I stared at the walls, painted in the soft cream colour they’d always been, and sat down on my bed. Compared to the other girls’ rooms, whose walls seemed to embody their occupants’ personalities, mine was bare. There wasn’t a clue about the person who had lived in here for the first sixteen years of her life. No posters of models or pop stars or ballet dancers or sports stars...nothing to indicate who I was.

Reaching down into my holdall, I grabbed the bottle of vodka wrapped up in my cashmere sweatpants and took a deep swig. This bedroom seemed to express all there was to say about me – that I was just an empty husk. I didn’t have – and never had had – a passion for anything.And, I thought as I stowed the bottle back in its cashmere nest, then reached for the small packet tucked into the front pocket of my holdall to do a line,I didn’t know who I was back then, and I don’t know who I am now.

By the time I made my way back downstairs, the vodka had calmed me and the coke had cheered me up. As Ma, Ally and I sat down to enjoy Claudia’s famous brunch, I did as they wanted me to do and told them all about the glamorous parties I’d attended and the celebrities I’d met, giving them some innocuous inside gossip as I went.

‘And what about you and Mitch? I read in the papers that you’d gone your separate ways. Is that true?’

I’d been waiting for that; Ally was the high priestess of getting straight to the point.

‘Yeah, a few months back.’

‘What happened?’

‘Oh, you know,’ I shrugged as I drank some hot strong coffee and wished it was laced with bourbon. ‘He was based in LA, I was in New York, we were both travelling...’

‘So he wasn’t “the one”?’ Ally pursued.

There was a sudden screeching sound from somewhere in the kitchen and I looked round to find where it was coming from.

‘That’s the baby monitor. Bear’s awake,’ Ally sighed.

‘I’ll go and see to him,’ offered Ma, but Ally was already on her feet and pressed Ma gently back down into her chair.

‘You were on duty from five this morning, darling Ma, so it’s my turn.’

I hadn’t even met my new nephew yet, but boy did I like him already. He’d gotten me out of the Grand Ally Inquisition.

‘So how is your new apartment?’ asked Ma, changing the subject. If tact had a physical form, it would look like my surrogate mom.

‘It’s okay,’ I replied, ‘but it’s only a year’s rental, so I’ll probably look for someplace else soon.’

‘I suppose you’re not there that often, with all the travelling you do.’

‘Too right I’m not, but at least it gives me somewhere to put my wardrobe. Oh wow, look who’s here.’

Ally was approaching the table holding a baby who had an enormous pair of quizzical brown eyes. His dark red hair was already starting to curl tightly on top of his head.

‘This is Bear,’ Ally said, that proud mom look shining in her eyes. And why shouldn’t it? Anyone brave enough to give birth was a heroine in my book.

‘Oh my God! He is...edible! How old is he now?’ I asked as Ally sat down and cradled him in her lap.

‘Seven weeks.’

‘Wow, he looks huge!’

‘That’s because he has such a good appetite,’ Ally smiled as she unbuttoned her shirt and positioned the baby in the right place. Bear began to suckle noisily and I winced.

‘Doesn’t it hurt when he’s feeding?’

‘It did at first, but we got into the swing of it, didn’t we, darling?’ she said, looking down at him like I guessed I’d sometimes looked at Mitch. In other words, with love.

‘Well now, we will leave you two girls to chat and see you later,’ Claudia said as, the clearing-up done, she followed Ma out of the kitchen.

‘I’m real sorry about Bear’s dad, Ally.’