Chapter Forty
Grace wasn’t the sort of mum who liked surprises so the two sisters spent a good fifteen minutes shut in the front room conducting an argument in strained whispers.
Sariah and her brothers listened to the high-octane hissing match from the hallway and caught a few words like ‘no warning’ and ‘not fair’.
Finally, the two sisters emerged, tight-lipped and heads held high, and the day continued as if nothing had happened. After lunch, they all crammed into the living room to watch the film Shark Tale on TV, with the grown-ups on the sofa and armchair and the kids sitting on cushions on the floor.
Her mum and dad soon fell asleep, leaving their strait-laced Auntie Rose watching with them. She had thin legs and wore thick tan tights, which were at eye level with Sariah, who resisted the urge to reach out and give the material a ping, to see what it felt like.
The boys were lying spreadeagled, a tangle of shiny football shorts and smelly socks, but Sariah remained sitting up, her back against the armchair.
She didn’t think much of the film, so she’d been trying to put her hair into a French braid, but her hair wasn’t really long enough and bits kept springing loose.
As she yanked the scrunchie off in frustration for the third or fourth time, she felt a hand reach down and take it.
She sat very still as Auntie Rose, who never had a hair out of place, started over.
Sariah felt gentle hands smoothing out the kinks in her hair, then dividing it into even sections.
When she was almost done, Rose’s fingers had accidentally brushed against the red worry spot behind Sariah’s ear and just for a moment, her hand stilled.
Then she’d continued like nothing was wrong before securing the scrunchie and planting a swift kiss on the top of Sariah’s head.
When the film titles rolled, the boys came out of their TV trance and began wrestling each other, waking Grace up.
Sariah stepped out into the hallway and dared to admire herself in the mirror, and for once her French braid looked neat and it somehow made her cheekbones look good too.
When Grace passed behind her, their eyes met in the mirror but her mother’s expression was unreadable.
Sariah had been wronged, that much was certain.
She’d been lied to and her bond with Grace had got off to the shakiest start.
But lying awake, she began to see this situation from Grace’s point of view.
Grace had been made to grow up and become a mother sooner than she’d wanted and, in the process, she’d also lost her relationship with her sister.
They had both been forced into a silent pact that neither could find a way out of.
Grace had mentioned Rose was back in Cornwall and that they kept in touch, but Sariah wondered what those occasions were like and if they ever talked about the things that mattered.
She gave up trying to sleep and turned on her bedside light.
It was 4 a.m. and the building was quiet, bar the odd creak of a floorboard or the distant flush of a loo, but it wouldn’t stay like that for long.
The hotel’s staff quarters were in the Warburns’ old servants’ rooms and her suite was located above the main boiler, which would start up soon.
Sometimes it was like living over a giant kettle.
She thought of her mum Grace, who had dressed up to meet her in that awful café and the way she’d held her cheap shoulder bag so tightly as she dashed out of the café. Grace was far from perfect, but she had reached out to Sariah, trying to make amends.
It was still early, but Sariah had a feeling that she wasn’t the only one awake. She dialled her mother’s number before working out what to say, but it was OK, because when Grace answered she said, ‘Hello, love’ and that was all Sariah needed to hear.