The Sisters (7 page)

‘Have you spoken to your sisters?’ Richard asked as he took the hot cup of tea from Lucinda. It was quiet in the garden. The only sounds came from an occasional car driving past and Vanessa Feltz’s voice drifting out of the radio from her neighbour’s kitchen window. It was nice. Peaceful. A time for confessions.

‘Not all of them. Bea picked us up from the airport. Emma left me a message this morning.’

‘And Jess?’ Richard asked as he took a sip of his tea, knowing full well that there was a better chance of Jose Morhinio walking through the front door than there was of Lucinda and Jessica having a civil conversation.

‘No dad. I haven’t heard from her.’

‘Life is too short to waste it on petty fights, but nevertheless, Lulu I’m happy to see you.’

Lucinda smiled. He almost sang her nickname, Lulu. When Jessica had stopped calling her Lulu, it’d hurt. ‘Anyway, I really am pleased that you’ve come home. I won’t ask why you’ve come back. I’ll leave those questions to your mother.’

‘Dad, you know what I’m like.’

‘You’re impulsive.’

‘Exactly and a change is as good as a holiday.’

‘A holiday means that you go back at some point. You bought a one way ticket.’

‘Actually, it was a return. They’re cheaper.’

‘Do the twins know that it’s a return ticket?’

‘You’re having a laugh aren’t you? Katelyn would be on the first plane back. All that I’ve heard from her for the past month is that I’m ruining her life.’

Richard laughed. ‘She obviously takes after you then. When you were fourteen you were constantly telling your mother and I that we were ruining your life.’

‘Sorry about that. Thankfully, Reece isn’t too bad. His life solely consists of either sitting in his room with his headphones on or playing Black Ops online on his x-box so it doesn’t make a difference if his friends are in London or back home in New York.’

‘And Paul? How is he? I heard about his …problems.’

‘Paul is experiencing some financial difficulty but you know him. He’ll bounce back.’

‘But he’s still able to support the kids? I mean financially, not just take them out to McDonalds.’

‘Dad, he’s doing his bit. Don’t worry. We wouldn’t be here if there were problems.’

‘Baby girl, I’ll always worry about you.’

‘What about you? Should I be worrying about you?’ Lucinda asked, because he didn’t look like a man who was enjoying retirement. She’d always known her dad to be a strong and able man but she wasn’t blind. She’d watched how he moved, and how he spoke, and she knew. ‘It’s come back, hasn’t it?’

Richard nodded, not at all surprised that Lucinda had been able to see through the smokescreen.

‘Oh God. Where?’

‘Pancreas this time. Stage two. It’s all confirmed,’ Richard said as he leaned back in the rattan chair and took a deep breath. Every time he said it, he tried to absorb the enormity of what he was saying, but it felt good that he’d told her. Good that he didn’t have to hold it in anymore. The one good thing about his Lulu was that she wasn’t one for amateur dramatics. She could deal with this.

‘What does stage two mean?’

‘It means that it hasn’t spread to my lymph nodes yet but it’s large.’

‘So, what are your options?’ Lucinda asked as she took hold of her dad’s hand.

‘My consultant wants me to start chemotherapy. If I don’t, they’re saying that I probably won’t make it until Christmas. If I have the chemo and maybe surgery then there’s an 18% chance that I’ll last another 12 months.’

‘18%. Are you sure?’ Lucinda said, as she pulled back, shocked at the numbers.

‘I know. I’d get better odds with the lottery.’ Lucinda gave her dad a sharp look.

‘Sorry love.’

‘How long have you known?’

‘About six weeks.’

‘And do the others know?’ As Richard nodded, the call from the unknown UK number that Lucinda had received suddenly made sense.

‘And you’ve had a second opinion. Actually don’t even answer that, mum would have made sure that you got a second opinion. So what do you want to do?’

This is what Richard wanted to hear and he knew there was a reason why he wanted to speak to Lucinda alone. She was impulsive but she was also practical and, at times, could put her feelings to one side and ask the question “What do you want?”

Richard looked into his daughter’s eyes, which were an exact copy of his. ‘What I want is for you and your sisters to sort out this nonsense.’

‘Dad, stop it. This isn’t about me or Jess, Emma or Bea. We’re grownups, we’ll sort it.’ She’d only been back 24 hours and her south London lilt had returned. ‘I’m asking about you.’ Lucinda took a breath and asked the question that she knew her mother and her sisters would never ask her father.

‘Do you want to do this? Do you want the treatment?’

‘I don’t think that I do, Lulu. It was horrible the last time. I hated feeling so dependent on your mum. The stress. The pain. The headaches. It was too much. It was horrible for Emma too, having to live with that.’

‘But you got through it.’

‘I did. But it was just in one place then. Nice and contained and manageable in my prostrate. But now it’s in my pancreas, one of the worse places that you can get it. I can’t take the pain as it is. I don’t let your mum know how bad it is.’

Lucinda watched the anxiety and the pressure of what he was going through etched in her dad’s face. She wasn’t going to cry. It wasn’t what her dad would want to see. Instead she’d do what she did best. Throw money at the problem.

‘What about a private consultant. Harley Street. I could pay.’

‘No. You’re not paying for anything.’

‘But you don’t have any private health insurance, so let me…’

‘Lulu, this isn’t America. I don’t need private healthcare. There’s nothing wrong with the NHS. They didn’t kill me last time.’

‘It wasn’t in your pancreas last time,’ Lucinda replied. ‘Have you told mum any of this? How you’re feeling.’

‘Not yet.’

‘Are you going to?’

Richard took a sip of his tea and looked at his daughter. ‘What do you think?’

12 September 1997

‘Are you sleeping with him?’ Jessica asked as she stood watching Lucinda pack. She had no intention of helping her. There was no way that she was going to help her after what she’d just done to them.

‘Why would you assume that I’m sleeping with him?’

‘Because you don’t get something for nothing, Lou. As if he’s going to whisk you off to the States and promise you the world without getting something in return.’

‘And you think what he wants is between my legs? Don’t judge me by your standards,’ said Lucinda as she slammed her suitcase shut. She looked around her bedroom for anything else that she needed to pack. It was odd she had bought the house almost a year ago but it hadn’t been lived in. Euterpe had been touring and recording continuously for the past two years. There had been no time for her to lay down roots, let alone pick curtains and carpets. She was simply moving clothes and shoes from one end of the room into her luggage. She’d never even had time to place anything on hangers. Lucinda couldn’t look at Jessica. She’d convinced herself that Jessica would understand, that they’d never shared the same dreams but inside she knew that wasn’t true.

‘You must be delusional to think that I’d support you. How could I support you with this?’ Jessica shouted. She had been tolerant up to now hoping that Lucinda would turn around and say it was just a joke. That she wasn’t really leaving the group.

‘Do you know how hard it is to break into the States, Lou? Do you know how many bands and singers have tried and failed but we did it. Us. You, Beatrice and me. Euterpe. The three of us. Together.’

Beatrice didn’t say anything as she entered the bedroom. She could hear the shouting from downstairs. In fact it had been non-stop shouting since Lucinda had made her grand announcement just two weeks after they’d won a Brit Award for Best British Group. Now they were no longer a group.

‘Why don’t we all just sit down and talk about this calmly?’ Beatrice said as she closed the bedroom door and sat on the king-size bed.

‘Bea. There’s nothing to talk about. I’ve made up my mind.’

‘Lulu, of course there’s something to talk about. You can’t make a decision like this without discussing it with us.’

‘I don’t know why you’re wasting your breath,’ Jessica said as she joined Beatrice on the bed. ‘But there are people we’re responsible for. What about Sal and everything that he’s done? What about the record company?’

‘What about them? We’re out of contract. They’re not losing any money and there’s no reason why they can’t sign just the two of you. Euterpe doesn’t need three of us.’

‘But Euterpe is the three of us. It always has been. If you do this Lou then that’s it. There’s no more Euterpe. It’s over,’ Jessica said coldly. Lucinda stared back at her sister, suddenly consumed with anger. She stopped what she was doing and turned and faced her two sisters. Beatrice felt herself lean back in an effort to distance herself from Lucinda’s fury. She had never seen her eyes so dark and so angry before.

‘Why do you even care?’ shouted Lucinda. ‘You never really wanted this and Beatrice definitely didn’t want it. I had to practically break her arm just to get her to sing back up. This was my dream, no one else’s and you all made it because of me. No one else. Me.’

‘You’re a selfish bitch,’ Jessica said, her voice calm but cold. ‘I can’t believe that we’re even sisters.’

JESSICA WAS glad, that like politics, the celebrity world had entered its very own silly season. If they weren’t falling out of nightclubs with people they shouldn’t be with, then they were assaulting the paparazzi or harassing Jessica’s staff about the lack of exposure they were getting despite attending every envelope opening ceremony. It was Jessica’s ex husband, Christopher, who had convinced her to start the agency. He knew that his wife wasn’t made for a life of domesticity. Coincidentally, that same week Jessica had received a call from her ex backing singer, Jackson. Unfortunately for him he’d been caught in flagrante with the lead singer of Utopia; who were the boy band of the moment. After years of being the tabloid’s favourite bad girl, Jessica knew how to handle the media.

‘Have you been listening to a word I said?’ Christopher said as he popped the last California sushi roll into his mouth.

Jessica looked up at Christopher with a blank face.

‘I might as well have been speaking to the wall,’ Christopher said.

‘I’m sorry. I just want to sort out this stuff for Jo Lucas’s people. I met them for lunch yesterday and they’re already breathing down my neck.’

‘I doubt that you ate anything,’ Christopher said under his breath as he wiped his hands with a napkin and threw it into the bin. There weren’t many couples that would still be able to work together after a divorce but Christopher and Jessica had managed it.

‘Sorry, what did you say?’ asked Jessica as she reached for her phone, which had been vibrating on her desk. She looked at the name on the screen and pressed decline.

‘I was saying that we’re going to have to make some changes. We’re running out of space as it is. The staff are being run ragged…Jess, will you pay attention.’

‘Oh for fuck’s sake,’ Jessica said as she read the email that had just arrived. ‘I can’t believe that he’s gone and done it again.’

‘Who are you talking about?’

‘Sebastian Roycliff. He’s just been arrested for possession of drugs. He’s such a fucking idiot. He’s supposed to be opening at the Donmar tonight.’

Christopher sighed. ‘Well, he won’t be opening anywhere if we don’t find someone to represent him, but Jess, where is your head at?’

‘Just give me a minute,’ Jessica said as she walked out of the office and went to speak to Angelique, a statuesque blonde who nodded efficiently at what Jessica had to say before grabbing her bag and leaving the office.

‘It’s so bloody hot in here,’ Jessica said as she turned off the malfunctioning air conditioning unit and opened the window. ‘I hate the summer. It’s as if the heat turns everyone mad. Right, I’m here. What were you saying?’

‘If you’d been listening to me I was saying that Wendy is going to be on annual leave for the next two weeks from Wednesday, and then Anthony, Michelle and Natalie have got leave scheduled.’

‘I wouldn’t have authorised for them to have leave all at the same time.’

‘Well, you have, and our diary is absolutely manic – and that’s not even taking into account the inevitable last minute crisis that always lands at our door.’

‘How was I supposed to know that bloody Sebastian was going to go on a mini drug run? Where is Wendy anyway?’ Christopher picked up his iPad and opened his calendar. He was a good looking man and Jessica wondered why he was still single.

‘Wendy is currently swanning around Westfield for the launch of that X-Box football game and then she has a meeting with the directors of that eco-design company who I swear are only about 12-years-old.’

‘I thought that you were doing the X-box thing,’ Jessica said, as she took out a bottle of water from the mini cooler behind her desk.

‘No Jess,’ Christopher said, clearly exasperated. ‘We had a meeting last Monday and talked about all of this stuff. Your mind is clearly elsewhere. What’s happening? Is everything alright at home?’

‘Of course everything is alright at home,’ Jessica said rather too quickly and forcefully.

‘Well something is going on. This isn’t like you. Talk to me,’ Christopher said softly.

‘It’s dad. He’s…well he’s not well again and the signs aren’t good, Chris.’

‘Oh fuck, Jess, I’m so sorry. If there’s anything that I can do.’

Jessica waved her hand at Christopher and indicated for him to sit back down as he tried to get up and reach her. The irony wasn’t lost on her that she was telling her ex husband about her father’s condition whilst her current husband still remained clueless.

‘And Lucinda is back in town.’

‘Ah,’ Christopher said as he leaned back in his chair.

‘I’m surprised that Lena hasn’t told you considering she worships the ground that woman walks on.’