The Overnight Fame of Steffi McBride

Chapter Fifteen

I finally managed to get hold of my sister Jenny on her mobile. ‘Hi,’ I said. ‘it’s me.’

     ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Cool.’

     ‘How is it at home?’

     ‘F***ing terrible. You really did it this time.’

     I was about to protest that I hadn’t actually done anything apart from be born to the wrong woman, but decided it would be a waste of my breath. ‘Is Mum okay?’

     ‘My mum or your mum?’ she taunted.

     ‘Your mum,’ I replied, willing to humour her. ‘I can’t get hold of her.’

     ‘He smashed her phone, just before he smashed her and the rest of the house.’

     ‘How was any of it her fault?’

     ‘He was on the whisky, and angry.’

     ‘I’d really like to see her, to talk to her.’

     ‘He’s away a few days next week, working up north or something. I think he’s going on Monday.’

     ‘Thanks.’

     ‘No problem.’

     She hung up as casually as if we had conversations like that several times a day. After work on Monday I hired a minicab, because it would be less conspicuous than a black cab, and headed back home. It felt odd to be back after so long, everything so familiar but strange at the same time. So much had happened to me since the last time I was there but I could still see the same faces on the streets and it didn’t look as if anything had changed in their lives. No one gave me a second glance in the tatty looking car. The driver was Asian and used to carrying actors from The Towers, so he left me alone with my thoughts all the way over. It was still light and there were kids playing outside as I got out, asking him to wait. I had no idea how long I was going to be but I had his mobile number if I needed him. He didn’t seem bothered. He knew where I worked; he could find me again if necessary. He settled down with the radio on and a creased Tom Clancy paperback.

     Jenny obviously hadn’t told Mum about my call because she looked genuinely startled to see me, tears springing to her eyes as she held out her arms and I fell into them.

     ‘I’m so sorry, child,’ she murmured, rubbing my back, ‘so sorry.’

     I was surprised again by how short she seemed, her head resting on my shoulder rather than the other way round, as I would have expected. I guess I hadn’t really been looking at her before, when she was just my mum, someone who was always around when I was tiny and everyone seemed big. She bustled me through to the kitchen, wiping her eyes as she went. There was no one else in, which was a relief. I wanted it to just be her and me.

     Once she’d made me a cup of tea and we’d sat down at the table, she took my hand tightly in hers. ‘I want you to know that you were always a daughter to me, child,’ she said. ‘I never thought of you as any different to the others, just because you didn’t spring from my womb. You were a gift from God just as surely as any of them.’

     ‘What happened?’

      ‘Your father made a mistake, a bad mistake. He’s not a bad man, but he can be a stupid one, as you know, when he’s in the drink. He was in the drink the night you were conceived, but his stupidity turned out to be a blessing for us all.’