The Bad Mother Read Online Free Page A

familiarity made her look at her aunt with fresh interest; maybe now that the first shock was over, they would all be their normal selves again. ‘I’m not even sure if I’ve ever been to London before,’ Erin went on. ‘Strange. Somehow, being an expat, I automatically imagined I knew it well.’
    They fell silent, and sat sipping their coffee until Pamela came in carrying the plate of shortbread. She had brushed her hair and put on a little powder and lipstick, though Tessa could discern faint traces of puffiness around hereyes. Hugo, too, looked closely at her as she handed around biscuits for which no one had any appetite.
    Pamela took a seat on the couch beside Erin. Both sat straight-backed. They were of almost identical height, and had the same clear foreheads and wide mouths, though Erin’s features seemed somehow stronger, less faded. Pamela, nine years older, was grey-haired and narrow-shouldered, but Tessa could see that they would be immediately recognisable as sisters.
    As Hugo asked more inconsequential questions about Erin’s flight and where she’d stayed in London, Tessa was soothed by the evident intention to smooth over the shock of her arrival. Yet she couldn’t help being curious about what she’d overheard in the kitchen. ‘What made you decide to go to Australia in the first place?’ she asked.
    The others stiffened and exchanged furtive glances. Once again Tessa was piqued by the ability of a stranger to arouse in her parents a force of emotion they had never shown towards her. No one answered, so Tessa let the question hang in the air for a moment before probing further. ‘You must have been quite young?’
    ‘Sixteen,’ said Erin. ‘Same age as your kids, right? What, Lauren’s fourteen and Mitch seventeen?’
    ‘Yes,’ confirmed Tessa, surprised that she was so well informed.
    ‘So young,’ murmured Pamela.
    ‘I can’t believe it,’ Erin went on. ‘Last time I was here, you were a babe in arms. And look at you now – all grown up, kids of your own, flourishing business.’
    Tessa shrugged politely, suddenly wondering if perhaps Erin had come to make trouble over Grandma Averil’s will. If so, she would fight: the B&B had been left in its entirety to her because for the past decade, without the hard graft she and Sam had put in, it would not have survived. Besides, Sam’s new restaurant depended on the security of her inheritance and she wasn’t about to have that interfered with.
    ‘What made you change your mind? Why have you come back now?’ pressed Hugo.
    ‘Cousin Brenda died,’ Pamela answered for Erin. ‘That’s why, isn’t it?’
    Erin nodded, her expression sad as she smoothed her pink skirt over her knees. Recovering, she turned to Tessa. ‘Brenda was my second cousin,’ she explained, ‘and a second mother too. I lived with her family when I first went to Sydney. She was wonderful to me.’
    ‘I’m glad to hear that,’ said Hugo.
    ‘She passed away three months ago,’ Erin told him, ‘of breast cancer.’
    ‘My condolences,’ he said awkwardly.
    ‘Thank you.’
    ‘If Erin had stayed, our lives would have been very different,’ said Pamela.
    ‘She could have come back any time she wanted,’ Hugo told her sharply. He turned to Erin. ‘We never stopped you.’
    ‘Mum didn’t want me here,’ said Erin.
    ‘That’s not true,’ objected Pamela.
    ‘She made me promise to stay away.’
    ‘No!’
    ‘Yes. You weren’t supposed to know, but … She did what she thought was best.’
    ‘We thought you might’ve come to her funeral,’ said Hugo.
    ‘It was too difficult, after so much time.’
    Tessa observed the look of appeal Erin made to Pamela, saw Pamela nod in sympathy and reach out to press her sister’s hand. She felt exasperated by these concealed undercurrents. ‘Will someone please tell me what’s going on?’ she demanded.
    Pamela looked intently at Hugo, who met her gaze with stony eyes. Crestfallen, Pamela stared at the