Bird chatter rouses me, creeping through my window with the first rays of sunlight, and I’m not sure whether I was asleep a moment ago or just lost in my thoughts. A plan is already unfurling behind my gritty eyelids. By seven o’clock I am showered and dressed, with more energy and purpose in my limbs than I’ve felt in the three weeks since Dad died. I tap Laura’s old postcode into my GPS and join the flow of traffic from the coast to the capital, a three-hour journey that often swells to four.
Laura’s old address turns out to be a neat terraced house with a semicircle of brightly stained glass in its front door. There’s a small park across the road, surrounded by green painted railings that gleam in the late morning sunshine as if they’ve just been polished. I hesitate on the pavement, imagining suspicious eyes watching me from behind the pristine net curtains. For several heartbeats I consider walking away, but I grit my teeth and knock.
The man who answers is grinning before I even finish my question.
“I’m looking for a Laura Silveira who lived here twenty-five years ago. Do you happen to know where I might find her?”
He has a large hooked nose and a bald head, and he fills the narrow doorway.
“You from that posh family she used to live with?” he asks.
I blink at him. His gaze travels over my linen shift dress down to my cream ballet pumps, and he curls his lip, still grinning.
“Wait there. I’ll get her mum. She knows where she works.” He shuts the door in my face.
Water drips from a hanging basket of petunias next to the door, and an earthy puddle shimmers on the block paving underneath. Traffic at the top of the road drowns any sound from within the house. I’d prefer a quick answer, but part of me hopes Laura’s mum will query my intentions first; I like to think my own mother wouldn’t have handed out my details to a stranger. A memory niggles at me: my grandmother Vera scolding me when I was a teenager for passing on an acquaintance’s phone number without their explicit permission.
The door swings open, and it’s the man again, a slip of paper poking out from between his thick fingers. I glimpse cream-carpeted stairs rising behind him, a large circular mirror on the wall, but no woman—no inquisitive maternal figure come to question me. The man narrows his eyes at me and pulls the door closer to his body.
“That’s where she works.” He keeps his grip on the paper for a moment as I try to take it. “Is she in trouble again?”
I shake my head. “No, not at all.”
He grunts. “Tell her to ring her mum, yeah?”
“I will. Thanks.”
As soon as he lets go, I fold the paper into my damp palm and hurry away.
The address takes me to a gray three-story office building on a street in northeast London, and a parking space comes free just as I approach, as if reassuring me that my visit is within the bounds of reasonable behavior. Once parked, I clamber into the back seat, and my tinted rear windows let me peer into the reception area without being seen.
I study the receptionist. She springs off her stool behind her high desk to fetch some papers, and I’m convinced she’s not Laura—she’s not tall enough, not old enough. A dusty pavement lies between us, as well as three shallow steps and a pair of tall glass doors that slide open and shut periodically as people enter and leave. I stroke the curved corner of my phone with my thumb, silently rehearsing what I plan to say to Laura:My name is Seraphine Mayes. You used to be my brother Edwin’s au pair. Our father just died...I squeeze my eyes shut against the threat of tears. I’m feeling less capable of this by the second.
The first few tinny notes of an ice cream van float down from the park at the far end of the street, and an image of my brothers rises in my mind: both tall men, with the sort of open, friendly faces that people warm to instantly. For a moment I wallow in a sensation of separateness, of being different to them, of being disconnected from everyone. I grind my teeth. This is my chance to find out what happened back at the start, on that day we were born. No one else has ever been willing to tell me the details. But Laura might.
I realize I want to see Laura first. I want to see what she looks like before I approach her, before I ask her the question that might change everything.
I ease out of my car and head away down the street beforelooping around to approach the office building from the direction of the park. A cloud of cool air embraces me as I enter.
“How can I help?” the receptionist asks, her eyebrows rising into pointy arches.
“I have a delivery for Laura Silveira,” I say.
A young man leaning on the desk looks sideways at me, and the receptionist’s gaze drops to my hands.
“Where is it?” she asks.
I curl my fingers. “In the van. She needs to come and check it first. We’ll bring it in if she wants it.”
The receptionist exchanges a glance with the young man, who coughs into his hand.
“What is it, then, top secret?” she asks.
I step right up to the desk, summoning my grandmother’s iciest expression.
“Are you going to call her down, or do you want me to go back to the depot and have my boss ring your boss?” I tap my nails on the smooth counter. The receptionist settles back in her chair slightly.
“Sure. I’ll call her. And you’re from—?”
