The Sister Surprise by Abigail Mann (read full novel TXT) 📗

to be, and when you do find her, she’ll use any excuse to do the exact opposite of what you need. She’s the ringleader, from what I’ve seen.’

‘Really? That sort of behaviour isn’t overlooked for long,’ says Mum.

‘Oh, the boss is aware. Problem is, he lets her get away with all sorts.’

‘Best to keep out of her way,’ says Mum. ‘You don’t want more drama, especially when you’re not there for long.’

‘I’m trying,’ I say. ‘But it’s only a matter of time before something kicks off. I’ve got a feeling.’

***

The next day, I set my alarm two hours earlier and think I’ve beaten Kian to it, but by the time I pull my second fleece on and shuffle downstairs, he’s already tapping his foot by the back door, a Thermos in each hand. Out in the shed, I rearrange eggs by size whilst Kian lines every possible surface with empty boxes. I turn over an almost spherical egg in my hand and wonder if there’s a category for ‘monstrously large’. This one is so big I’m surprised Kian didn’t have to intervene with forceps.

I stretch and yawn, my arms heavy. God, I’d do anything for a nap. I only got up an hour ago, but still.

‘You’re like my mum, Kian. She never bloody sits down. Between coffee mornings and bake sales, she has a busier social life than I do. In fact, she arranges most of my social life too,’ I say.

‘Bit of a handful, is she?’

‘Not half.’

‘I can see why you wanted to escape for a wee while.’

‘What do you mean?’ I say. It comes out like an accusation that I try to counteract by casually leaning against the door frame, one ankle crossed over the other. In my head, I have the air of a sweater-clad catalogue model, but inside my stomach flutters like a jam-jar full of anxious butterflies until I’m sure one’s going to plop out of my mouth like an ill-timed burp.

‘Your ma?’ asks Kian, glancing to the side as though he’s misread the situation. ‘Sorry, I didn’t realise it was a dodgy subject, like.’

‘It’s not.’

‘I’ll stop going on about it. It’s fine.’

‘What’s this then?’ I say, drumming my fingers on the bench. I point to the mess of papers that I now believe to be an attempt to keep track of orders. Kian ignores me.

‘If it’s any consolation, I know what it’s like to have a, errr … complicated family dynamic.’

I’m brain-weary from tiptoeing around subjects I’m not used to verbalising. It feels like swimming upstream in a baggy T-shirt and trainers, similar to the swimming lessons we had at school. They culminated in a ‘safe’ simulation of what it feels like to drown, which involved Mrs Hillier plunging you below the surface with her shot-put arm whilst you tried not to inhale chlorinated water.

‘Egg delivery, isn’t it?’ I say, flicking through the notepad. Ten pages back, the handwriting changes. Kian’s scrawl is pressed into the paper with a thick blue biro, the letters spiky and clear, but the writing underneath is a mess of a crossings out, smeared ink, and words so illegible it looks like a series of tiny spiders crawling over the page. ‘Five minutes with a highlighter and I could sort this out, no problem. Speaking of which, if you fancy letting me have a go at the stack of papers in the kitchen, just say the word. No offence, but it’s like a scene from Britain’s Biggest Hoarders.’

‘Aye, knock yourself out, though I could find some more interesting things for you to do.’

‘Trust me, I’ve got itchy fingers already.’

‘Suit yourself, I’ll not stop you.’

Kian flicks through the clipboard, a slight smile in the corner of his mouth. ‘This was Granddad’s system. He left school at eleven and didn’t see the point in all the literacy stuff. As long as he could read the name of the guest ale down at The Wailing Banshee, he was happy. He nearly keeled over when I said I was going to do Anthropological Geography at Uni. “Nothing interesting about humans after you’ve untwisted a sheep’s testicles using just your pinkie fingers,” that’s what he said.’

‘I guess that’s a skill in itself, although not something I’d put on a CV,’ I say.

‘No, quite. He accepted IOUs instead of payment far too often, so I wouldn’t take his business advice to heart.’

I glance at my watch, keen to start deliveries so I can snatch half an hour with my laptop before dinner. According to a one-sentence email from Duncan that reached my phone in the early hours of this morning, my first diary entry went down well, so now I’m pressed to write another in covert snatches between the seemingly endless jobs on the farm. I tried to pitch a new article about the generational divide between the urban young and rural old, but Duncan’s criticism was constructive, in as much as ‘sounds drier than a camel minge in the Sahara Desert’ can be. He wants click-worthy content. The more personal, the better.

Kian slaps the clipboard down beside me. ‘Write a name down on the label, stick an elastic band round the box, and stack them in the crate. Crack on, I’ll be back in a minute.’

Kian stomps across the yard, the sound of his footsteps softened by the well-worn rubber of his boots. I look down the list. The rumours are true. There’s a worryingly poor circulation of last names, like the whole county got half a dozen to share between them, all ending in ‘son’: Wilson, Thomson, Robertson, Anderson, and one Macaulay. I look at the name again, squinting at the scrawl. Jacqui Macaulay. She doesn’t seem the type to give a second chance at a first impression, but I’ll give it a good bloody go.

Chapter 14

I walk around the house, holding my phone aloft like a water diviner. I need height. With the farmhouse in a dip, a cliff edge on one side and half a mile of cow fields