The Sister Surprise Read online

  Max sits down next to me on a plywood cube and pulls his leg up.

  ‘So, you know the set-up of the feature,’ says Lowanna.

  ‘Yes,’ says Max, at the same time as I say, ‘No.’

  ‘Great,’ says Lowanna, ignoring my response. She scrolls through the auto-prompt on her iPad. ‘Intro, couple of jokes, quick description of the spit samples, then results. Oh, and if you want to throw in the phrase “Who do you think you are?” that’d really help our Google ranking, but not too obvious. We can’t afford to get sued. Make some guesses about what you think you’ll discover. Ava, you’re up first, Max second, a lil’ reflection to close … and we’re done!’ Lowanna locks the iPad and hovers, the cups of her headphones held just above her ears. ‘All good?’

  ‘Yeah, s’fine,’ says Max, nudging me with his arm.

  ‘Don’t forget, push all your feelings into your face,’ says Lowanna, snapping her headphones back on. ‘Subtlety doesn’t work on camera.’

  ‘Yeah, about that. Can I have a quick look at the DNA results? I didn’t know we were meant to know them in advance.’

  ‘Uhh, no. Slight change of plan. We’ve decided to keep your results sealed until the big reveal. Max has been prepped for it. He’s got your back. Trust me, it’ll make for a better delivery.’

  Max picks his teeth and flashes me a school photo smile. ‘Time to shine, buddy.’

  I take a shallow breath as the set swims in front of me. Industrial lighting, the smell of heavy aftershave, and a drum-skin tightness across my forehead swash together and catch in my throat like bile. At the back of the studio, Duncan unfolds a chair in the gloom. He settles into it, his legs crossed at the ankle, observing all before him like the family patriarch. Max raises a hand to wave, but I’m barely keeping my cinnamon porridge down as it is, so don’t risk any non-essential movement.

  ‘Something must have caught his attention. Thanks, Tia.’ Max drops his gaze, heel jiggling, as Tia turns to me. She removes a wide brush from her holster and dusts my T-zone so thoroughly I’m sure she’s trying to lift fingerprints.

  She steps away and I sense Max beside me, sitting tall and poised. He squeezes my knee and nods towards the camera, red light blinking. Lowanna clicks her fingers to get my attention and traces the line of her mouth, urging me to smile like an over-zealous pageant mum.

  ‘Quiet on set!’ comes a voice from the darkness. ‘Energy! Enthusiasm!! And we’re live in three, two, one …’

  Chapter 4

  Max nudges me with his elbow. I blink, barely able to focus on the prompter, which has slowed down to a crawl. Lowanna’s eyes bulge with impatience. I sit up straight. I’ve been tiptoeing around Duncan for five years, and now he’s right in front of me, leaning forward in his chair as Max goes off-script. I urge my brain to engage as Max buys me some time, but my head is full of noise, all of it loud and distracting. Up until today, I thought of the live stream and the DNA test as two completely separate things, so much so that I hadn’t quite processed how publicly I’d receive the results.

  I hear my name and it snaps me back into my own body. Engage brain, Ava. I catch sight of myself in a monitor off-set: a squinting mole woman, albeit with meticulous winged eyeliner. I can’t open my eyes any more, because I’m sure that my skull will split down the middle like an overripe watermelon if I do. Maybe smiling will help? I try, but combined with the squint, it’s like I’m in the throes of an acid trip.

  Lowanna looks between the monitor and me before smacking her forehead with a clipboard.

  ‘OK, so we better explain how it’s going to work. Ava, you ready for the science-y bit?’ says Max, pretending to push glasses up his nose with a wink to the camera. He’s working the viewers like they’re sat round his table in a pub. In that scenario, who am I? The mute who sits in the corner with a soda and lime? Duncan shifts in his seat, poised and attentive as a tennis umpire.

  I mimic Max’s laissez-faire posture and prop my heel on the stool, looking to him with a smile that I hope comes across as girlish and cool. ‘Well, I did get an A in GCSE Biology, but my knowledge is limited to the life cycle of a plant cell nowadays, so you might have to break it down a little.’

  Max laughs. I feel my shoulders retreat from their defensive position up by my ears.

  ‘Right! So basically, we sent some saliva samples off to our friends at The Ancestry Project, who analysed our DNA to find out what’s going on behind the scenes of our genetic make-up.’

  Oh my God. That was almost word-perfect from the script I wrote. This is good. I look down the camera lens, chin up. I know what to do from here.

  ‘So how much have you thought about your results since we sent our samples off?’ I ask, glancing past the camera to Duncan at the back of the studio. He gives me the tiniest of nods.

  ‘Quite a bit, actually,’ says Max, feigning nonchalance. ‘But I’m not expecting any curveballs. My dad’s a massive history nerd – sorry, Dad – so I know a fair bit about where the Oswolf–Brownes come from.’

  ‘Oswolf–Browne?’

  ‘Yeah. We were quadruple-barrelled at one stage, but my grandfather knocked two names off by Deed Poll way back when. Bit of a mouthful, isn’t it? Ironic, seeing as he was an auctioneer, but there you go. Anyway!’ says Max, clapping his hands together. ‘Ava, what do you know, or think you know, about your heritage?’

  ‘Err, not a whole lot to be honest,’ I say, propping my chin on my fist like a crop-top-clad version of The Thinker. ‘I haven’t grown up with knowledge of my dad.’ I weigh my words, unused to hearing a voice so candid coming out of my mouth. ‘Only that I must have had one, otherwise I wouldn’t be here, right?’ Max smiles at me but doesn’t interrupt. ‘My only family are the ones Mum’s pulled into the fold over the years. It sounds weird saying it to other people,’ I say, clutching my hands in my lap. ‘But before I went to school, Mum and I lived all over the place with The Earth Mamas, so my version of a normal family is … not other people’s normal. The Earth Mamas were essentially a nomadic commune, which facilitated some pretty committed activism, back when it was uncool to be an eco-warrior, you know?’

  ‘So, ever since then it’s just been you and your mum?’ says Max, his fingers tapping his thigh.

  ‘Yeah. I think so.’

  ‘You think so?

  ‘Well, it’s like … We’ve always been a two-person unit, you know? We moved into a house that my grandparents left her, so no more sleeping under canvas. The fight continues, she’s just channelled it down other routes. More PTA warrior than eco-warrior nowadays.’

  ‘Well my DNA results are going to be an anticlimax. Sorry, everyone,’ he says, looking to the camera.

  ‘You never know, we might turn out to be cousins.’

  ‘That’d make our snog at last year’s Christmas party a tad awkward,’ says Max.

  ‘Max! You had mistletoe,’ I say, rolling my eyes. Duncan and a few others laugh behind the camera. I feel buoyed. The LED viewer count at the front of the studio ticks over into its first thousand.

  ‘Here we go!’ says Max, as two envelopes are dangled in front of us. I take the one with Max’s name on and he takes mine. The crew are fixed on me, their gaze flicking between me and the envelope in Max’s hand. Annoyance prickles up the back of my neck. This is really happening. There’s a handful of people here who know that I’m about to get some pretty fucking huge news and their priority was to push me in front of a camera first and ask me how I feel about it second. My hands are clammy. The teleprompter displays a question. I repeat it aloud.

  ‘Nationality. Any guesses before we dive in?’ I ask, reading the words in monotone. Just get through the next few minutes, I tell myself.

  ‘Ah, easy. A hundred per cent legend.’

  ‘Hundred per cent delusional?’ I ask, giving the camera a side-eye as though the viewers are in on the joke. Max grins like he’s trying to ruin his school photo.

  ‘You?’

  ‘Couldn’t say. I have an … unsu
btle jawline, so … a bit German?’

  ‘And your dad’s side?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Shall we?’ says Max in a sing-song voice, wiggling the envelope at me.

  On set, an off-key sound effect plays to build suspense, but it’s more like entrance music for a pantomime baddie. I clutch the side of my stool, my nails scratching the painted MDF as Max slips a finger under the envelope flap. He pulls out a folded piece of card and maintains a neutral poker face, giving the camera a conspiratorial glance.

  ‘Someone lied to you, mate. There’s no German, but there is evidence of recent ancestry in Russia on your mum’s side.’

  ‘Wow. OK. Maybe it was an awkward time to be part of the Soviet Union?’

  ‘I have always wondered why you get so upset at the unequal distribution of stationery around the office,’ says Max. More laughter ripples across the studio.

  ‘Ready for your dad’s side?’

  In the monitor, my face fills the screen, make-up intact thanks to the sheer quantity of hairspray that serendipitously locked it onto my skin. It was worth the face full of carcinogens.

  ‘How do we feel about haggis?’ says Max, peeking at me from behind the gold envelope.

  ‘Never had it,’ I say, my stomach tightening.

  ‘Odd, considering that your DNA has a strong Celtic link, which indicates a close ancestor according to our expert over at The Ancestry Project.’ I feel my eyebrows retreat up my forehead. ‘We’re not talking a bit Scottish here. This is a paint-yourself-blue-and-scare-off-the-Romans level of Scottish,’ says Max. He launches into a poor imitation of Mel Gibson’s Braveheart, which sends laughter round the studio.

  ‘How’re you feeling?’ says Max, his excitement palpable.

  I rub my collarbone and take a staggered breath in, nodding slowly as my heart rate levels out. Rory was right. This wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Now I know that my father is from Scotland, I can find a way to tactfully ask Mum about any trips she’s taken up there and work backwards without risking her going into a spiral of denial. Good. This is progress.

  ‘Guys,’ says Max at the camera, running a hand through his floppy hair. It falls into annoyingly perfect waves. ‘We’re glad you’re here for this, because Ava’s about to get a bit of a treat.’

  ‘I’m good for treats,’ I say with a laugh. Max pushes his chair out as a flat-screened TV wheels into view. Oh God, what now?

  Max taps the screen. A map of the UK comes into focus, a handful of countries shaded in blue. Up in an area of north-east Scotland, a tiny outcrop of land is ink-dropped by the deepest colour. He taps it again. From London, an animated arrow travels up to a place called Kilroch, where it bounces on the spot, demanding attention like an over-excited toddler.

  ‘Let’s give it a look,’ says Max, grinning past the camera to where Duncan sits. He knows already. Everyone must know, except for me. I smile. Behind it my brain is thick like overcooked porridge, but 16,437 viewers are watching the live stream, so I nod in agreement. ‘OK, sure.’

  Max rubs his hands together and winks at the camera. I don’t hear what he says, distracted as I am by an invisible hand that clenches my ribcage and squeezes.

  ‘You have a half-sister,’ says Max.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Moira.’

  The phrase doesn’t register. Max could have asked my opinion on Coco Pops and I wouldn’t know what to say. ‘I … don’t have a half-sister.’

  ‘Turns out you do. How about that, guys? Our own family reunion here at Snooper!’ Max nods to catch someone’s attention and starts clapping, his eyes crinkled from a broad grin.

  I stare at the screen, eyebrow twitching. What the actual fuck? This has got to be a wind-up, some gimmicky idea trotted out by an intern to boost our views.

  I snatch the envelope from Max and spread the card on my knee as a confetti canon explodes on either side of us. The air is thick with fluttering pastel discs and whooping from the studio, but I hardly notice. I stare at the page, trying to make sense of the figures listed beneath Moira’s name and mine. It looks too technical to be fake.

  If Mum’s relationship with my dad was as fleeting as she’s implied, who’s to say he didn’t father someone else before me? It’s not like he would have looked Mum up to tell her, especially when The Earth Mamas’ cross-country convoy had no fixed address for the best part of a decade.

  I pull a spiral of gold ribbon from my head as Max slaps me on the back in congratulations. The clapping subsides like burst microwave popcorn as a rainbow of detritus settles on the floor.

  I stand up, my head throbbing from the sudden movement. Lowanna jabs a finger towards the prompter, which scrolls the message ‘KEEP IT LIGHT!’ but I don’t seem to have control over my body, let alone speech at this particular moment. Max barks out a laugh to fill the terse silence. I close my eyes, willing this all to disappear, but when I open them again the studio shunts sideways and I have to grab Max’s shoulder to steady myself.

  ‘Woah, Ava. It’s a lot to take in, I know.’

  What a fucking joke. He knows, does he? Six years we’ve been friends and this is what he does for extra views and few brownie points with Duncan?

  ‘Let’s sit you down,’ he says, gently tugging on my forearm. I yank it away. There’s too much light and the silhouettes I can see come in and out of focus like I’m looking through a kaleidoscope. ‘Talk us through your feelings,’ says Max.

  ‘I’m … I’m feeling a bit weird,’ I say, my stomach heaving. An acrid taste pricks the back of my tongue and I hold my mouth slack, horribly uncertain of the warning signs at play.

  ‘Well, that’s understandable. This is a surprise! Tell us what’s going through your mind,’ says Max, willing me with his eyes to sit down.

  ‘I don’t feel good,’ I say, draping a forearm across my brow. Max’s eyes dart between the camera, Lowanna, and Duncan. At the back of the room, the viewer count rises, 31,589 … 31,611 … 32,734.

  ‘Mixed feelings are normal. It’s not every day you realise you’re not an only child, right?’ says Max. He laughs until the sound putters out, the odd piece of confetti drifting down from the lighting rig.

  I’m unduly proud of the fact that I haven’t been sick since I was nine, the result of a birthday party fuelled by candy floss, off-brand fizz, and a tightly-sprung trampoline. Such an accolade was never destined to last long.

  ‘I’m going to … I’m gonna—’

  Max nods along, realising too late that my puffed cheeks are not, in fact, an ill-timed impression of a particularly sweaty hamster.

  There’s no time to flee. Heat travels up my throat with alarming speed. Objectively, the pace of delivery is outstanding. I clap my hands over my mouth, but this only succeeds in spraying vomit outwards in a fan, leaving me coughing and spluttering for breath like I’ve taken in a mouthful of seawater. The camera lens twists, zooming in as I stand slack-jawed on set, the sound of plops hitting the floor as the viewer count ticks over into six figures. I turn to leave, but the floor is so slick that even my Doc Martens can’t seem to gain traction. I slip, steady myself, and bolt for the doors, Max’s voice ringing in my ears.

  Chapter 5

  I blink in the half-light that cuts between the curtains, my skin cold and clammy like a plucked chicken. I push the duvet to one side and yawn, but my jaw is stiff, as though I’ve been leaning on something and, yep, there’s my phone on the pillow, an oily smear of make-up on the screen. Never before have I so deeply regretted making a Twitter account that lists my employer in the bio. I flick through my notifications, but there doesn’t seem to be an end to them. Feeling panic rising from the pit of my empty stomach, I jab at my phone, deleting all my social media apps until the notifications slide into one another and disappear. A handful of texts remain, the first from Rory. It must have come through just before we went live.

  Break a leg! You look like an X Factor contestant! In a good way!!

  Max has got
to have some skeletons in his closet with a signet ring like that … still give him my number though, please and thank you xxx

  OH GOD this is it! Buckle up, baby!

  Speak, my child, speak!

  OCH AYE, Scotland! Excellent! This explains a lot about your ability to cope when the temperature goes above twenty-two degrees.

  I hope this ‘treat’ is a trip to the Edinburgh Fringe. With spending money. And a plus one. Or Iron Bru? Lots of it.

  A SISTER. YOU HAVE A SISTER. OH MY GOD. THIS IS HUGE. I’m on shift now, but call me later???

  On my break. Just watched the end. Are you OK?? Where are you? Do you need rehydration tablets? I can steal some!

  Seriously, let me know you’re all right. Not meaning to alarm, but you’re all over the internet. As are your stomach contents. Maybe stay offline for a bit. I LOVE YOU.

  I groan, pull back the curtain, and blink in the low light. Apart from the post-migraine feeling that the world is covered in cotton wool, I feel OK, despite the faint whiff of vomit that I suspect is coming from my hair. Thank God for the triple-strength Thai painkillers that Mum keeps in her bedside drawer.

  I pull my laptop onto the bed, dim the screen, and log into my work account, scrolling until I find an unopened email that contains a link to my results on The Ancestry Project website. I wait for the page to load as a carousel of sepia photographs fills the screen, each smiling face morphing into one from the generation before. The messaging is clear: ancestry is fun! Or at the very least, an interesting anecdote to recycle at uneventful barbeques. I click through.

  My DNA map loads and I see it played out before me once more. A gold line tracks north from my borough, crosses the Scottish border, and angles towards the east coast. When I click on a place called Kilroch, a faceless avatar glows like a hallway light in winter. My half-sister.