My Sister’s Secret

‘You really do live the life, don’t you?’ Charity said, smiling.

‘A very bourgeois life,’ Niall said as he looked around him.

Dan frowned. ‘We’re hardly bourgeois. Lana’s dad was a dustman. My father worked on ships, my mother was a nurse. My shipping business wasn’t handed to me on a plate, I started out in the docks with my father, hauling equipment about.’

Niall’s eyes lit up the way Charity remembered they did when the subject turned to politics. ‘Doesn’t matter how you got there,’ he said, ‘you’re still an owner. That makes you bourgeois. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, I’m just making the point.’

‘Fine,’ Dan said with a smile. ‘If working hard makes me one of the bourgeoisie, then so be it.’

‘What about your staff, do they work hard too?’ Niall asked Dan.

‘I don’t operate that kind of business culture,’ Dan replied. ‘My staff aren’t expected to work long hours.’

Niall fixed him with his blue eyes. ‘But they do, don’t they? Some of them, anyway. And yet you’re still the one with the mansion, the fast cars, the expensive champagne,’ he said, gesturing around him.

Charity noticed the tops of Dan’s cheeks going red.

‘Ladies and gentleman,’ she said to ease the tension, ‘meet the modern-day Karl Marx.’

Dan’s shoulders relaxed and Lana laughed.

‘Never could impress you with my political rants, could I?’ Niall said, holding her gaze.

‘So, Charity, what brings you back to Busby-on-Sea?’ Dan asked her. ‘You worked as an NHS counsellor in London, right?’

‘Counsellor?’ Niall asked. ‘I didn’t realise that was your thing.’

‘It is now.’ She turned to Dan. ‘I was made redundant so had to return.’

‘Bloody Thatcher,’ Niall said.

Dan smiled to himself.

‘I bet that must be fascinating,’ Lana said, ‘hearing about people’s more intimate secrets as they lie on a couch.’

‘It’s not quite as exciting as that,’ Charity said. ‘More like a battered old chair in a stuffy office with stained carpets. People are referred by their GPs and a lot of the issues are ones many people deal with: insomnia, anxiety, depression.’

‘Oh, you must speak to Dan then,’ Lana said. ‘He’s a terrible sleeper, up most of the night.’

‘That has nothing to do with my state of mind, darling,’ Dan said, ‘and everything to do with your snoring.’ He turned to Charity. ‘So what’s next for you? I presume the plan isn’t to work in your sister’s café all your life, as wonderful as it is?’

Charity sighed. ‘I’m looking for jobs but there’s nothing out there.’

Niall nodded. ‘Hearing that a lot lately.’

‘Have you thought about going private?’ Lana asked. ‘Setting up your own practice?’

‘I’d love that. But I don’t have any capital.’

‘Dan can give you money,’ Lana declared, clapping her hands. ‘I can decorate your office!’

Dan laughed. ‘Darling, you’re getting a bit ahead of yourself.’

‘Why couldn’t you?’ Lana asked. ‘It would help Charity out.’

Charity laughed nervously. Lana didn’t seem to have any kind of filter. ‘I’m sure Dan has better things to do with his money.’

‘Like buy my wife antiques in Paris,’ Dan said with a raised eyebrow. He turned to Niall. ‘What about you, Niall?’

‘I’m not into antiques,’ Niall said with a smile. ‘Don’t have a wife either.’

Dan laughed.

Niall leant back, his long legs stretching out in front of him. Charity glanced at his thighs, remembering how she had found it hard to hide her feelings from her sisters as she watched him strip his wetsuit off to reveal his muscular thighs the day after their first kiss.

‘I’m an underwater photographer,’ he said. ‘Mainly advertising jobs.’

Charity looked at him, surprised. Sure, he used to lug around an old camera, but she didn’t realise that was what he’d ended up doing.

‘Wonderful. How did you get into that?’ Lana asked.

‘Happened by accident really,’ Niall replied. ‘An old school friend ended up working for an advertising agency, knew I was a photographer and that I could dive, asked me to do a last-minute job a couple of years ago. More assignments came in.’

‘Is that why you’re back in Busby-on-Sea, an assignment?’ Dan asked.

‘No. I’ve been trying to find a submerged forest that’s supposed to be here actually.’ His eyes caught Charity’s briefly then flickered away.

Charity went very still. Faith’s underwater forest?

‘Why would a forest be submerged?’ Lana asked.

‘They were once land forests,’ Niall explained. ‘But due to lots of different reasons – dams bursting, floods – they get submerged by water. They’re all over the world, in oceans and lakes, even rivers. Some are quite beautiful to look at.’

‘So, like a woodland Atlantis?’ Lana asked. Charity thought back to the first time Faith had told her and Hope about them. She’d asked the same thing.

‘Exactly like that,’ Niall said. She wondered if he was thinking of Faith too. She wished he’d change the subject, this was becoming too painful.

‘What makes you think a submerged forest lies off the coast here?’ Dan asked Niall.

‘A fisherman got lost at sea once and thought he saw it,’ Niall explained. ‘Became a bit of a local legend.’

Dan went quiet, a thoughtful look on his face. ‘I think that fisherman may have been right about that forest, you know. I have a viewing glass on my boat and I saw something very interesting during a trip the other day.’

‘Really?’ Charity and Niall asked at the same time.

‘Really.’ Dan rang a bell by his side – an actual bell! – and an older woman with dark hair walked in. ‘Those photos you had developed for me the other day, Clara, can you bring them down?’

When Clara reappeared with a bunch of photos. Dan handed one to Charity and her eyes widened. In the top right corner of one was a shadowy outline of what looked like branches.