My Perfect Sister

by Penny Batchelor

  8

  I wake up naked, hungover and cold with the duvet kicked on to the floor, ripped from a dream about being trapped in a locked car stuck on a level crossing with no way to get out. My heart is banging and it takes me a split second to come to and realise where I am. The front door opening and closing has ended my comatose slumber with a bang. Mother is home.

  I specifically avoid seeing her, knowing that with the way I’m feeling my fuse is very short. No way do I want to make polite conversation about whichever film she saw and what she had to eat at Aunty Lena’s. I quickly wash and dress, washing down two paracetamols with the glass of water I’d thankfully remembered to put by the side of my bed last night, then sneak out of the front door when I hear she’s in the kitchen. Lord knows I had enough practice doing this as a teenager.

  The walk to the café where I’ve arranged to meet Priti clears my head. I pass the park where children are already shrieking and playing, kicking their shoes towards infinity on the swing and trying to reach the stars from the climbing frame. Some of the mums chattering on the park bench look a good few years younger than me. The scene makes me smile but I don’t feel any urge to take their place.

  Priti is already there in the café and is sipping a cappuccino. She looks as bad as I do, not even her glaring red and orange tunic is able to distract from the bags under her eyes and the remnant smear of eyeliner she missed taking off last night. On the wipe-clean table in front of her is her large-screen mobile and she’s jabbing away at it with fervour.

  In the background some easy listening music fights for precedence over the hubbub of conversation. Nearly all the tables are occupied by brunchers, whether they be families with young children, older couples reading the paper instead of talking to each other, or a handful of people who are rewarding themselves for their morning jog by eating a croissant with extra butter and drinking a double espresso. A balding, smiling barista who is far too jolly for this time in the morning takes my hot chocolate and toast order and offers to bring it to my table. I thank him, copper up some change from my meagre purse, and take the numbered wooden spoon he gives me to where Priti is sitting.

  With no make-up on, bar last night’s smudges, and her long black hair tied back in a casual bun, she appears younger and gentler than her usual strident day-to-day persona. She’s engrossed in her mobile phone and hasn’t yet noticed me. Being from Yorkshire I’m not usually one for PDAs but, filled with warm feelings from her words last night, I creep up behind her and give her a hug.

  ‘Morning comrade!’ I say as she jumps with fright then turns to see me, her face erupting into a beam at my presence. The beam turns into one of her signature silly faces, sticking her tongue out of the right side of her mouth and narrowing her eyes to convey to me the depth of her hangover.

  ‘Didn’t take any pre-emptive paracetamol last night then?’

  She slumps her shoulders and pats the chrome chair next to her to indicate for me sit down. ‘There weren’t any left in my bag. I bought some this morning at the newsagents but they’ve not kicked in yet. You look as bad as I feel.’

  ‘Haven’t had a shower yet. I wanted to avoid Mother and her diatribe about her night out. My hair desperately needs a wash.’ I run my fingers through it disdainfully. ‘Hey, do you remember back before the smoking ban when we’d stink to high heaven after going to the pub?’

  ‘I still do sometimes if I have a cheeky ciggie in the beer garden. Not often, though, I’d rather smell of wine than an ashtray.’

  I nod in recognition. ‘You not eating? Mine’s on its way.’

  Priti shivers in mock horror. ‘You having a laugh? I’ve ordered a full vegetarian English to soak up all the alcohol in my system before I can even contemplate driving home. Look, Annie, I’ve got something to show you.’ She jabs again at her phone and shuffles it along the table until it’s under my gaze. ‘Toby Smith, I searched online for him. That’s him, there, in a news report about his sentencing.’

  I pick the phone up and swiftly move my index finger and thumb away from each other to zoom in on the colour image. It’s a holiday-type photo of an unremarkable-looking tanned, middle-aged white man with his arm around a younger, more attractive Filipino woman. Both are wearing shorts and T-shirts and are posing on a beach, smiling at the camera and raising their cocktail glasses to the person behind the camera. A similar photo but with different participants probably exists in most couple’s social holiday albums. The caption says the couple are Toby Smith and his wife Jasmine.

  I squint a bit to make sure but I’m certain it’s him, the blonde boy with the eyeliner in Gemma’s photograph. Time has fattened him up, added a tattoo to his neck and robbed him of the messy blonde locks but he has the same bud-shaped small mouth, broad forehead and aquiline nose.

  ‘Do you recognise him?’ Priti asks, drumming her fingernail extensions on the metal table as she does when she’s waiting for something.

  ‘Yes,’ I reply excitedly. ‘He’s in a photo in Gemma’s room, one with her and her friends in the park.’

  ‘The park we walked past yesterday?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ I’m only half-listening to what she’s saying because I’m trying to concentrate on the news article.

  A different member of staff who’s not as cheery as the first barista and is all of seventeen brings over our food and my drink in a grump, as if we were asking an unreasonable favour from him. He spills some of my drink in the saucer and grunts ‘sorry’ before ambling back to the counter in his own time. I tut and give him a death stare behind his back.

  Priti tucks in to her breakfast straight away and I take a sip of my hot chocolate, licking off the cocoa sprinkles from the foamy milk with my tongue. It’s my ritual. That done, I turn my attention back to the phone.

  The article says that Toby Smith was sentenced in Leeds Crown Court to serve twenty years in prison for the attempted murder of his wife Jasmine Smith. He had beaten her so severely in the kitchen of their home that she was lucky, the police say, to have recovered without any lasting brain damage, although she has permanent facial scars. Jasmine Smith was later found by a neighbour and the police arrested Toby Smith that evening at the ferry port in Liverpool. He admitted grievous bodily harm but denied attempted murder, saying that he had been severely provoked by her belittling behaviour. It took the jury just five hours to find him guilty in a unanimous verdict.

  Provoked by a few words from a smaller, younger and slighter person to beat her half to death? What planet was this man on? It told me a lot about his character and view of women. Had he always been that way? Was he violent when he was at secondary school? Could he have harmed Gemma if she had fallen out with him or said some words he didn’t want to hear?

  The article went on to point out that Toby and Jasmine married seven years ago after a swift romance following his holiday in the Philippines. Jasmine moved to the UK where she got a job at the local supermarket and was described as a friendly and efficient worker who always had a smile for her customers. Toby worked as a plumber. One of his co-workers was on the record as saying he wouldn’t have thought Toby would be capable of such as crime as he’d never shown any signs of violence and seemed to be happily married to his wife.

  The Chief Crown Prosecutor for the region gave a statement: ‘Today justice has been done for Jasmine, and her family and friends, although we know that nothing can take away the memory of the horrific ordeal she went through at the hands of her husband. Throughout the trial she has shown great courage and our thoughts are with her as she rebuilds her life.’

  Jenny Greene, from the police force’s Domestic Abuse Investigation Unit, appealed to anyone who is suffering from domestic abuse or suspects it is happening to someone they know to report it to specially-trained police officers. ‘We take this crime incredibly seriously,’ she is quoted as saying, ‘and want to prosecute offenders well before their behaviour escalates to the level Toby Smith reached. You are not alone. We are here to help.’
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  When I finish reading, I pass the phone back to Priti, who is halfway through devouring her carb-fest breakfast and has a blob of tomato ketchup on her chin. I point at it and she wipes it away with her finger.

  ‘Nasty, horrible bastard,’ I say, revolted by the crime he committed and unable to imagine myself how, if I were Jasmine, I could carry on with everyday life. The thought that Toby Smith would have seen my sister every day at school gives me the jitters. At least he’s locked away now and can’t hurt another woman. He won’t find himself top dog locked up in a high security prison with the scum of the earth to whom violent assaults were something they did before breakfast. I wonder whether two years inside have cowed him or only served to teach him new tricks.

  ‘Are you going to talk to your mum to see if the police are aware of this?’ asks Priti.

  I guess that Gemma’s case is still open – I haven’t heard that it’s closed – but then again I’ve been off-grid for so long that I wouldn’t have known anyway. The person for me to ask is Aunty Lena. She’ll know what the state of play is without me having to bring up the subject with mother.

  I tell Priti I’m going to go and talk to her today. She approves and says that when she’s back at home she’ll do more online searching to try and track down Mike. Mother doesn’t have the internet at home and I’m reliant on my accessing it through my pay as you go mobile. Priti promises to forward any interesting web links to me.

  We order a coffee each and then Priti decides she feels well enough to drive back to her flat. She insists I don’t need to walk her to her battered old Nissan Micra and says she’ll text me to let me know she’s home safely. I watch her walk down the street to the nearby car park, attracting more than a few male glances as she holds her now-not-thumping-head high with confidence. It’s good to have her on my side.

  9

  I’ve never been one to have lots of friends: a huge girl gang who are best friends forever through thick, thin and life’s hard slaps to the face. My life is not an American sitcom with lots of group hugs and ‘I love yous’. It’s not that I’m not sociable – quite the opposite – I’m not afraid to talk to strangers and work my way into a group, subtly working out the dynamics including who is Queen Bee and who are the hangers on. I’ve observed the same pattern everywhere. The worker bees bustle round the queen, feeding her ego until she’s ready to fight her alpha rivals until social death, and they last as long as they amuse her, at which point they are replaced by new eager faces, of which I was often one.

  Not long after I first moved to Leeds, I joined in with a crowd I’d met through the house share I was living in at the time. It was an amorphous, ever-changing group of those new to the city, whether they were studying, working or escaping from a stultifying life under their parents’ roof. People came and went: ex-boyfriends and girlfriends dropped out, on to other pastures and pliant bodies; new lovers were brought along to show off and were sometimes lost to another member of the gang, for this kind of group friendship didn’t extend to the loyalty of denying one’s individual lusts; a few settled down or moved elsewhere on to better things; one man, a quiet, amiable chap when he was sober but a violent, angry drunk when he wasn’t, was last seen being driven by his father to rehab; and a few years ago a round robin email from a party girl I hadn’t seen for ages informed me that one of the regulars had thrown herself under an incoming train at Leeds station.

  This was a group where you were still alone although you were surrounded by lots of dancing, sweaty, sometimes drug-fuelled people. Texts typed on brick-like Nokia mobile phones, sent by the latest person who aspired to be the hive’s king or queen, told us where to meet. If you didn’t go, chances were no one would call you up to see if you were alright, unless of course they were your housemate and the rent was due. I could party along with the best of them, charming a crowd and playing the fool, hiding myself in the thick of the Leeds night scene. No one talked deeply about their personal life or went further than saying they’d had a rubbish day at work. The unwritten rule was that we were there to party, your problems were your own and anyone putting a downer on the proceedings would find their mobile stopped beeping.

  Looking back now it was crazy really. Starting a fight (as long as it wasn’t with anyone in the group), getting arrested, or making a complete fool of yourself by stripping and dancing on the bar tables were perfectly socially acceptable, even encouraged to give us all something to gossip about. Look at Lisa, she shagged her boyfriend’s best mate in the club’s disabled toilet! There’s Callum, he got so drunk he collapsed in the street, vomited all over himself and was stretchered off to hospital to have his stomach pumped whilst we all said what a laugh he was! Yet to sit with a lemonade in a quiet corner trying to tell anyone who would listen why life’s clawing, black cloud was shitting all over their head, that was a no-no.

  Not that I cared then. I didn’t want to be known as the dead girl’s sister. I’d broken free of all that – left it back in Greville Road never to be seen again. I reinvented myself as the fun one, the carefree one, the one you’d call because she guaranteed you a good time yet wouldn’t try to muscle Queen Bee out of the limelight. I felt no need to be adored for the sake of it. One thing I’d learned from childhood was that I could manage on my own.

  Friendships at school were a different matter. In primary school other kids seemed wary of me. When Gemma disappeared, our form teacher – so Aunty Lena later informed me – told the other children when I was absent from class that they should be kind to me because my sister was missing. On my return I didn’t know why the others were acting differently at playtime. Some of the girls looked embarrassed when I wanted to join in hopscotch and tag and one rotund boy from another class asked me if my sister was dead. One classmate, Olivia with her oh-so perfect blonde plaits, shouted at him and told him that he had to be nice to me because the teacher said so.

  I didn’t want anyone to be nice to me because the teacher said so. Plus I didn’t want Olivia, who hadn’t invited me to her birthday party at the church hall, to stick up for me. Tears welled up at the humiliation. The boy from the other class started to laugh. I kicked him in the shins then pulled hard on Olivia’s plaits, pulling out a clump of blonde hair.

  After a teacher had pulled me off Olivia, the Head called Father to the school and told him to take me home for the day. Years later, Aunty Lena told me that I escaped exclusion on compassionate grounds. If my sister wasn’t missing, they deduced, I wouldn’t have behaved that way.

  Wrong. The teacher didn’t get it that she had caused the situation in the first place. I’d have done the same to any child who treated me like that.

  After that, I distanced myself from the other kids. I see now, with an adult’s hindsight, that it was because I couldn’t trust that others wanted to be friends with me, rather than feeling sorry for me or displaying some pruriently distasteful interest in the police case surrounding my sister. Mother stayed in her bed and never mentioned my having friends over for tea like other children did. Father worked too hard to think about it. I’d have been too embarrassed to bring anyone home anyway, in case they saw Mother wearing her nightie in the mid-afternoon. Ours was not a welcoming house. No ‘Thanks for visiting!’ mat graced our front door.

  Olivia, the plaited princess, made sure her followers didn’t talk to me unless they had to. Her parents, I learned well after the event from Aunty Lena again, went down to the school to complain about my ‘assault’ and, even though I was only five-years-old and my sister was the subject of a massive missing person hunt for Christ’s sake, wrote a letter to the school governors ‘expressing their displeasure that the school’s disciplinary procedures for bullying were not followed in this case’. So then, according to Olivia and co and their parents, I was labelled a bully for the length of my primary school career.

  Eventually, I formed an alliance with the other outsiders: Jess, a sweet, kind-hearted girl with a mild learning difficulty whom the others never picked for thei
r team because they complained about her being slow; Ian, a bright, funny boy, small for his age and who used a wheelchair due to having cerebral palsy; and Wayne, who lived with a foster family, wore hand-me-downs and never had the latest toys the other kids talked about at lunchtime. Together at school we were a tight-knit group. We didn’t need anyone else and the others didn’t want us anyway.

  Occasionally, Jess’s or Ian’s mum, keen to encourage our friendship, would invite us all round for tea after school or for a weekend play-date in the park. With a knowing look that made me feel ashamed of my family, they’d make sure they ferried me around in their car because mine didn’t have one. Jess and I would make daisy chains or compete on the swings to see who could kick the highest cloud, whilst Wayne pushed a delighted Ian along the path as fast as he could run. Then we’d all play catch, eat sandwiches and crisps and drink fizzy pop until we felt sick.

  I’d forgotten how happy those few but far between outings were. I wonder where Jess, Wayne and Ian are now? Ian went to a different secondary school from me because it was the only one in the borough that had a lift. Wayne and I were mates at secondary school until his mum got out of prison and he moved back in with her in a neighbouring town; and Jess, I have no idea where she is now. After an unhappy couple of terms in secondary school where, if it weren’t for me and Wayne, the kids who hadn’t grown up with her would have eaten her alive, her parents moved to a different catchment area so she could switch to a mainstream school with a good reputation for including children with learning difficulties.

  With those three gone I began to hang around mostly with older kids who didn’t remember me from primary school and hadn’t any preconceptions of what I was like. I was a walking teenage cliché: smoking behind the bike sheds, drinking in the park, bunking off school and doing whatever I wanted to do, anything rather than do what I was told to do. Life was for living, I thought, even if living it didn’t make me feel any happier. Was anyone supposed to like being a teenager anyway? Isn’t it a given that it’s the worst time of your life?