In Sarah's Shadow

by Karen McCombie

  One bottle of vodka among this many people; it’s not like it’s exactly going to have that much effect. But then again, most of the members of Caramel are now treating Stage 1 like a giant podium, and by the looks of it, their music teacher’s really having his eyes opened to the delights of butterfly dancing. (Not a pretty sight with the size of bums on a couple of those not particularly fly fly-girls.)

  “Thanks,” I smile shyly, now that I’ve used up most of my confidence reserves in the course of one rendition of Girl from Mars. Which won us second place, by the way; Velvet Death came first with an ultra-slow, gloom-drenched version of Madonna’s Like a Virgin. “The judges liked the irony of it, I guess,” Mr Fisher had shrugged, when the winner was announced. “It’s a total fix,” Salman had muttered darkly. “Did you check out that judge sitting in the middle? Old goth: no doubt about it.”

  I don’t know whether Velvet Death won because they made the judges laugh, or whether the middle judge liked their lacy shirts, and I don’t much care. All I know is that I got through something amazing today and I’m so proud I’m buzzing.

  “So, Megan, what are you doing over here, all by yourself?” Conor asks, setting himself down beside me on the edge of Stage 2. “Angel was worried about you.”

  He has to bend close to speak to me, to be heard above the music belting out of the huge speakers. I feel the heat of his breath on my cheek and instant prickles at the back of my neck.

  It’s been an amazing couple of weeks, I whisper in my mind as my eyes run over Conor’s face, memorising every eyelash, every smile line. So many things have changed – I won’t be the same again. Don’t expect anything more…

  “Just wanted to get away on my own for a bit; take everything in,” I shrug, taking a sip of my drink and trying not to wince at the initial sugary sweetness of it or the bitter alcohol kick behind that.

  “I see,” Conor smiles at me, nodding and looking suddenly shyer than I’ve seen him look. For a second, we both glance away from each other, both staring down into our non-alcoholic vodka cocktails.

  Say something…the voice in my head bullies me. Just ‘cause I said you couldn’t expect anything else, doesn’t mean you should mess things up by going all goofy and silent on Conor.

  Spurred on, I’m just about to force myself to talk – about the Caramel girls and their eye-popping hip-grinding, about the hip-hop guys’ addition to the punch, about anything – when Conor gets in there before me.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Of course,” I shrug.

  Will you go out with me?

  Will you run off to Mauritius with me and we’ll get married under a dripping bower of bougainvillea? Or in Las Vegas with a singing Elvis as a witness if you like that idea better?

  Will you have my babies? If we have a boy, we’ll call him Kurt, after Kurt Cobain out of Nirvana; if it’s a girl, Polly, in honour of the mighty rock chanteuse PJ (Polly Jean) Harvey, of course…

  But I’m running ahead of myself, by about ten years, or ten lifetimes. The poor guy probably just wants to know the time…

  Tentatively, Conor moves one hand from the worn corduroy of his jeaned thigh. For a moment, I think he’s aiming to try and gently prise one of my hands away from the cup I’m clenching, and I can hardly breathe. But then his searching fingers stop at my wrist, slowly lifting the silky black material of my borrowed top away from my skin.

  “I noticed the scars before, but I didn’t like to ask…”

  Gulp.

  Where do I start? From the moment I realised that my big sister made me feel like shit? Do we really want to trudge back to my childhood of being made to feel second-best, second-rate, second-class? Or will I just cut to the chase and tell him about the night last summer when I’d had enough?

  “It was Sarah’s birthday,” I lean close into Conor and begin to tell him. I have to be close for this private confession; up till now, only my family know the full story of what happened – everyone else, including Pamela, has an idea that once upon a time I tried to kill myself, but know better than to ask about it.

  I feel him nod imperceptibly, his fair hair very slightly brushing my lips.

  “My mum and dad – they took us out to this fancy restaurant, but I might as well not have bothered to go, they spent so much time talking to Sarah, hardly even noticing I was there. They hadn’t done anything for my birthday a couple of months before that…”

  I’m not touching him (I wish!) but I can feel his whole body tense up as I talk.

  “Anyway, all through the meal, I’m feeling more and more down and my parents don’t seem to notice they’re treating me like I’m Cinderella or something, but why should they? That’s the way it always is. But I know Sarah gets what’s going through my mind, ‘cause every time my parents start praising her or whatever, she waits till they’re looking the other way before she gives me these snidey little glances.”

  That felt like a shiver from Conor – but maybe the cold in the auditorium is seeping into his bones.

  “So we get home and I just decided I’d had enough and went to my room. But Sarah hadn’t had enough – she barges in, wafting the big cheque she’s got off of Mum and Dad in my face, taped inside this card that says ‘To our No. 1 daughter’. She really liked pointing that out to me.”

  I pause, feeling the choke in my throat at the memory of her flaunting that under my nose. I know I should have just told her to get a life, but after years of stuff like this, I suddenly…well, I guess I suddenly ran out of steam.

  “You don’t know what it’s been like for years and years in my family, Conor…it’s as if it all –I dunno. It’s as if it all crowded in on me that one night.”

  I’m not sure if I can go on. But then I’ve come this far, and to be honest, with every sentence my long swallowed secret starts choking me that little bit less…

  “What happened?” Conor asks softly.

  “I waited till I thought they were all in bed, all asleep. Then I went down to the kitchen and got a knife – I got a knife out of the drawer…”

  I can’t do it – I can’t go on. I can’t tell him about Mum finding me; about her trying desperately to bind my bleeding wrists with tea towels while she screamed for Dad to get us to the hospital; about seeing Sarah standing there on the stairs when the ambulance arrived, smiling her Sweetpea smile of total innocence…

  “Megan,” I hear Conor’s voice somewhere above me and feel the electricity as his arm wraps around me.

  But all too soon his comforting warmth is gone.

  “Give me a couple of minutes. I promise, just two minutes. I’ll be right back.”

  Oh yeah? I think to myself, feeling that beautifully warm arm peel itself away from me, knowing I’ve frightened him off. God, how could I have landed all that on Conor and expected him to handle it? How can I expect him to understand a lifetime’s worth of drip-drip torture adding up and adding up to one night of sheer, black, bottomless madness? He thinks I’m a freak now – some mad, overemotional girl who flipped out over nothing. Please, please, please, why didn’t I just keep my mouth shut and my wrists covered…?

  It’s the end of the world…It’s the end of the world…It’s the end of the world…It’s the end of the world…I whisper over and over again inside the private world of my whirling mind. It seems like that’s a snatch of some forgotten lyric, but I can’t remember – it’s just how I feel right at this moment; the moment when I could forget all the fairy stories of spells and good fortune coming my way and realise that all I have to look forward to is a lifetime of luck, of the bad luck variety…

  And then as the rocking I’m doing seems to be comforting me in some deep, dark way, a two-note guitar riff shoots insulin up my spinal cord.

  Thank you, PJ Harvey; thank you, whoever’s acting as DJ here: the irrepressible strains of PJ’s Good Fortune blast out of the speakers, sending my heartache – and every hip-hop and R&B fan – shooting far away for one glorious, soul-enriching momen
t.

  “Dance?” comes his voice, like the best dream I’ve ever had. The soundtrack to my life; the most gorgeous, glorious, good guy I’ve ever met sweeps me off my feet to the most gorgeous, glorious, feel-good rock track that’s ever been recorded. “I requested this for you. I heard you playing it in your room a couple of times. You’re really into her, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” I whisper to him, half-laughing, half-dying with relief that he’s come back to me, and let myself drift weightless to my feet and into his arms.

  Moving in slow, sensuous, on-the-spot circles among the other dancers, resting my head against Conor’s strong, wiry chest, feeling the pressure of the chain around his neck on my temple, I know it can’t get better than this.

  Change…

  Oh, yes it can.

  Change…

  Everyone’s allowed to dream, aren’t they?

  Change…

  A hand strokes the back of my neck while another holds me close around my waist. I’ve never felt this cared for, this loved. Oh, God, how can I even say that? I hardly know this boy. I hardly…

  Too late. He’s tilting my head up towards him; and now somehow his soft lips are on mine, a lifetime’s sadness wiped out in one simple, skin-tingling kiss. I could melt away, slip softly between the floorboards like molten wax, but I won’t. I want every cell in my body to remember this moment; the first moment in fourteen years-worth of memories when I felt like I mattered to someone.

  A switch has just flipped in my head; I know, without spells or candles or tarot or PJ Harvey, that something had changed in my life tonight and there’s no going back. I never have to live in anyone’s shadow again.

  Fingers crossed.

  And currently, five of my fingers are crossing themselves around five of Conor’s. That can only mean double good luck, can’t it? And I think I might just deserve double helpings. Right?

  So, wish me luck, if just this once…

  PART TWO

  Life in the light

  Sarah’s story

  Chapter 1

  Walking on eggshells

  The ear-splitting wolf whistle practically makes me jump out of my skin.

  “Hey, gorgeous, got a smile for us today?”

  Before I know what I’m doing, I’m grinning at the builders, the very same builders who I’ve been studiously blanking for the last two weeks that they’ve been working on the empty house across the road from ours.

  Those guys make me dread leaving the house every morning, having to run the gauntlet of all the whistling and catcalls. It’s usually OK when I’m coming home from school ‘cause it’s winter and dark early so they’re usually safely long gone. Not this evening though – this lot must have been working indoors, where chilly January winds won’t whistle down their horrible builders’ bum cleavages…

  “Just ignore them, dear,” old Mrs Harrison on the corner told me one morning when she saw me hurrying past her house with yelps of “Go on, show us your knickers, love!” ringing in my ears. Easy for Mrs Harrison to say; probably the last time anyone did that to her was sixty years ago. But then again, all the little kids round here love to buy into the idea that she’s a witch: maybe I should ask her to do a spell to shut those creeps up. Or at least turn them into faintly attractive members of the human race, instead of the beer-bellied, mono-eyebrowed, loud-mouthed oiks that this lot are.

  “Oooh – look at that, lads! We got a bit of a smile there! Very nice!”

  Damn. Didn’t really mean to waste any of my chirpy mood on them, but then again I’m practically bursting with my good news and I guess a little happiness slipped out without me meaning it to.

  Hugging my fluffy coat around me, I turn gratefully into our path and see the cosy lights of the living room beckon. I can’t wait to tell Mum and Dad; they’ll be so excited for me. Specially Dad, since he used to be in a band himself in his younger days (yeah – like a couple of centuries ago!). Mum will be pleased because she just loves to hear good news, specially after the rocky time we’ve all had over the last few months.

  Thinking that, I slow right down, feeling a heaviness sink on to my shoulders. Oh, please don’t let Meg be in one of her moods…

  “Hi!” I smile at everyone as I walk into the living room.

  I’m glad I thought about Megan two seconds ago on the front step; it gave me a chance to take a deep breath and turn down my level of excitement. Being too bouncy seems to have a really bad effect on my sister; the happier any of us are, then this weird, inverse thing happens and she gets bluer and bluer right in front of our eyes.

  “Hey, Sweetpea, what’s with you?” Dad beams at me, sensing something’s up, no matter how calm I’m pretending to be. “You look pleased with yourself!”

  “Put your legs down, Pumpkin!” Mum orders Megan. “Let your sister sit down!”

  Uh-oh – a glower from Megan. Better tread carefully.

  “Nah, it’s all right, Mum!” I smile and go to perch myself on the edge of her armchair.

  “Don’t be silly!” Mum smiles, putting a firm hand on the small of my back and propelling me towards the sofa and Megan. “Look – there’s plenty of room over there!”

  You know, I think Mum likes to try and push us together – physically, if she can’t manage emotionally – just in case Megan ever feels like opening up and talking to me. That’ll be the day. I think there’s more chance of Megan spilling the secrets of her troubled soul to the workmen across the street than talking to me.

  I hover for a second as Megan makes a big drama of dragging her legs off the sofa, with a theatrical sigh. Her trainers have left a fine trail of dust and dirt on the sand-coloured sofa, I notice. Do I wipe that away before I sit down? Better not – she’ll just take offence or something.

  Honestly, the phrase walking on eggshells could have been invented for our family, and the way we have to act around Meg. She’s always been touchy – even as a baby she’d yell if you looked at her the wrong way. And poor Mum and Dad: Christmas practically gave them ulcers. If Meg ever thought I’d ended up with a better present then her, then it would be day-long tears and tantrums. One year she went hysterical ‘cause my brand-new Barbie was prettier than her brand-new Barbie – er, aren’t they all exactly the same, with maybe different coloured plastic hair?

  We’ve always made allowances for her (“she’s just a delicate child,” Nana used to say) but lately it’s got a lot more stressful. Ever since—

  “Come on then, Sarah! What’s put that smile on your face?” Dad interrupts my thoughts, over the top of the sports pages of his newspaper.

  Here goes.

  Just tell them straight – no garbled babbling; nothing that could make Megan feel as if I’m flaunting anything in her face. Yeah, like I would. I’d do anything to protect my kid sister or to help her in any way, only I don’t know how to. And if I did, I don’t think she’d appreciate it one little bit.

  “Well,” I begin, shaking my coat off my shoulders now I realise that Mum’s got the central heating pumping at Sahara desert temperatures, as usual.

  “Oh, don’t crush your new coat, darling!” Mum frowns at me. “Pumpkin – go and hang it up for your sister!”

  God, I wish Mum wouldn’t do that! She’s always having these little whispered conversations with me and Dad about how fragile Megan’s self-confidence is, how careful we have to be not to dent it. Then blam! – she’s right in there with some dumb, thoughtless comment. I can feel Megan bristle beside me at Mum’s order.

  “No, it’s fine! I’ll hang it up in a minute myself!” I say cheerfully, but a sharp tug pulls the coat from my arms and Megan pads grumpily out of the room with it.

  “Mum!” I mouth at her. “You shouldn’t do that!”

  Mum frowns, knowing she’s goofed, and shoots a worried look at Dad, who shrugs sadly.

  “Stop fussing, Angela!” Dad says out loud, trying hard to sound jovial, in the vague hope that the lightheartedness will transmit itself to Megan (no chance).
“Let the girl talk!”

  He gives me a wide-eyed nod. We’re in this little conspiracy together, the three of us, trying hard to pretend for Megan’s sake (and our own?) that everything is just hunky-dory.

  “Well…” I begin, shooting a look outside to the hall, where Megan has disappeared with my coat. “Do you remember me mentioning the Battle of the Bands competition? The one I was in two minds about auditioning for?”

  “Of course, yes!” Mum nods. “Was that where you were tonight? I thought you’d just gone round to Cherish’s or Angel’s.”

  “No – we all dared each other to go to the audition after school.”

  Me, Cherish and Angel – we do everything together. Even auditioning when we’re all really scared of making fools of ourselves.

  Only we didn’t – make fools of ourselves, I mean. Not one bit.

  “And what did that involve?” asks Dad, folding his paper away.

  “Mr Fisher got us all to sing acapella for a couple of minutes – we got to choose whatever we wanted, so the three of us asked to do it together and we sang that old All Saints’ song Never Ever.”

  “Ooh, lovely!” Mum nods encouragingly, although I don’t think she really knows the song.

  “Then Mr Fisher – my music teacher, remember? – he says, ‘What about playing me a bit of guitar, Sarah?’ and I nearly died. I mean, I haven’t been learning all that long, so I never thought about trying out for that part in the band. But he wouldn’t take no for an answer and just handed me a guitar and…and I just played a bit of this and a bit of that and he said, ‘OK!’”

  “OK what, exactly?” Mum asks, trying to understand what I’m saying.

  “Well, Mr Fisher just said, ‘I want you, Sarah!’”

  God, that was funny. I couldn’t look at Angel and Cherish when he came out with that particular statement – I knew they’d be doubled up with the giggles. ‘I want you, Sarah!’: it was like some terrible line out of a torrid romance novel. Still, I knew what he meant. He meant I was in. Half-an-hour before, I hadn’t even been sure I was going to try out for the audition and now I wasn’t just a backing singer, I was lead guitarist too.