Sisters ... No Way!

by Siobhán Parkinson

  At twenty-five past three I thought I heard a knock, and then the doorbell rang again. I bet the woman next door doesn’t know how to extend the ladder, I thought. This time she’s hoping Margaret will answer.

  But it wasn’t that. It was Robbie. It was Alva who answered the door. I could hear her silly little girl’s voice in the hall. Cindy, she called out. You’re wanted at the door. And then I could hear her thumping up the stairs. I didn’t know why she ran away like that. She usually hangs around to see what’s going on.

  The front door hadn’t been closed. My god, she left him standing on the doorstep. I threw the rug off and struggled to my feet. I don’t why it was such a struggle. I suppose I’d got sort of stuck in the role of invalid. As I went out into the hall, I could hear voices from the kitchen, somebody was singing softly, and there was a clatter of dishes.

  Robbie, I said, though I couldn’t actually see the person at the door, only a shape against the slanting wintry sun. It must have been a full second after I’d said his name that I realised I hadn’t actually said it. My lips and tongue had made the right shapes, but my vocal chords must have been asleep. I coughed, to wake them up, and said, Come in.

  When he stepped into the hall, I knew for sure it was he. I still couldn’t see his face clearly, but I just knew by the way he stood next to me, by the bulk of his body, his stance, the way he put his head down, and finally, by the way he kissed me again, lightly but urgently, softly but deeply, there in my own hallway, with my stepsisters upstairs and my stepmother singing ‘Sweet Caroline’ in the kitchen and the dishwater gurgling down the drain. This time, I wasn’t taken by surprise. This time, I kissed him back.

  Sorry I’m so late, he said. Couldn’t find the house.

  It turned out he’d got my number from Imelda. He and Ger had followed the bus that night, at a distance, intending to watch for us getting off, and then to give me back the boot and say good night. But the bus veered off suddenly down a side road, at one point, and they didn’t have time to signal, so Ger kept going straight on, though he tooted the horn. By the time they’d managed to make a U-turn and come after us again, our bus had disappeared. They’d cruised around for a while, hoping to catch it again, but they couldn’t find it, so they’d chucked it in for that night. But Robbie said he couldn’t stop thinking about me (well, naturally), and besides, he said, it was a perfectly good boot, a shame to waste it, so, as he put it, he started doing a bit of research. He found out what the bus-route was, and he walked along it a few times, hoping to catch sight of me. And one day he spotted Imelda coming home from work, and he hailed her and told her he had my boot, and that he wanted to return it.

  Imelda offered to return it for him (the mean thing), so he was driven to explain that actually the boot was only an excuse, he really wanted to see me again. So then Imelda interviewed him extensively – and by the way established that he is only eighteen, not twenty-two as Ger had claimed – before she entrusted him with my number, but she did give it to him in the end, which means she must have decided he was OK, and she agreed not to tell me. He wanted to surprise me. I found all this out afterwards. He didn’t tell me the whole story there in the hall, of course, but he did just mention that he’d brought the boot.

  Well, then, where is it? I asked.

  Where’s what?

  The Doc. The boot. What you came to deliver.

  Oh that, he said, and he looked sheepish. Alva took it, he said. I explained to her why I was here, and she snatched it out of my hand and ran up the stairs with it, to show it to A… her sister.

  What did Alva want with my boot? I wondered. Maybe she was playing a joke of some sort. Not a very funny joke. And how come Robbie knew her name?

  You must have introduced yourself to Alva, then, I said.

  What? Oh yes, yes, I did. I didn’t know she lived here.

  Why did he say that? I wonder. An odd sort of comment to make. Maybe he meant he didn’t know I had sisters.

  She’s not my real sister, I said hastily.

  No, of course not, he said, as if he knew all about our family history, though of course he couldn’t. Not even Alva could explain all that in the half-minute she had spent at the front door.

  Robbie didn’t leave until after five. Dad came up from the kitchen with some tea, and I introduced Robbie. I said he was a friend that I’d met through Imelda, which was only half-untrue. The others came in then too, for tea, Alva swinging my boot by its lace.

  Yours, I believe, Cindy, she said, with a hand on her hip, still swinging the boot, tantalisingly.

  Give it to me! I cried, reaching for it, pretending to join in the fun, but really I was a bit annoyed at her for trying to steal the limelight. This playing around with the boot was only to attract attention.

  I tried it on, Alva went on, and so did Ashling. But it didn’t fit either of us. Way too big for our dainty little feet, wasn’t it, Ash?

  Give her the boot, Alva, said Ashling, blushing madly. I can’t imagine why.

  So then Alva relented and tossed the boot at me. She threw it quite hard. I think she hoped it would hurt, but I caught it, so it didn’t.

  Thanks, I said, through gritted teeth, wishing they would all go away again, and leave me alone with Robbie. But Margaret had started into conversation with him, and Alva kept hovering around him and darting into the conversation whenever she could. I don’t think she was really doing it to annoy me, just trying to get Robbie’s attention.

  We all had tea then. Dad poured. It was just like in those books about how to bring up your teenagers, making their friends welcome in the house, but it didn’t feel a bit priggish or prissy or anything, it was just nice, fine, right, and Robbie was really polite to everyone, though I noticed he blushed like mad when he was introduced to Ashling and seemed to avoid eye contact with her all afternoon. But he behaved so well, I could have kissed him. (Well, I did, oh yummy.) He talked to Alva about some singer she is into (the 90s equivalent of Neil Diamond, no doubt) and told her about someone he knows who can get her tickets for a gig he is doing in the Point next month. Alva seemed really excitable. I don’t think it was just about the tickets. I think she fancied Robbie, actually.

  And he talked to Dad about motorbikes, which I didn’t even know Dad was interested in, and to Margaret about how to make apple jelly. I don’t know how they got onto that one, but it turns out that Robbie’s dad is majorly into gardening and Robbie and his mum are at their wits’ end trying to use up all the fruit and vegetables he produces. Robbie knows all about blanching beans for the freezer and where to get Kilner jars reasonably. I never even heard of Kilner jars.

  It sounds really stupid, but it wasn’t, it was just nice and normal. I haven’t felt so normal for a long time. I wasn’t even embarrassed by my family. I’d prefer if Margaret didn’t lurch quite so pregnantly, and there are all sorts of things wrong with it as a family, not least that Mum isn’t in it, but when you come to think about it, it’s as good a family as lots of people’s – better than Lisa’s lovely idyllic one anyway, by all accounts. I didn’t explain it all to him. I will of course, but not just yet.

  Ashling was very quiet. I wonder if she is not feeling too well. She just sat there, looking at the carpet. She didn’t even have any tea. But Alva kept gaping at Robbie and offering him shortbread biscuits. She said afterwards he was absolutely gorgeous and she wished she had a boyfriend like him. (I knew all along she fancied him.) He’s not my boyfriend, I said. Well, who is he then? she asked. He’s…, I started, oh, well, yes, I suppose he is sort of my boyfriend. I didn’t even blush when I said it. And it must be sort of true, because as he was leaving he asked if he could see me again, and I said I’d ring him. I’d rather leave it like that for the moment, just till I get used to the idea. I’ve never been on a proper date before, and I want to think about it first.

  Tuesday 25th November

  Lisa is dying to meet Robbie, and I am under strict instructions to bring him around to her house. She can’t
go out much at the moment, because of having to help to mind the baby. I really must make a point of going to see her more often. I mean, I see plenty of her at school, but she must be feeling isolated outside of school hours, and anyway, I need to get practice in with newborn babies. It’s only three more months.

  Thursday 27th November

  It’s finally happened, we’ve had a row. It didn’t work at all. I thought it might clear the air, but it only made things worse, I think.

  It started with me and Alva. She borrowed my Docs, the famous Doc Martens that brought me and Robbie together – not very romantic, objectively speaking, and yet extremely romantic in a funny sort of way. But the thing is, she didn’t ask. She just took them. Not that I would have let her have them, even if she had asked. I mean, there are things you don’t lend. I wouldn’t mind lending her a cardigan or even a hairband, but I wouldn’t let anyone else wear my shoes.

  I suppose in a way it was kind of touching that she did want to borrow them, a sort of a tribute. She copies Ashling in everything, wears exactly the same sort of clothes as she does, reads her books, I mean, even the twin Boyzone posters are an indication of how much she is in her sister’s shadow. I used to think that was Margaret’s fault, that she went around dressing them up like twins, and maybe she did when they were younger, but now that I know them better, I just think Alva is a natural follower, and Ashling has been the obvious one to follow. Now there’s me, though. It never even occurred to me that she might want to copy me, but then I’ve never had a little sister before. Not that I think of her as a sister. As far as I am concerned, Ashling and Alva are just two boring girls who live in this house too.

  Anyway, to get back to the story about the Docs. I came home from school yesterday and went upstairs as usual to my room to change out of the dreaded uniform. I had got into my black gear, but I couldn’t find my boots anywhere. I groped about under the bed and I looked under the chair, in the bottom of the wardrobe, and even in the fireplace – it’s disused, so I sometimes pitch shoes in there. No boots. I am careless with things, so it didn’t occur to me that somebody had taken them, I just assumed I’d left them somewhere stupid. Sometimes I take them off when I am watching TV if I want to put my feet up. Not even I am a big enough slob to plonk my Docs on the sofa. It is Mum’s sofa after all, and is due a bit of respect. She was very houseproud. I think I said that before.

  I took no notice of the missing boots, just put on a pair of slippers, and went off and did my homework. But when I was going to bed, there they were, lined up neatly under my bed. I knew they hadn’t been there earlier. The only explanation was that somebody had put them there in the meantime. I still didn’t think much of it. I assumed Margaret had found them somewhere about the house and had kindly put them in my room. Actually, no, it wouldn’t really be a kindness, it would be a compulsion. She wouldn’t put them in my room so that I would find them, she would put them there because she couldn’t bear them to be anywhere else. But that is an academic point, because it wasn’t Margaret, as I found out when I mentioned it to her casually at breakfast.

  It wasn’t Mummy, Alva piped up, it was me. You? I said incredulously. Alva is not naturally tidy. Yes, I left them back after I’d borrowed them to wear over to Sarah’s house. (Sarah is a friend of hers.) You what? You borrowed my boots, without even asking me? You went into my room and just took them? Alva nodded, her mouth full of toast. It was obvious from the way she had spoken that it hadn’t even occurred to her that I would be annoyed. That made it worse, the way she took it for granted that my things were just there to be borrowed. How dare you! The cheek of you! I was shaking with rage. The thought of that little brat wandering into my room and just taking whatever took her fancy really got me worked up. Anyway, I said sarcastically, I thought they were too big for your dainty little feet.

  No, not really, Alva said, trying to sound nonchalant. I was only teasing when I said that.

  Only teasing, huh? I said, and I leant over the breakfast table and I told her, through clenched teeth, spitting the words out, that she was never, ever, to take another thing of mine, never, ever, to go into my room without my express permission. I am sure my face was purple with apoplexy. Don’t you lay your rapacious little fingers on anything I own, anything! I shouted at her. (Even as I raged at her, I was rather proud of that word rapacious.) And I am not only teasing. I mean it, Alva.

  And then I really let fly. It wasn’t about the boots any more. It wasn’t even about the invasion of my bedroom, it was about the whole thing, about Dad’s betrayal of Mum, the pregnancy, the marriage, the throwing of us all together, the enforced sharing of this house, my house, our house, with these strangers, the sudden unwanted acquisition of steprelations I never asked for, Margaret’s neurotic tidiness, the magnets on the fridge, the way Margaret took the apples off the neighbours’ tree as if she owned it, owned the garden, owned Dad, even the way that she discussed making apple jelly with Robbie, as if she was just a normal, ordinary mother entertaining her daughter’s boyfriend and making smalltalk, when she was anything, anything, anything but. I started roaring at Alva, really roaring, standing there in my school uniform with a slice of toast and marmalade in my hand. Do you understand, do you? do you? I had a pain in my chest. I realised afterwards I had hurt my lungs from screaming so loudly at Alva. And all the while she just sat there, chewing maddeningly, making my anger worse. She wasn’t doing it on purpose, even in my rage I knew that, it had become a sort of mechanical action, brought on by horror at the way I was going on. I could hear Margaret’s voice in the background, calling my father, telling him to get down here quick, his daughter was losing her reason. There were tears in her voice, and panic, and there were tears pouring down Alva’s face too, and still I couldn’t stop roaring at her.

  Then Ashling stood up – she was sitting next to Alva – and she leant over the breakfast things and caught hold of two handfuls of my hair, a bit like I had done to Emma O’Mara, except that my hair is longer and affords a much better grip, and she gave an almighty pull in opposite directions at once. It hurt like hell. I flung the toast out of my hand – it hit Alva in the face, but I didn’t mean it to, I only realised it had landed on her nose afterwards – and put my two hands up and started to scratch the backs of Ashling’s hands with my nails, shouting at her all the time Let go, Let go, Let go, you bitch. No, she shouted back at me, No, not until you promise to leave Alva alone. Leave her alone, leave her alone. All right, all right, but let GO! She did, abruptly taking her hands away. I saw through my tears – not tears of anger or tears of regret, just those tears your eyes fill up with when something really hurts hard – that the backs of her hands were badly scratched, long thin red lines on them, dotted with beads of blood. She started to suck them, as I nursed my head, and this was the scene that met Dad when he came into the kitchen (he’s not first up any more). He sat down at the table and put his head in his hands, very effective, typical Dad. Margaret sat next to him and twisted a silk scarf she was wearing around and around and whispered, Girls, girls, oh girls. She really is a total wimp. I’m glad she’s not my mother.

  I stopped snivelling first. I’m sorry, Alva, I said, loudly, so they could all hear. I shouldn’t have shouted at you like that, but you do see that you shouldn’t have done it, don’t you. Alva was crying loudly now, but she nodded. I am not Ashling, I said, you can’t just take my things the way you would take hers. This is my home, and I am entitled to privacy at least in my own room. I could feel the anger rising up in my throat again at this point. Then Ashling started. She said very quietly, Just shut up, will you Cindy. I could hardly believe my ears. What? I said. Shut UP, Cindy, she said more loudly, SHUT UP! We are all sick of you and your house and your things and your father and your bereavement and your bloody feelings, so will you please just shut up about it now, and forget it. It’s only a pair of shoes, after all, and pretty horrible shoes too, if it comes to it.

  You keep your opinions about my footwear to yourself,
I snarled at her, and then I started shouting again. This time it was Dad who stopped me. He didn’t pull my hair. He just put his hand over my mouth. I went on screaming and I tried to bite his hand, but he held firm, and eventually I stopped shouting and collapsed in fits of sobbing, beating my head off the kitchen table, and getting marmalade in my hair. By the time I surfaced, Ashling and Alva had left. I don’t know if they had gone to school, or just gone to their room. Margaret was still there, looking very pale and washed out. I felt terrible, angry still, but guilty too and ashamed of my behaviour. It wasn’t like tantrums I’d had, where I was in control. In this case, the storm had taken me over, instead of the other way around.

  Here, said Dad, giving me a glass of water, a paper tissue and two white tablets. Take this, and then go to bed for an hour and sleep it off. I used the tissue, drank the water, but refused the tablets. I don’t do drugs, I sniffed. Paracetamol is not drugs, shouted Dad. It is, I said sulkily, and there’s no need to shout. Don’t you talk to me about shouting, he said, but he lowered his voice. In fact, he sort of hissed it. He was very angry, which I think is a bit of a cheek, when you consider how charming his behaviour has been through all of this. Then he told Margaret to go back to bed too. She was looking very pale and shaky, and I did feel a bit sorry for her, but there, it’s partly her fault too, this is what happens when you go around breaking up people’s homes. I’ll ring the school, he said, and say you will both be in after break.