Now he looks at his watch proudly. ‘If you pull the emergency cord by mistake you’re fined thousands of pounds, Katie, so be careful, capisce? Anyway, what did you want to tell me?’ He slices the orange pudding, cream seeping out around the edges and making patterns in the chocolate sauce.
‘I should have asked you before but my sister’s coming to London.’
‘Really?’ He eats a spoonful. ‘Yum,’ he moans appreciatively. ‘Delicioso. Have you been secretly going to cooking lessons?’
‘I was hoping she could stay with us? My sister? Isabel?’ I remind him.
‘Sure. For how long?’
‘Two weeks.’
‘Right.’ Sam mulls this over, looking surprised that it’s for so long. ‘No, that’s OK, see no reason why not. Isabel’s younger than you, isn’t she? I could set Maguire up, he needs a bird.’
‘But he had a new “lady” only days ago.’
‘Nah, didn’t work out. Maguire likes it short and sweet. So Isabel’s coming up for two weeks? Perfect. Done and dusted.’
‘Sam! Don’t talk in clichés. Maguire will end up a sad lonely old bachelor if he carries on like that,’ I add.
‘Does she look like you?’ he goes on. ‘Just a younger, more wrinkle-free version?’
‘Sam,’ I say with some irritation. ‘Is that all you think about? Image?’
‘Yep. Well, it helps if she’s not a complete moose. Come on, girls are the same. Blokes are more honest, that’s all. Would you have fallen for me if I was ugly as sin?’
I pick up my plate and walk over to the sink.
He holds up his hands in a gesture of apology. ‘How old is she then?’
‘Twenty-two.’ I sit back down, stare at the candle I lit so hopefully. Pudding is over and I still haven’t told him the whole truth. By the time it burns out he will know everything about Bells, I vow.
‘What does she do? Is she a lap-dancer?’
‘Oh, Sam,’ I sigh.
‘Don’t tell me … she works for MI5 or something exciting like that? Seriously, why don’t I get Maguire over one night and introduce them?’
Bill Maguire. Tall, blonde hair the colour of egg yolk with eyebrows and lashes to match. Always wears a leather jacket, a predator when it comes to women and loves to tell dirty jokes. ‘Um, I don’t think so. I mean, Bill’s great, but …’
‘She is single, right?’
I nod. ‘Sam, there’s something I need to tell you about her, though.’ I stare at the candle, watching the flame glow in the dark.
Sam comes over to me.
‘I’m looking forward to meeting her, babe. Stop worrying. You stress too much.’ He kisses my neck before walking in front of me and kneeling down, putting his hands on my knees. I know that look. He’s about to break out into Chris de Burgh’s ‘Lady In Red’ because he knows it makes me laugh. We tease Emma for liking Chris de Burgh, that’s how it started. In fact we have his CD too, but that’s our little secret.
Sam pulls me to my feet. We love dancing in the kitchen. It’s our time together, Sam and me. He spins me around, singing softly in my ear. We laugh.
Why does my family have to be different? I curse quietly to myself as Sam holds me. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to say, ‘My sister’s a lawyer’? Or an architect, philosopher, psychologist, artist, writer, charity worker, hairdresser, chef, whatever. Why can’t we be normal, like every other family? Why do I care so much? Surely I should be past this stage? Shouldn’t I be mature enough to tell Sam? Like Emma says, if we are in a serious relationship …
Finally we stop dancing. ‘Thanks for a lovely evening, Katie.’ He takes my hand, gently kissing each finger in turn.
I don’t want to tell him, it doesn’t feel right to say anything now. He will meet Bells tomorrow.
CHAPTER SEVEN
1984
As I walk across the school playground I can see my mother standing apart from the cluster of parents waiting by the iron gates. Bells is with her in the pushchair. What’s she doing here? A mixture of panic and anger jabs at my chest. Mum never picks me up. Normally I go to Mr Stubbington’s corner shop to buy some sherbet dips and marshmallows and then walk home with Emma, my next-door neighbour. I go round to her house for tea because it’s nicer there. They light the fire and then we toast our marshmallows.
Mum approaches one of the other mothers and a young girl. She’s wearing her grubby apron with paint and oil stains down the front, her bright red shoes that look more like clogs, her auburn hair still pulled back in one of her cotton headscarves. All the other mothers wear long navy skirts and blouses with pearls, and their hair is curled and sits like perfect nests on top of their heads. Why does my mum have to look so different? Why did she have to bring Bells?
‘Katie, what is it?’ Emma asks impatiently. ‘I’m hungry. Come on.’
‘Mum’s here, with Bells.’ I pull her back.
‘So?’ Emma shrugs.
I haven’t told anyone in my class about Bells, they wouldn’t understand. Emma is the only one who has seen her from the beginning. Bells’ face looks so strange. They laugh at anything that looks weird. Mrs Higson, one of the mothers who stands at the gate, is so fat that everyone calls her Mrs Treestump-Legs. Has Mum seen me? I dart behind the boys’ outside loo, but can’t stay there for long because it smells. I almost choke. My mother’s voice is louder than any of the other mums, I think crossly. I’m sure she does it on purpose. ‘Go then,’ I tell Emma, waving her away with my hand. ‘Tell Mum I had to stay behind in class … say anything.’
I can hear people walking off, engines being turned on, prams being pushed, dogs barking. I wait with my fingers clipped firmly to my nose.
‘Hello,’ I overhear Mum saying, trying to be friendly. ‘Don’t look so worried, she won’t bite you. Her name’s Isabel. We call her Bells.’
Who’s Mum talking to? I poke my head round the wall. It’s Imogen, from the year below, with her mother.
‘What’s wrong with her?’ Imogen asks, unable to take her eyes away from the baby in the pram. ‘What’s that big hole in her face?’
‘Imogen, don’t be rude,’ the mother says, blushing. ‘It’s the inside that counts, isn’t it?’ she says to Mum.
Mum says nothing.
Imogen still stands rooted to the spot like a mannequin in a shop. Piss off, I want to shout. Her mother eventually pulls her away.
I wait until it is quiet and safe to come out. After roughly ten minutes I poke my head round the wall. Mum is bending down talking to Bells. I bolt sideways and then stroll forward as if I have come from the main school building. ‘I don’t care what anyone says, you’re my beautiful little girl, and your mother loves you, and we are having a lovely time, aren’t we?’
‘Hi, Mum. I had to tidy up the paints … and stuff,’ I falter.
Mum eyes me suspiciously. ‘Emma said you were showing your needlework to the headmistress.’
We walk back home, my head hung low.
‘Are your feet suddenly fascinating?’ Mum asks.
‘Nope.’
‘I had a call today,’ she says, as we walk on briskly, the pushchair rattling against the pavement. ‘From Mr Stubbington.’
My whole body freezes.
‘Katie, I’m ashamed of you. I leave you to walk home on your own because I think you’re old enough. Then I find you have been going into his shop and stealing from the charity pot. What has got into you lately?’ Mum turns to me, demanding an explanation.
Mr Stubbington has banned me from the shop for a week because he caught me trying to steal coins from the charity stocking. Mostly it’s full of one- and two-pence pieces but there are always those tantalizing silver and gold coins stuck in the netting of the toe. When Mr Stubbington turned away to put some apples into a brown paper bag one afternoon, I could not resist plunging my hand in to try and get a fifty-pence piece. ‘This money goes to Help the Aged,’ he rebuked me, wagging one finger furiously when he saw what I was doing.
I don’t look up.
‘With Bells,’ she adds.
Does she know what I’m thinking? ‘I promise I won’t do it again, Mum.’ Two girls are walking towards us. They stop and gawk when they see Bells. ‘What’s wrong with it?’ one of them asks. I am focusing on a particular crack in the pavement. If I step on this line it will bring me bad luck.
‘“It” is my daughter, Isabel. She was born with a cleft lip and palate, and your staring doesn’t help,’ Mum says, pushing past them. I turn to look at them and they are still standing there staring with their mouths wide open. ‘What the hell is a cleft lip?’ one of them asks the other.
‘I’m sorry, Mum.’
‘It’s all right, but please don’t steal again, Katie. I have enough to do, just looking after this one.’
After that, Mum and I walk home quietly. ‘Hello, Bells,’ I say behind the closed door, stroking her hair. ‘I’ll give her her tea tonight,’ I tell Mum because I know she’s tired. I like mushing up Bells’s food. ‘How are you today? Have you had a good day?’ I push her into the kitchen. The guilt sits like a lump in my stomach.
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘I’ll meet you at the station,’ Sam suggests, cramming in a mouthful of toast and marmalade. ‘What time does Isabel’s train get in?’
‘Don’t worry, we’ll meet you back home.’ I don’t know why I think delaying the meeting is going to help. At some point the bomb will go off.
‘You know, I’m really looking forward to meeting her. I have to be honest, I was slightly dreading it to begin with, but now I’m quite curious to know what another Fletcher sister will be like.’
‘Sam, she’s very different.’ This is the perfect time to tell him. ‘I haven’t told you everything about her,’ I say. ‘When she was born …’
His mobile rings. ‘Hang on a sec,’ he says, answering the call. ‘Yep, leaving now, Maguire … No, I don’t agree … You’ve got to look outside the box.’ He hangs up.
‘Sam, can we talk?’ I ask as he puts the phone back in his pocket.
He pulls a face. ‘Can it wait till tonight? I’m running late.’ He plants a kiss on my lips, opens the front door. ‘What’s the plan for ce soir, by the way? Because I thought you, me, a few of the boys,’ he winks at me, ‘could take Isabel out for a drink tonight, get her acquainted with London night life, maybe go out dancing?’
I can’t take this any more, I should have told him straight away. I have a throbbing headache, a few more grey hairs, and if I don’t tell him now I’ll explode. ‘Sam, Isabel isn’t going to be what you think.’
‘What?’ He looks puzzled. ‘What do you mean?’
‘She was born with a cleft lip and palate. It’s quite a common thing,’ I add when I see his alarmed expression. ‘But there was an added complication because she was brain-damaged at birth. She lives in a community in Wales and it’s her summer holidays, that’s why she’s coming to stay.’ I feel as if I can breathe again. I wait for a reaction, anything will do.
Sam’s face shows little expression. ‘Bells? This was what you were talking to your dad about?’ He’s thinking out loud. ‘You let me believe she was your dog.’
‘I never actually said that. Bells … Isabel.’ I shrug my shoulders. ‘We call her Bells for short.’
‘Right.’ Slowly he scratches his head. ‘Right, I should have clicked. Well, that’s OK. No, hang on,’ his voice rises, ‘why didn’t you tell me any of this?’
‘I don’t know. I’m sorry. I thought you might hate the idea of her staying. And I have no choice; she has nowhere else to go. Mum and Dad are in France. My mother’s not well,’ I explain, hoping this will make him more sympathetic.
‘Well, it looks like I have no choice either.’ He frowns. ‘Next you’ll be telling me you have a brother in prison. Katie, I don’t know what to say. See you later.’
‘Don’t go.’ I grab his arm. ‘We need to talk.’
‘We had all week to talk, Kate, we had last night.’ He pulls his arm away before his mobile rings again. ‘Lakemore speaking,’ he says. ‘No, Maguire, that’s not what I said. Are we even on the same fucking page?’
I close the door after him. I feel terrible. Sick to my stomach. I feel so guilty. I have been lying to myself, to Sam, to Bells. Why am I such a dreadful person? Why am I such a coward?
*
‘I hope her train is early, touching wood,’ Eve says in her smoky French accent, tapping my desk.
For a moment I think about correcting her English but then I think I prefer it the way she says it. ‘Thanks, Eve, if you can lock up …’
‘Yes, yes, do not worry. I look forward to meeting your sister demain, I mean, tomorrow, of course.’ She unpins her honey-coloured hair. I have never seen such long hair, Botticelli would have loved to paint Eve. ‘My mother says it is like Rapunzel’s hair, tumbling down the tower,’ she laughs. ‘Where are you picking up Isabel?’ she asks, tying it back up into a bun and sticking in a long hairpin with a coloured glass kiwi fruit on the end of it.
‘Paddington.’
A customer comes in looking for a wedding outfit. ‘Can I leave you to it?’ I ask Eve.
‘Yes, yes, I see you tomorrow. Please, come this way,’ she says to the customer, leading her up the wooden steps to the second floor. ‘I think we have just the thing for you.’
*
As I drive to Paddington in Sam’s BMW, I make a mental list of the things I still need to do. I went to Sainsbury’s in my lunch hour to buy some fish and chips for tonight. When I agreed to have Bells I called home to get an idea of what I needed to plan.
‘In Wales they have a Mexican night on Monday,’ said Mum, ‘and they’re always given fish and chips on a Friday with mushy peas. I get her the tinned peas, disgusting, I know, but Bells likes them.’
‘OK, I’ll do that.’ If she ate, say, a baked potato on Monday, would that matter terribly? I thought to myself.
‘If you don’t have time to cook at lunch she enjoys the vegetable samosas that you can buy at the deli counter. On Wednesdays I think they have their Indian nights. Or is it their organic night?’ Her voice trailed off. ‘Anyway, darling, she loves cooking, so maybe you can do that together.’
As I listened, panic set in. I rarely cook at Sam’s. Most nights we eat out, and if we want to drink Sam pays for a cab home with his company card. ‘I don’t like cooking, I hate the mess,’ Sam says. ‘I remember Mum making stock for soup with leftover chicken bones. The smell of it in the morning,’ he said with a disgusted frown.
‘Bells likes her routine,’ Mum continued. ‘It’s very important to her. They eat lunch on the dot of twelve-thirty.’
‘I’ll do my best, Mum, but she has to fit in with what I’m doing too.’
Mum sniffed. ‘She likes her Coke too, but buy her the Diet Coca-Cola or her teeth will rot. And do take her to Sainsbury’s, it’s like an outing for her.’
‘Fine. Is that all?’ My patience was running out.
‘Yes, make sure she always carries her inhaler. Her asthma is much better but we can’t afford to take any risks.’ I thought she would ask me then if I still smoked, but she didn’t.
‘Of course, Mum.’
‘Thank you, Katie.’ Mum seemed tired, I could hear it in her voice.
‘Mum, nothing’s wrong, is it?’
‘Wrong? No! Just because we’re taking ourselves off on holiday does something have to be wrong? Don’t we deserve …’
‘Sorry, Mum, I didn’t mean it like that.’ I was twisting the phone cable, knotting it around my finger tightly.
‘I’m sorry too. I didn’t mean to snap.’
I let go of the cable. It had left a deep red indentation in my finger. ‘Promise?’
‘I promise.’
‘It’s about time you and Dad had a holiday. Have a lovely time.’
‘Katie?’
‘Yes?’
‘How are you?’
‘Fine. Good.’ Why is it that I always want Mum to ask me how I am, to be more interested in my life, but when she does ask, all I can do is reply in monosyllables? ‘Right, I’d better go and do all that shopping!’
‘I know she’ll have fun with you. It sets my mind at rest.’
‘We’ll have a great time. Make sure you come home rested. Love to Dad.’
‘Katie?’
‘Yes?’
She cleared her throat. ‘Do put sun cream on her face, her skin is so delicate.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll look after her.’
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘For helping out. It means a lot to your father and me.’
I sensed she wanted to say something else, so I waited for a moment, but she said nothing more. ‘’Bye, Mum.’
‘’Bye, my darling.’
*
The train pulls in to the platform. The doors open and passengers step out in a heaving mass. The men wear grey flannel suits and carry briefcases. Some of them have taken their jackets off in this heat and loosened their ties. A pregnant woman walks past in a blue cotton dress worn with Birkenstock sandals. Another girl totters past me in high heels, pulling a neat little designer suitcase on wheels.
‘I’m off the train, sweetpea,’ says a man on his mobile, ‘will be home in time for dinner.’
Letters From My Sister Page 4