The Great Christmas Knit Off

by Alexandra Brown

  ‘The man in the letters. The man she writes about but only refers to as G? It has to be. Oh my God! You know, in the last letter, the one where she writes all about Cary Grant kissing her at a party, swoon, she even says that she thinks G is going to propose! Imagine that. I wonder why Hettie would turn down Gene Kelly?’

  ‘Steady on. We don’t know that any of this is true. It all sounds a bit far-fetched to me. Surely, if there was anything between them, it would have been documented? Wikipedia would have something, surely,’ I say, thinking it’s highly unlikely that Hettie had a love affair with Gene Kelly. It’s absurd.

  ‘Hmm, I guess so, and he was married three times,’ she pauses, and her eyes flick to the side as if she’s deep in thought. ‘But wait, he was divorced from his first wife in 1957 and didn’t marry his second wife until 1960. And the letters were written over Christmas 1958, going into the beginning of 1959. Oh my God, Sybs, you must ask her. See what you can find out.’

  ‘I can’t ask her! She’s a very private person, and besides, she’ll then know that you’ve been reading her letters,’ I say, momentarily wondering if I should mention Cher’s conversation with Bill, but immediately decide against it. It’ll only tip Ruby over the edge if she knows that Hettie had a baby. A secret love child is how she’ll dramatise it, for sure.

  ‘Ah, yes, that’s a very good point.’ There’s a short silence and I can see that Ruby is mulling it all over. ‘Well, I guess it was a nice romantic notion while it lasted. I even had a dream about it all last night.’ She shrugs and I smile, thinking it must be a very bittersweet life to continuously hanker after a time you can never experience. She takes a big breath before carrying on. ‘But there is a bit about Hettie online, you know. She was the understudy for some really big names, like Debbie Reynolds, and she was in that famous film Singin’ in the Rain. I wonder if Hettie was her understudy for the film? It makes sense if she has the signed picture of Gene. Oh, it’s incredible.’ And she’s clearly not completely letting go of her fantasy version of events if she’s still hankering for Hettie having a famous Hollywood film star lover.

  ‘Exactly, and wouldn’t there be something about it, if Hettie had actually been Gene’s girlfriend?’

  ‘Yes, you’re right. I mean, Gene’s super famous, even now, after all these years, like Elvis, and there’s a Wikipedia page all about Elvis’ many girlfriends,’ she says, knowledgeably.

  Ruby is revving up for more incredulity when Marigold calls my name from the shop door. I turn around.

  ‘Cher’s on the phone for you.’ And Marigold ducks back inside.

  ‘Sorry, I had better go. Are you sure I can’t tempt you in for a quick mince pie or a handful of Twiglets? There may even be a Terry’s Chocolate Orange on the go,’ I grin.

  ‘I really can’t, much as I’d love too – might give me a chance to chat to Hettie, but I can’t be late, my fans will be waiting.’ She laughs, and then adds, ‘But please, see if she’d be willing to chat to me some time. I can be very discreet.’

  ‘I’ll try, but please don’t get your hopes up,’ I say, knowing that it’s highly unlikely that Hettie will agree.

  ‘OK, honey. Fingers crossed – if only for posterity, living history, old times’ sake,’ Ruby says hopefully, before turning and heading back to her car.

  When I make it back to the Duck & Puddle pub, I take one look at Cher and Clive’s concerned, but silently seething faces, before tearing upstairs to my bedroom. Just as I reach a hand out towards the door, it flings open and there she is, bursting from the en suite bathroom like crimson and cream streamers from a party popper.

  ‘SASHA.’

  ‘There you bloody are. Damn snow! No wonder I’m non-dom these days. And why haven’t you got a mobile any more? I’ve been calling you for months,’ she puffs, rolling her eyes and shaking her head, making snowflakes cascade from her glossy, poker-straight curtain of hair on to the carpet. ‘Hug for your big sister.’ Sasha flings her arms around me, practically crushing me in the process, and it completely throws me. She’s acting as if nothing has happened. As if she didn’t have a ‘thing’ with my ex-fiancé, in secret, behind my back – Luke may be back in his boxroom, but still, it’s rude, whichever way you slice it.

  ‘Three and a half minutes,’ I mumble into her red riding jacket, the shock of her sudden appearance affecting my ability to think straight, let alone string a coherent sentence together.

  Why is she here?

  Why now?

  And more importantly, what does she want?

  And just when everything is going so well. OK, work is a bit of a mess, but being here in Tindledale for Christmas is amazing, and for the first time in a long time, I feel happy, and I don’t want anything to spoil it, least of all my big betrayal by my twin sister.

  ‘What?’ Sasha pulls back to look at me and then realises what I’m talking about, ‘Oh Sybs you’re so funny; you’ve always had a thing about that. It’s not my fault I was born first.’ She does her special operatic laugh before glancing around the room. ‘So this is where you’ve been hiding?’

  ‘I’m not hiding. I’m staying with my friends for Christmas, Cher and Clive, you remember them, don’t you?’ I say, pulling a sarcastic smile onto my face as I try to bat away her implication that I must somehow have a reason to hide – why would I? I haven’t done anything wrong. She has!

  ‘Hmm,’ Sasha acknowledges rudely, before marching around like she’s performing some kind of inspection. I close the door behind me and place Basil on the bed – even he’s unnerved by her being here and won’t settle like he usually does, preferring to sit up on his haunches and growl, his eyes hooked on to her, watching and following her every move.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I eventually manage to get my mouth to co-operate with my brain.

  ‘What are you doing, more like?’ Ah, here we go, typical Sasha; always jumping in before engaging her brain – she’s been like it ever since we were little – if there’s a criticism to be had, then Sasha never fails to find it. ‘In this place,’ she says and pauses to lean down and sweep an expensively manicured hand over the coffee table while she conjures up a suitable description. ‘It’s like a horrible little Hobbit hovel, for Christ’s sake.’ I cringe all over, hoping and praying that Cher and Clive can’t hear her insulting their quirky, and quite lovely, traditional old coaching inn.

  ‘No, it isn’t.’

  ‘Yes, it is … I very nearly twisted my ankle on this ridiculously sloping floor,’ and she does an exaggerated stagger in the space between the end of the bed and the window as if to demonstrate her point. ‘I bet Health and Safety would have a field day over this. And there must some kind of law against letting guests sleep in such unsuitable, and quite hazardous accommodation.’ She has her grand event planner attitude on now.

  ‘Stop it,’ I hiss, in a low angry voice, horrified at how stuck-up she sounds. She definitely inherited Mum’s Hyacinth Bucket gene, only a billion times worse.

  ‘You know, come to think of it,’ and she places a little finger to the corner of her mouth, ‘have they considered letting film crews use this hovel? It would be perfect for one of those dreary Dickens dramas that always get scheduled on Sunday evenings just to depress everyone a tiny bit more before they go back to their dull jobs on Monday morning – talking of which, are you still working for the council?’ I ignore her, but she just carries on regardless, barely drawing breath. ‘Hmm, I could put Cheryl, or Cher as she tries to glamorise her dowdy name,’ Sasha rolls her eyes, ‘and the gormless Clive in touch with one of my TV contacts.’

  ‘Right. That’s enough. This place is perfect: far nicer than your sterile, chrome and Perspex box in Dubai, or wherever it is you live these days,’ I retaliate.

  ‘Well, at least my box is clean!’ I gawp at her momentarily, desperately resisting all the filthy comebacks that are currently flying around inside my head right now. ‘Unlike this dump.’

  ‘It’s perfectly clean,’ I splut
ter, smarting from her sheer, bloody audacity and spitefulness.

  ‘Oh yeah? What’s this then, fairy dust!’ And she points to a miniscule cobweb in the corner of the mullioned window.

  ‘Why do you always have to exaggerate?’ I say, thinking she has a flaming cheek to just turn up here out of the blue and start hurling insults around, after what she’s done. She clearly has no shame, and why does she have to be so snarky and aggressive all the time?

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Yes, you do,’ I say firmly. ‘Look, I don’t have time for this; just tell me why you’re here. And why are you dressed up like something out of Black Beauty, or whatever those pony programmes were that you used to love watching all the time.’ I want to get back to Hettie’s and help her with the party. And I promised to put up the Christmas decorations too – we haven’t had time until now, with knitting all the jumpers – and the Japanese tourists are arriving tomorrow. Mr Tanaka has already said that they want to call in and see for themselves where their traditional English Christmas jumpers were made. Sasha plants her hands on her hips and cocks her head to one side. Mirroring her stance, I fix my eyes on hers.

  ‘Well, I was in the area,’ she starts, jutting one jodhpur-clad leg out like she’s channelling Angelina Jolie on the red carpet. ‘My charity event, the Christmas hunt ball, is in this part of the world this year, so I thought why not pop in and sort things out with you on my way through.’ She inspects a fingernail.

  ‘Oh, I see. How very convenient for you.’ I can’t resist. So she hasn’t made a special trip to see me at all, to apologise, beg for my forgiveness, explain herself, say that she made a terrible mistake. All the sorts of things one might expect from someone in her position. No, I’m just a convenience! Well, she can bugger off with trying to make herself feel better because that’s what this is about. It’s about her being consumed with what other people might think. Yes, Mum does it, but Sasha has taken it to a whole new, horrible level. I know Sasha well enough to know that it’s always about her. Always has been and always will be. And she’s probably worried that word will get out and her so-called fabulous client list will dwindle away, because nobody will trust her – if she can steal her own twin sister’s fiancé, then what’s stopping her from coming on to a total stranger? That’s what people will think, and that’s all that Sasha is bothered about: other people, and putting on a show for them.

  Take our thirtieth birthday for example. Sasha organised a hideous joint party at a flash private members’ club in London, not my thing at all, and then after all the guests had whooped and wished us happy birthday, Sasha had ripped off her dress, revealing a teeny-tiny tasselled silver bikini, and promptly leapt around a pole which swivelled down from the ceiling, glinting in the spotlight after the lights were dramatically dimmed and raunchy music pumped from speakers. She performed a full-on pole dance, like a pro, in front of the hundred or so guests, made up mainly of her business contacts (Sasha never misses an opportunity to network) while my small group of friends cringed over by the bar area. But that’s not all; she then heckled me to join her, knowing I hate heights, until the whole crowd, apart from my friends of course, were chanting my name. Even Luke joined in. I was mortified; there was no way I could writhe around a pole without making an utter fool of myself, plus I didn’t want to, it’s just not my thing, so I ran away, finding out later that Sasha had been having pole dancing classes for months, and hadn’t bothered to mention it to me, thereby ensuring the show was all about her.

  ‘Well, what did you expect me to do when you don’t bother to answer your phone?’ And there it is again, the same accusatory tone that Luke used; it must be a thing for people who’ve messed up, a defence mechanism – blame the other person and hope they don’t notice.

  ‘And why on earth would you think I would want to talk to you? And how did you know I was here?’

  ‘OK. Well, it’s the bizarrest thing …’ She purses her lips and makes big eyes. Sasha always did love a drama, especially someone else’s. ‘Mum has left like a hundred messages,’ she starts, in a stagey voice, ‘practically hysterical she was, something about you losing your job – a massive cock-up she saw something on the local news – and then Luke called her saying your boss had rung him. So she begged me to find you and sort out the mess.’ Hmm, I definitely bet Mum didn’t. ‘And then something about you and Luke working it out and that I should talk to you and say sorry so you can be happy with him, and then when I was schlepping through this toy town of a place, the village idiot approached me, twiddled her tacky loom band, did a crazy cow grin and then asked me how it was going with the doctor! Obviously thought I was you, God knows why, because we look nothing like each other any more.’ And she actually gives me an up and down look as if I’m somehow inferior to her, when actually, we do still look identical, apart from the hair of course and the make-up and the way we dress. ‘Have you met a doctor? Is that why you’ve run away to this dump? To be with him?’

  ‘Shut up! Just shut the fuck up. Tindledale isn’t a dump!’ I scream, flinging my hands over my ears and moving towards her. Sasha’s mouth actually drops open. She takes a step backwards and a dart of fear flits through her eyes. A short silence follows, interrupted by a knock on the door. It opens and Cher pops her head into the room.

  ‘You OK, Sybs?’ Cher gives me a look and I walk over to her, my legs still wobbling with rage.

  ‘I’m fine. Honestly, I can handle her.’ I toss a disparaging glance in Sasha’s direction and to my utter shock and disbelief Sasha is now crumpled on the floor, kneeling with her forehead on the carpet and her arms cradling her body. Sobbing!

  Instinctively, I run over and reach a hand down to touch her back, but she shrinks away from me. Cher follows until she’s standing beside me. We look at each other, both wondering what on earth we should do. I’ve never seen Sasha like this before; in fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her cry, certainly not since we were little girls, and then it was probably because she couldn’t get her own way. Tears of temper, never sadness or compassion, but this is different. She’s seriously distressed. Is she having some kind of breakdown?

  ‘Sasha!’ Cher crouches down next to her. ‘Come on. Let’s get you up.’ But Sasha pulls away from her too. ‘We’re worried, love,’ Cher says gently, using the same voice she did when she chatted to Bill. Cher manages to loop her hand through Sasha’s elbow and motions for me to get her other arm, which I do, and between us we lift Sasha up and on to the bed. Basil swiftly legs it to hide under the table by the window. ‘Do you think we should get Dr Ben over here?’ Cher looks at me. I open my mouth to reply, but Sasha mutters and pulls her arms free before yanking off the riding jacket and tossing it away. It lands in a sad heap by the bathroom door.

  ‘Please, I’m not ill,’ she sniffs, wiping her nose on the cuff of her sleeve, which is so unlike her – usually she’d be the first to criticise that kind of behaviour, and the silk shirt that she’s wearing looks incredibly expensive, but it’s as if she doesn’t care, as if she’s given up. How weird. Sasha may have her flaws, but she’s never been a quitter. I grab a box of tissues from the nightstand and offer them to her. She takes a handful and blows her nose before crying some more.

  ‘Sasha, if you’re not ill, then what’s going on? I’ve never seen you like this before.’ I can feel her body trembling against mine. Cher stands up.

  ‘I’ll get you a nice cup of tea, how about that?’ she smiles, but Sasha doesn’t respond. ‘Or perhaps something stronger?’ Sasha manages a nod. ‘OK, be right back. I’ll bring you one too.’ Cher nods at me as she leaves the room and I wait for Cher to close the door behind her, before trying again.

  ‘Sasha, please tell me what the matter is,’ I start, managing to keep my voice calm, even though I’m still fuming with her – I can’t erase the mean stuff she said or the fact that she cheated with Luke, just because she’s having a breakdown. But she is my sister, and I do still care about her, so I’m prepared to put it to o
ne side for now, and find out what the hell is going on. ‘Are you sure you’re not ill? I can get Ben, the doctor, to come over,’ I say, wondering how he’d react to seeing my identical twin sister here. Some people totally freak: I had a friend from Brownies home for tea one time who started crying and Mum had to call her parents to come and collect her. And then a horrible thought pops into my head, what if Sasha tries to steal Ben away too? Oh God. I will myself to get a grip. Ben isn’t Luke. Besides, Ben isn’t my boyfriend, plus it comes down to trust at the end of the day. I can’t spend the rest of my life worrying that any man I meet is going to jump into bed with Sasha.

  Sasha places her hand on my knee.

  ‘Sybs, I don’t need a doctor,’ she says quietly.

  ‘OK. So what do you need?’ I gingerly pat the top of her hand and it seems to calm her, as she takes a deep breath, stops trembling and tells me.

  ‘About a billion pounds.’

  ‘What?’ I say, wondering what she means. Is she joking? I can’t tell, as her face is deadly serious.

  ‘Oh, Sybs, I’ve messed everything up. I’m so sorry. I’ve ruined your life.’ Hardly, I’m sure I’ll survive. But she’s always been a drama queen. ‘And I’ve ruined my life. Mum and Dad hate me; my so-called mates have abandoned me. Most of my clients have deserted me; all I have left is the Christmas hunt ball. And it’s all my fault – so you’ll probably think it serves me right.’ Hmm, maybe. But what am I? Twelve. Yes, she betrayed me horribly, but if what she’s saying is true, that she’s properly ruined her own life, then I’m hardly going to sit here and gloat. I press on, keen to get to the bottom of it all.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Sybs, I’m bankrupt! It’s all gone. The lot. I’ve lost everything. It started shortly after …’ she pauses to pick her words, but I save her the bother.

  ‘You stole my fiancé.’ And she flinches.

  ‘Please believe me when I say that it just happened,’ she says, crying again. ‘It was never intentional.’