Bad Sisters

by Chance, Rebecca

  ‘I don’t know what . . .’ Deeley began, as Maxie clicked her tongue impatiently and practically tore the magazine open to the spread of Deeley lying on the sofa, looking wan and beautiful. ‘Ooh!’ Deeley exclaimed, momentarily perking up at the sight of a good photo of herself. ‘I didn’t know it was out yet! They really didn’t tell me much,’ she explained, looking up at her sisters, and then realizing, from the steely fury in their eyes, that something about the article had made them very angry indeed.

  ‘What is it?’ she said, furrowing her pretty brow. ‘I thought you’d be pleased! I made some money off it, got some publicity . . . there’s quite a good living in doing these magazine things . . . Oh!’

  Thinking that she’d solved the mystery of why her sisters were so worked up, she beamed at both of them with an ingenuous smile.

  ‘Don’t worry – this won’t affect my deal with Nicky!’ she reassured them. ‘Carmen never banned me from doing interviews. I just have to tell them that he realized I wasn’t The One, and dumped me, and that I’m moving forward bravely. And honestly, that’s all I said!’

  She looked from Devon to Maxie, completely failing to understand why they weren’t relaxing at the news that Deeley’s financial settlement from Nicky was safe. And then Maxie’s French-manicured finger stabbed at one of the paragraphs printed in bold type. Deeley scanned it as her sister read bitingly: ‘“Deprived childhood”? “Creepy stepdads”?’

  ‘How could you even mention stepdads, Deeley!’ Devon wailed. ‘Are you insane?’

  ‘I didn’t realize I’d said all that!’ Deeley said feebly. ‘I didn’t do much press in the States. I mean, no one really wanted to talk to me,’ she admitted frankly. ‘Why would they? Sometimes, people would be profiling Nicky, and Carmen would tell me to wander in and do girlfriend-type things – you know, tease him about how many hair products he has, talk about a holiday we were planning. To make us sound like a real couple. But that was all sort of worked out in advance.’

  ‘She told you what to say,’ Maxie snapped. ‘And the rest of the time, she told you to keep your fucking mouth shut and look pretty, right?’

  ‘Well, yes . . .’

  ‘Because she knew she couldn’t trust you as far as she could throw you!’ Maxie yelled. ‘You’re an idiot! A total fucking idiot! What the hell made you think you could start blurting out stuff about our childhood?’

  Deeley was hanging her head now, even though she didn’t have the hair to cover her face. At least this way she didn’t have to meet Maxie’s eyes.

  ‘I don’t even remember saying that,’ she mumbled; and it was true, she didn’t. She and the very nice journalist had just had a cosy chat over tea in the hotel, between set-ups for the various shots. Yes! was very well known as a publication that never said anything rude about anyone, happy to go along with whatever story celebrities were selling that week, as long as it thought their readers would be interested. Deeley had felt perfectly safe; the journalist had treated her relationship with Nicky as if it had been 100 per cent real, which was all she’d been worried about.

  ‘We just, you know, talked,’ she added even more feebly. ‘I mean, is it so bad? None of us ever pretended we were born with silver spoons in our mouths, did we? I thought the whole “worked our way up from nothing” made you both look even better . . . you know, like you worked for everything you had, it wasn’t just handed to you . . .’

  ‘It was OK in the beginning, but it’s humiliating now,’ Devon said angrily. ‘I don’t want to be having to answer lots of questions about our deprived childhood when I’m trying to promote a happy, fun, sexy TV show about being indulgent!’ She glared magnificently at Deeley, her nostrils flaring. ‘How on earth did this interview happen anyway?’ she demanded. ‘I didn’t think you’d made any contacts in London!’

  ‘Well, you’ve done your best to make sure I didn’t!’ Deeley retorted, determined not to let Devon have it all her own way. ‘It was actually sort of through Carmen, if you must know. Yes! did a cover story on Nicky a couple of months ago, and the journalist rang up Carmen last week to get my UK cell phone numb— mobile number,’ she corrected herself. ‘And they were very nice, and said they’d pay me and I’d get some good publicity and nice photos out of it. Which I did.’ She was getting cross now, rather than feeling guilty. ‘And it’s more than either of you have done for me, the whole time I’ve been here. Neither of you gives a shit about what’s going to happen to me! You can’t blame me for trying to get some sort of career started, can you?’

  ‘Your “career”,’ Maxie said, putting the word in audible, contemptuous quotes that made Deeley cringe and wish she’d never used that word. ‘Please! But that’s by no means the main issue here.’ She folded her arms across her chest. ‘You’re such a child, Deeley,’ she continued. ‘Devon and I spoiled you, I suppose. You bounced around London doing God knows what, and then you fell into a cushy little set-up with Nicky. You never grew up. You never learned to think before you speak. Whatever brains you have in that pretty little head of yours never got any use at all. But even having said all of that . . .’ Maxie fixed her younger sister with a terrifying stare. ‘Even having said all of that, I would have thought that even you, Deeley, would realize that talking about our past could be incredibly dangerous for all of us! Have you really forgotten what happened in Thompson Road? Don’t you realize that people might get curious about our past and—’

  ‘Dig stuff up!’ Devon broke in, unable to control herself any longer. She pounded across the room and grabbed Deeley’s shoulders, shaking her until the elastic band holding back Deeley’s messy bun came loose, hair tumbling over her face. ‘Dig stuff up! Literally? Do you not get that? How bloody thick are you, for fuck’s sake?’

  Deeley wanted to stay strong, to act like a grown-up, not crumble like the pathetic stupid little girl her sisters were accusing her of being. But under their onslaught, as Devon yelled right into her face, as Maxie, with a furious gesture, knocked the magazine off the breakfast bar and sent it flying halfway across the room, Deeley did what she was trying so hard not to, what she’d always done when her sisters rounded on her.

  She burst into hysterical tears.

  1993

  ‘What do we do now?’ Devon asked, looking at Maxie.

  ‘It’s not dark enough yet,’ Maxie said, glancing out of the grimy window to the long narrow strip of garden beyond. ‘We’ll have to wait a bit.’

  ‘It worked really well,’ Devon said respectfully. ‘Just like you said it would.’

  Maxie couldn’t help flushing with pride; ever since she’d been small, there was nothing she’d liked better than a compliment to her organizational skills.

  ‘What were those pills of Mum’s that you gave him?’ Deeley asked, wiping the tears off her face with the sleeve of her school uniform shirt, trying to sound as grown-up as possible.

  ‘Methadone,’ Maxie said. ‘A whole pack of them.’

  ‘I thought she went to the clinic to get that every day,’ Deeley said, puzzled. ‘And they gave it to her to drink, in a little plastic cup. Isn’t that what happened? I didn’t know they gave her pills too.’

  She looked at Devon for corroboration, but Devon just shrugged. It was Maxie who answered: ‘No, you’re right, Deels. They wouldn’t give her pills. They don’t trust addicts – that’s why they make them go to the clinic every day to get their dose. Mum got these off someone. Bought them, or something . . .’

  Over Deeley’s head, she met Devon’s eyes: both Maxie and Devon had a very good idea of what their mother had done in return for a whole pack of methadone pills, but there was no point upsetting Deeley further by telling her. She wasn’t even ten yet.

  ‘I found them,’ Maxie continued. ‘You know I always used to go through her stuff.’

  Both her younger sisters nodded. Maxie’s bravery in pillaging their mother’s possessions for spare cash had often meant the difference between eating that night and going hungry.

 
‘And when I found them, I took them,’ Maxie said. ‘I didn’t have any choice. She could have overdosed on them really easily.’

  Again, Deeley and Devon nodded. They’d seen their mother passed out on drugs more times than they could count; she’d had a couple of near overdoses already. Generally, it was a combination of whatever she could get her hands on, but opiates were her drug of choice, and a whole pack of methadone pills could easily have been lethal.

  ‘She tore the place apart looking for them,’ Maxie said. ‘Remember? When we were staying in that tower block, at Steve’s?’

  ‘She thought Steve took them,’ Devon remembered. ‘That’s why we left there, wasn’t it? They had that huge fight, and she hit him with a bottle and told us to grab our stuff and go.’

  ‘I didn’t like it at Steve’s anyway,’ Deeley said softly. ‘It smelled of wee.’

  ‘Ugh, those dogs!’ Devon pulled a face.

  Steve had had two mutts he barely let out of the flat, being too lazy to walk them; they went on the balcony when they could, but it hadn’t made much difference. The place stank like the urinal it effectively was.

  ‘Well, I kept the pills,’ Maxie said. ‘You know, just in case. And then, when Bill started to come into my room at night, I got them out.’

  Both Devon and Deeley swallowed hard. Bill’s council semi had three bedrooms, and though Devon, at thirteen, had resented being lumped in with her younger sister – as if she had anything in common with a 9-year-old! – there was no question that Maxie, being seventeen, had the privilege of a room of her own. When their mother had been sent away for receiving stolen goods, Bill had acted like he took it for granted the girls would go on staying with him. They’d been pathetically grateful. The worst part of all of this – apart, of course, from what he’d done to Maxie – was how nice he had been to them. Almost like a real dad. Making sure they had a cooked breakfast in the morning before school, that their clothes were washed, treating them to a KFC now and then. He’d even said they might go on holiday that summer, to Magaluf. He was saving up. They’d been so excited about it.

  ‘We won’t get to go on holiday now, will we?’ Deeley said, tears welling up in her eyes again. ‘We were going to go on a plane! I really wanted to go on a plane!’

  ‘Deeley!’ Devon snapped. ‘You’re so selfish! Think about what he did to Maxie!’

  But Deeley couldn’t, not really. Maxie had spared them the details of what had happened when Bill had come into her room, what he’d made her do; she’d just hinted at it, and told them that he’d made her stay really quiet so her sisters wouldn’t hear anything.

  ‘We should’ve gone to the police,’ Deeley said in a small voice. ‘Because he did those bad things to Maxie. We should’ve told them.’

  Maxie sighed deeply. ‘Deels,’ she said, repressing an urge to shake her little sister till her teeth rattled, ‘we’ve been over this, OK? The police probably wouldn’t believe me, not with Mum’s record. And even if they did, they’d take us away from here. They’d separate us and put us into care. We’ve told you about all the bad things that happen to kids in care, haven’t we? Besides, Bill said he wouldn’t let us go. That he’d come after us. I only did this because he said he was going to start with Devon too.’ She sighed deeply. ‘I had to do it – this,’ she jerked her head down at Bill’s body, ‘to protect all of us. That’s my job. And your job is to help me, and not talk about it any more once we’ve done it.’

  Deeley nodded obediently, big eyes wide, swayed, as always, by her older sister’s authority. ‘I was good at crushing up all the pills, wasn’t I?’ she said, hoping for approval.

  ‘You were,’ Maxie said, softening. ‘You did a really good job. It was so lucky he drank stout,’ she added, looking over at Bill’s empty pint glass on the kitchen table. ‘That stuff’s so bitter he didn’t even notice there was a whole ton of methadone in it.’ She took a long breath. ‘I should wash that glass up straight away,’ she said, crossing the room and picking it up. ‘That’s what they do on telly, to get rid of the evidence. And I should burn the pill packet.’

  ‘So now do we—’ Devon started, then screamed. Deeley did too.

  Because Bill’s arm had moved.

  He was trying to bend it, to put his palm flat on the floor and push himself up; it was a weak, feeble attempt, the fingers trembling, the movement painfully slow. Still the two girls were watching it as if hypnotized, his hand scrabbling across the cheap carpet tiles, dragging his arm, the elbow bending upwards, the fingers trying desperately to flatten out, to take some of his body’s weight.

  But that wasn’t the scariest part. Instinctively, Devon and Deeley clung to each other, terrified, as Bill, still face down on the floor, started to make a horrible moaning noise. His back heaved, his head jerked, his forehead banged on the floor repeatedly, making Deeley whimper in fear. And then the moans turned into a guttural, painful-sounding croaking, as if each breath was being ripped out of his throat by sharp invisible claws.

  Standing by the sink, still holding the glass stained with beer foam and – just visible now – tiny white particles of ground-up pills, Maxie watched, barely daring to breathe, frozen in place. Racing through her mind was everything that she had done to get them to this place; the plotting, the planning, the terrible risks she had run, the secrets she was still hiding from her sisters.

  The croaks rose in volume, the spasms in Bill’s back were even more pronounced; his head was trying to lift off the floor, both his hands pushing feebly at the carpet, to no avail. He was retching now, trying to bring up the bellyful of pills and stout, his dinner of fish fingers and oven chips.

  And if he did, he would survive. The methadone wouldn’t have killed him.

  Maxie couldn’t let that happen. ‘Devon!’ she yelled. ‘Hit him over the head with something!’

  The fireplace, with its wonky gas heater and tiled surround, was directly to Devon’s right. On the mantelpiece were Bill’s precious dart trophies, neatly arranged and painstakingly dusted, tributes to his steady hand and excellent aim. Without thinking – because if she thought about it for even one second, she couldn’t do it – Devon grabbed the closest one, a heavy engraved acrylic rectangle, bent over, and whacked it into Bill’s skull in one long continuous stroke. The crack of acrylic against bone was audible right across the room.

  The trophy fell from Devon’s hands, thudding onto the carpet. Deeley started to whimper like a desperate puppy. And those small, pathetic gulps of misery were the only sound in the room. Bill’s groans and retches had stopped dead; his fingers were no longer scrabbling at the floor.

  Taking a deep breath, commanding herself to take control, Maxie set down the glass in the sink, her hands shaking. Then she walked slowly back across the lounge, looking down at the body of their ‘stepdad’.

  ‘Well, if he wasn’t dead before, he is now,’ she said, feeling her heart pound in her chest as she saw the unmistakeable angle at which Bill’s head was lying. ‘Dev just broke his neck.’

  Part Two

  Devon

  For a crisis meeting, everyone round the table was very silent. The trouble was, there was very little to be said. The clippings lying on the conference table – some from newspapers and magazines, others printouts from online news and gossip sites – spoke for themselves. British journalists prided themselves on their headline-writing skills, and from the selection of articles present, there might have been a nationwide competition to find the most creative way to inform the country not only that Devon’s latest cookery show was a failure, but that its hostess seemed to have been spending much more time stuffing her face than she had on concocting recipes.

  DEVON HELP HER! blared the Sun, over a very unflattering picture of Devon in a loose-flowing black dress and flip-flops.

  NO MORE PIES, FOR DEVON’S SAKE! contributed the Express, in much the same vein.

  LITTLE BIT EXTRA? PULL THE OTHER ONE! said the Mirror.

  And WHEN DOES INDULGENCE TURN TO G
LUTTONY? the Guardian asked – more polite, but just as pointed.

  ‘It’s not a complete disaster,’ Bettany, the producer of Devon’s Little Bit Extra, said finally, in a voice doing its best to sound confident. But she didn’t have the nerve to lift her head and look anyone in the eye. ‘I mean, the ratings are quite strong.’

  ‘Book sales aren’t,’ snapped the publisher of the tie-in-book, shoving a copy forward petulantly. ‘They’ve fallen off a bloody cliff.’

  Everyone looked at the cover of the book, a lavishly produced hardback. Devon’s face in the cover photo was as beautiful as ever, her lush dark hair cascading onto her shoulders, a snug red velvet top lifting her bosoms to a perfect amount of white cleavage, just enough to attract without being so overtly sexual that it would put off the mums who bought Devon’s book in droves. Her lipstick matched the velvet top, her cheeks were glowing with blusher, her eyes wide and perfectly made-up; she was smiling seductively while holding out a plate of strawberry shortcake. Luscious red berries, white cream spilling out from the glowing golden split biscuit, curls of dark chocolate decorating the white plate; the crimson, white and deep brown shades cleverly echoing Devon’s own colouring, the whole image evoking celebration, summer, rich indulgent sweetness.

  A perfect shot. Only no one looking at it could avoid seeing what wasn’t in the photograph: the rest of Devon’s body. The photo had been originally intended as at least waist-length. And previous book covers of Devon’s had shown her entire body in pretty little printed tea dresses that finished just on the knee, and suede sandals that fastened around her elegant ankles.

  This one, however, had been ruthlessly cropped just below her breasts, to display her remaining assets: her face and her bosoms. Unfortunately, on a TV show it wasn’t so easy to conceal the rest of your presenter. There had been one ill-judged shot of Devon bending over to put a tray of biscuits in the oven that had made her look positively huge. One of the online sites had freeze-framed that, blown it up and posted it with the caption: NEEDED: BIGGER OVEN FOR XMAS TURKEY!