‘No chance,’ says Rose, wiping her forehead clean and grinning at her younger sister. ‘I hate this song anyway.’
Poppy pulls a face, and sits down next to her. She’s on a mission tonight. A mission to have the most fun humanly possible at an event held in a decked-up school sports hall.
It’s their last Christmas disco together, and she wants to make it count. Rose is 16 now, and will be going off to sixth-form college to study hideously science-y things in September. Poppy will have to face the rest of high school alone, and can barely tolerate the thought.
She’s boiling, and would like to follow Rose’s lead and wipe her face clean, but she knows all her foundation will come off as well. Then her spotty forehead will be revealed to the world like the devil’s own logo. She hates spots almost as much as she loves Rose, and her battle with acne has already taught her a very valuable lesson: life just isn’t fair.
Rose comes from the same genetic material (as far as they know) as her, lives in the same house as her, and eats the same food as her – but has that kind of milky-white skin that they use to advertise Simple cleansing lotion.
Poppy, who actually uses Simple cleansing lotion, has a face full of crusty blisters that make her look as if she’s re-invented smallpox.
Rose looks at her sister, and sees her skin glistening under the disco lights. She pulls a tissue from her pocket, and gently dabs the moisture away.
‘It’s okay,’ she says, quietly, as Poppy starts to mutter in distress and tries to knock her hand away, ‘I’m being careful. The slap will remain in place, I promise. Just trust me.’
Poppy settles immediately. Of course she trusts her. Rose would never leave her exposed to the taunts of her alleged friends, and the insensitive gaze of the Bastard Boys. Rose would never call her Spotty Poppy, like they do.
All cleaned up, she feels better. It’s hard to see properly with sweat dripping off your mascara-laden eyelashes. Not that Rose knows that – she never wears make-up. Never needs to. She has mum’s gorgeous eyes, and that perfect skin. She’s an English Rose, as their mother always says.
Poppy’s not quite sure what she is – an Ugly Duckling, with any luck, who might magically transform into a beautiful 14-year-old swan sometime soon. She might even grow boobs, which Rose has already managed. Not that she appreciates them – she says they’re more trouble than they’re worth, and keeps them hidden away under baggy sweaters. If Poppy had them, she’d probably start walking around topless just for the thrill of it.
‘I can’t believe you’re going to leave me here …’ says Poppy, sighing as she looks out at the dance floor with disgust.
Everyone seems way too interested in members of the opposite sex, and what everyone else is wearing, and being cool. Madonna’s ‘Vogue’ has come on, and they’re all busily making squares with their arms. It’s not very co-ordinated, and it kind of looks like they’ve all been possessed by a jerky-limbed demon.
‘I’ll only be at the college on the other side of town,’ replies Rose, nudging her so hard she almost falls over. ‘You’ll still see me every morning and every night and every weekend. Besides, you’ve got friends here. It’s not like you’re Little Orphan Annie, is it?’
Poppy gives her a sideways look, and nods. Technically, she’s right. The college is only on the other side of town. But she knows it’s The Beginning of the End. After her A-levels, Rose will apply to universities, and they most definitely won’t be on the other side of town. They might be on the other side of the country. Everything is changing, and she’s not happy about it.
And while Rose is right again, she does have friends, she’s not especially close to any of them. High school seems to be ruled by teenaged tribal warlords, and she hasn’t quite found her faction.
She’s not slaggy enough to be in with the Hot Girls, and not nasty enough to be in with the Mean Girls. Not weird enough to be part of the Geek Gang. She’s not sporty. Not musical. Not especially good at anything at all – other than being Rose’s sister.
Rose is excited about college, and Poppy wants to be excited for her. But she can feel everything … sliding away. Slipping and changing and wriggling around her. She’d quite like to keep things the way they are – the two of them together – but the world seems to have other ideas.
‘I know,’ she says. ‘You’re right. I’ll be fine, of course I will. It just won’t be quite the same without you.’
She feels sad as she says this, and then feels guilty for sucking at pretending to be happy. Rose is two years older than her, and there’s nothing she can do about that. If she carries on being a sourpuss, she’ll spoil the night for both of them.
As she plasters a huge smile on her face, determined to fake it till she makes it, the lighting makes a sudden change from flashing neon strobes to something more subdued, and the music changes with it. Poppy looks up at the clock on the sports-hall wall, and sees that it’s almost 10.30. Kicking-out time – which also means it’s Slow Dance time. Eeek.
The girls look on as couples pair up and move apart, as hearts are broken and dreams are crushed. It’s painful to see the rejects slink off to the corners, and downright funny to see the loved-up duos shuffle round the dance floor to Sinéad O’Connor singing ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’. There is snogging and groping and a few concerned looks from the teachers lurking on the edge. Maybe, thinks Poppy, there will even be a Christmas Disco Baby in nine months’ time.
She giggles at the thought, and amuses herself by trying to guess who the lucky couple could be.
A shadow falls over them, and she looks up. Uh-oh. It’s Him. It’s Marcus Pemberton. He’s in Rose’s class, and he’s been chasing her for what feels like years. Rose smiles at him, shielding her eyes against the lights, and he looks as though he might melt in a puddle of Levis at her feet.
Marcus is one of those boys who is on all the teams, and has his name called out in Assembly for his latest sporting triumph practically every morning. He’s the Head Boy to Rose’s Head Girl, and if he’s ever had a spot, Poppy has never seen it. His hair is floppy and blond, and his expression as he stares at Rose is completely ga-ga. Poppy totally and utterly hates him.
‘Would you like to dance with me, Rose?’ he says, shuffling a bit on the spot, hands in his jeans pockets. His face is in shadow, but Poppy knows he will be blushing madly.
She stays quiet, but notices the way her sister is looking at him. Like he’s a giant Freddo and she feels like a snack. She steels herself, ready to sit this one out, hiding away on the bench and pretending she’s fine with it.
It’s Rose’s last disco, after all. If she wants a giant boy-shaped Freddo, she deserves one, and Poppy won’t get in the way. She stares at her fingernails, wondering when it was she chewed them down to the stubs, and tries very hard not to exist.
‘Thanks Marcus,’ says Rose, ‘but I’m already taken. I’ll see you at the weekend, though, all right? Maybe we could go and see the new Star Trek film or something?’
Poppy risks a sneaky glance from beneath her clumped-up lashes, and sees that he is both disappointed and hopeful. She’s said no to the Slow Dance, but yes to a date. Probably all a bit too much for a teenaged boy to compute, especially one who plays rugby and regularly gets his bonce battered, but he nods and leaves. Poppy resists the urge to stick two fingers up at him as he disappears into the darkness.
‘Come on then, sis,’ says Rose, standing up and stretching. She holds her hand out, and Poppy takes it. She’s actually already taller than her big sister, a long, lean streak of a girl, not quite grown into her own legs. Her mum calls her Bambi, and Rose just calls her lucky.
‘Let’s show them how it’s done …’
Rose leads Poppy on to the dance floor, and the two of them perform the kind of waltz their mum taught them when they were little. The type that involves a lot of laughing, and treading on toes, and counting ‘one-two-three’ in their heads, even when it bears no relation to the music at all.
They bu
mp into people, and interrupt quite a few snogs, and attract a lot of dirty looks. But they couldn’t care less.
For now, at least, it’s Rose and Poppy versus the World, as it has always been – and as Sinéad almost says, nothing compares to two.
Chapter 7
The Present Day
Poppy is standing, staring into the fridge, wearing her sweaty gym gear and feeling the familiar and welcome pangs of hunger rumbling through her flat stomach.
There is nothing on her shelves apart from a few sticks of celery and a bar of 80 per cent cocoa chocolate. She snaps one small square from the bar, and places it on her tongue, enjoying the almost orgasmic feel of the chilled chocolate melting in her mouth.
She closes the fridge, and goes to make a coffee. Sadly she’s all out, so she pours the boiled kettle water straight into the empty jar, knowing from years of experience that the crusted-on granules will last for at least one more half-hearted effort.
She needs to do some shopping, she thinks, taking the scalding-hot coffee jar into the lounge area and sitting at her desk. It’s late, and she’s using the Anglepoise lamp as she casts her eye over paperwork and the initial mock-ups from the graphics team. They’re all rubbish, and she’ll have to go in and do some arse-kicking on Monday.
Poppy is the head of marketing for a pet supplies firm, and it’s about as interesting as it sounds. It does, however, allow her to live in her nice flat in Islington, with her own parking space, an en-suite in her bedroom and a gym in the basement. Whoop-di-do.
She’s just come up from the gym, in fact, where she spent as much time flirting with Josh, the 23-year-old financial advisor from the floor above, as working out. She half wonders how he can possibly be qualified to offer advice on anything other than doing weights and drinking, he is so young. She certainly wouldn’t trust her ISA with him, that’s for sure.
She would, however, sleep with him, and already has, on several occasions. He’s tall and bulky and fit and energetic, and he doesn’t give two hoots that she never wants to stay over. Or that she’s 40, even though she’s never directly told him that. With her toned body and long, sleek hair, she passes for a lot younger anyway.
It’s fun, she tells herself, playing with men like Josh. And carbs are way overrated anyway. At least that’s what she tries to explain to her mother, when they’re sitting in some Cotswolds tea room on one of their weekends away, and she ends up drooling into her salad as her mum tucks into scones and cream.
Mum never seems to change, no matter how much she eats. After years of borderline starvation to stay slim for her TV roles, her metabolism seems to have adjusted to her twilight years by giving her the gift of consistency. She’s fit for a woman in her sixties – she still does yoga and swims and walks in the hills – and looks lean and attractive.
Her last telly gig – playing the feisty-yet-caring secretary of a handsome maverick QC – was a few years ago, but people would still recognise her as Penny Peabody, and marvel at how well she has aged.
Last time she spoke to Poppy, a couple of weeks ago now she supposes, she sounded a bit tired, and a bit less enthused about their planned spa break in Cheltenham than she’d expected.
Maybe, thinks Poppy, sipping the tasteless coffee water straight from the jar, she’s just had enough of facials. Maybe they should mix it up a bit. Perhaps she could take her on a wine-tasting weekend, or they could go sky-diving together. Maybe she should put her fiendish pooch plan into action and get her mother a dog. They’d been on a photoshoot for the latest ad campaign for Woof! a few months earlier, and there was a field full of adorable pups. Adorable when they weren’t shitting all over the place or trying to hump each other, anyway.
They’ve not had a dog since Patch, the psychopathic cross-eyed Jack Russell, went to the big kennel in the sky when they were teenagers, and the time could be right now. She’s at home all day, loves going walking, needs company …
Poppy puts it on her mental list of Things To Do, along with Kick Arses of Graphics Team, Buy More Coffee, and Pick Up Work Suits From Dry Cleaners.
She swills the coffee-and-chocolate water around her mouth, licking it from her perfectly white teeth, and flicks on the TV. She has an hour to fill before she heads out again.
She’s meeting Kristin for drinks at the wine bar on the corner, and they’re likely to be out until the milkmen are doing their rounds. Making meaningless conversation with meaningless people and just possibly indulging in some meaningless sex afterwards. It’s a Friday night ritual, one that Poppy tries to persuade herself she still enjoys.
Part of her would just like to go to bed instead of meeting her 20-something partner in crime – but that would be admitting defeat. That would be acting like a 40-year-old, which is far worse than actually being one.
Anyway, apart from the colleagues she works with, it’s one of the only times she gets to meet new people. It’s not easy meeting people in London.
Everyone is always so busy, either with work or family, battered by commuting and finances and, in the case of the few people she knows with kids, trying to move to an area with a Good School. It had all felt like a lot more fun when she was younger – but these days, as she chats and laughs with people ten years her junior, it feels a bit more … desperate.
God knows what will happen when Kristin gets married. It’ll happen, one day, she knows – she’s already lost most of her party animal pals to the sacrificial altar. They’re never the same again once they’ve tied the knot.
She uses the remote to pass on a Bollywood movie, ignores the news (which always depresses her), and is only marginally tempted by a Steven Seagal film. It’s always fun watching a fat man do karate kicks, but she’s not quite in the right mood tonight. She finally settles on Poldark – something she’d very much like to do in real life. Right on top of him.
Letting out a dirty laugh that echoes around her empty flat, she puts the almost-coffee down in disgust. Maybe she’ll go for a nice G&T instead. It’s the freaking weekend, baby, and it’s never too early to start drinking.
She’s not stupid, and appreciates the irony of her lifestyle: going to the gym every day, banning cake, drinking enough water to fill a flotation tank, and then polluting her temple-like body with booze at the weekend.
Well, she thinks, pouring herself a hefty glass, nobody’s perfect, are they? And some habits are harder to break than others. She just wishes being a party girl still felt as exciting and fun as it used to, in the Olden Days back in the last century.
Back when she still had a sister.
Chapter 8
Glastonbury Festival, Somerset, 1995
‘Okay, that’s settled then,’ says Rose, lying on top of her sleeping bag because it’s too hot to get inside it, ‘you can have Liam, and I’ll have Noel.’
‘That’s fine by me. Liam is way sexier. You only want Noel because he writes the songs, and you’re an intellectual snob so you think that means he’s cleverer.’
‘I have to be honest, Pops, I don’t think you could call any of Oasis clever … If I wanted clever, I’d have to go for Jarvis Cocker.’
‘Even though he’s so skinny?’
‘Even though. There was something foxy about him tonight, don’t you think? All those shapes he pulled, and the way he held the microphone? Or is that the marijuana speaking?’
‘If the marijuana is actually speaking to you,’ says Poppy, passing her sister the item under discussion, ‘then I’m going to suggest you drank some of that special mushroom tea the hippy dudes were offering us earlier.’
‘No! I didn’t, honest!’ says Rose, giggling. Everything seems very, very funny, for some reason. Even earlier, when there was a wasp trapped in the tent with them – and she is terrified of wasps – she couldn’t stop laughing as Poppy batted it out again with a rolled-up festival programme. Fearless wasp warrior.
‘I believe you, thousands wouldn’t …’ replies Poppy, also giggling. ‘Hey, I just had a thought. It’s a funny one.�
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‘Go for it. I’m a very receptive audience right now.’
‘Okay,’ says Poppy, ‘you know how the Stone Roses were supposed to be playing, and they dropped out?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Well, we’re lying here smoking up a storm, and instead of the Stone Roses, we have the … Stoned Rose! Rose! Your name! You get it?’
Rose does get it, and frankly it is the most hilarious thing she has ever heard. She laughs so much she fears she might have some kind of calamitous event going on in her cerebral cortex.
It’s Poppy’s fault, she decides, with a grin. That she’s a Stoned Rose, and that she’s almost laughing herself to death. She might be two years younger, but she’s a bad influence. Leading her astray.
Rose is in her first year at Liverpool University, studying Biology, with a nice sideline in cheap lager. Poppy is at college doing her A-levels.
They don’t see as much of each other now, for obvious reasons, and this has been a glorious weekend. They’ve watched fine bands, and eaten less fine veggie burgers, and had henna tattoos done on their hands, and witnessed one of the amateur flame-jugglers get taken away to hospital. They’ve danced and drunk and been hoisted on random men’s shoulders and lain out in the sun, listening to the sounds of bongo drums and acid trips wafting past their ears.
It’s late now, and they’re enjoying their last night together. Even in the early hours, in their tent, they can hear the sounds of festival life going on around them: music and laughter and yet more bongos and guitars strumming and the very occasional vomit.
‘Was Andy disappointed you weren’t sharing with him?’ asks Poppy from out of the blue. Andy is Rose’s boyfriend, and he’s here too, with a gang of his friends. Poppy doesn’t have a boyfriend, just a few lads she snogs when she’s been in the Tennyson’s Arms on a Friday night.
‘I don’t think so,’ answers Rose, passing back the joint and twisting on to her side so she is facing her sister. Poppy is still long and lean and lovely, and the spots have cleared up now. She’s a bit of a babe, but doesn’t seem to realise it. Bambi’s all grown up, at least in body.
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