My Sisters And Me

by Lisa Dickenson

  ‘Yeah, well, you better hope that’s the case, because the townsfolk of Maplewood hated you.’ Emmy stuck her hand into the bag of Haribo, already ashamed of firing that shot.

  Rae glanced over at her sister; Emmy was only two years her junior, but sometimes Rae felt so much older. And with feeling older came feeling responsible. She often wondered whether if she’d made more effort to fit in, calm down, be one of the crowd, life might not have been so hard on her younger sisters. Noelle, there was no helping, she had her own battles, but Emmy… Rae felt she’d laid such foundations that Emmy was almost set up to fail. ‘Do you remember when I had that music exam and I wrote my song about female genital mutilation?’

  ‘How could I forget it, it was so graphic? And angry.’

  ‘Yep. I thought it was pretty good – still do, actually. But anyway, I remember Mrs Whatsherface, my music teacher, almost fainting when I started adding in the interpretive dance moves.’

  ‘I think it was the language that nearly killed her, from what I heard.’

  ‘I was suspended for a week for that. And I failed the exam. But look at me now,’ Rae sang. ‘You know, I am looking forward to reconnecting with that Rae of the past, she was hilaire. Anyway, I’m not sorry for the song, but just so you know – I’m sorry that teacher then had it in for you after you joined her class.’

  Emmy sighed. ‘Oh, that’s okay – music would never have won me top grades anyway. Did you know people used to say Mum and Dad locked me in my room studying so I wouldn’t turn out like you?’

  ‘Okay, first of all – you wish they’d locked you in your room. I’ve never known a kid who liked to stay in more than you did.’

  ‘I went outside to play. Sometimes.’

  ‘Yeah, when your little bestie, Jared, dragged you out into the woods.’

  Emmy couldn’t really argue with that; she had treated her bedroom like a sanctuary. ‘Jared wasn’t my little best friend, he was – well, my only friend. So there.’

  Rolling her eyes, Rae replied, ‘All right, noted. Anyway, secondly – yes, I do remember that rumour. And I also remember telling everyone it wasn’t true.’

  ‘With your fists?’

  ‘… Sometimes with my fists. But they were basically saying my sister was a hermit and my parents were like, crazy people holding you captive. Honestly, it never took much to make them jump to the worst conclusions, did it?’

  ‘My point exactly.’ Emmy paused for a while. ‘But thank you for defending me.’

  Rae would always defend her, and she was ready again if need be. She ripped open a second bag of sweets using her teeth. ‘Look, if it’s that bad when we get back we’ll just paint the house in reds and blacks and market it on Airbnb as a great location for group sex parties. That’ll show ’em.’

  With a yawn, Emmy nodded, thoughts of faces from her past dancing in her mind. ‘That’ll show ’em,’ she agreed. She could see it now, the Lake sisters returning to their home town like a tornado, shock blanketing the faces of the bullies and the judgemental. Would that be the worst thing in the world?

  Chapter 4

  Eventually, at close to ten p.m., Rae crunched the car over the rough gravel driveway, creeping through the blackness towards the front of the house. Their home was surrounded by woods; tall pine trees that stretched towards the sun during summer and cast feathery shadows upon the gnarled oaks that curled beneath them.

  It sat on the very outskirts of the small market town of Maplewood, the first house you got to; the type that visitors to the area would drive past and say, ‘Wait, was that a building in there? Are we here yet?’ then drive on, not hitting any other sign of civilisation for several minutes, and so assume they’d imagined the house hidden in the woods.

  Their home was far enough away from inner Maplewood that when the sisters did occasionally venture home they could cocoon themselves within its walls and under the shade of the trees and rarely have to go out until it was time to leave. They hadn’t laid eyes on the town itself, not even driven through it, for what felt like a lifetime.

  The house sat at the end of an unkempt driveway that newcomers often lost their way on, veering into the woods and having to reverse back through tight gaps between tree trunks. Spotlights, Rae thought to herself, imagining tiny bulbs at the foot of the trees, lighting the way for their future guests who might arrive after dark.

  Of course, the girls knew the road like the back of their hands. Years of running up and down, pretending to be horses or spaceships or Olympians, and later, first kisses and stolen cigarettes, away from the eyeline of the house. Shielded from the traffic on the main road, and as loud as they liked all the way out here, this was their playground.

  ‘Wake up, snooze-face,’ coaxed Rae, and Emmy lifted her head from where it leaned against the car window. She hadn’t been asleep, just lulled into a sensation of going through the motions; her body returning to Maplewood, her mind a screensaver.

  Emmy squinted into the dark, trying to make out the house among the trees, until there it was, right in front of her. Tall and wide, raised a little off the mulchy ground and fronted by a vast decking area with steps leading up the centre to the door. With the moonlight slicing through the gaps in the trees and highlighting the peeling paint and broken bannisters, Emmy felt more than ever that it resembled the houses in American horror films from the seventies.

  On that happy thought, she spotted a small figure sitting on the steps surrounded by paperwork, shielding her eyes from the car headlights, a grin visible on her face. Emmy’s heart blossomed at the sight of her little sister, and it was as if it was thirteen years earlier, and Noelle was doing her homework out on the decking, where she always found it easier to concentrate, there among nature.

  Rae shoved the car into Park before it had barely come to a halt, and leapt out to throw her arms around Noelle. Emmy too jumped from the vehicle, her legs stiff but slightly shaking, and she ran to Noelle, wrapping herself around both sisters in a three-person embrace. All right, so maybe coming home did feel a tiny bit like home.

  ‘How are you here before us? I thought you had to work late tonight, otherwise I would have picked you up!’ asked Rae, detangling herself and walking to the boot as she talked. She opened it and one of Emmy’s suitcases tumbled out on to the dirt below.

  Noelle, one tiny arm still wrapped around Emmy’s waist, moved them both towards the car to help unpack. ‘I know, I thought I’d be there for hours finishing things off – someone in Weston-super-Mare was claiming they owned the seabed and wanted to start work on a submarine restaurant, and… Well, anyway, turns out they didn’t and that was the end of that, so here I am. But I don’t have any keys.’

  ‘How long have you been waiting for?’ Emmy asked, dropping her arm from Noelle to retrieve her suitcase.

  ‘Not long. I was sat in the car for a while but it got a bit stuffy, so I moved to the porch and all the little bugaboos helped me finish up my legal briefs by the light of my phone.’

  Noelle loved everything about nature, from creepy-crawlies to the way the wind blew, and she adored being outside. She suited being born in a house in the woods – from as soon as she could, she would run barefoot for what seemed like miles, playing games in her head (when her sisters grew too old for make-believe), and scrambling into dens between trees. Her hair was long and curly and sun-kissed, and her limbs small but strong. She used to think she was Mowgli. She still did, in a way. Not a day would go by without her taking a couple of hours out of her job to go climbing, or for a run in the rain, or to practise yoga in the middle of her garden in full, unashamed view of the neighbours who surrounded her terraced house.

  The three of them emptied the two cars and hauled their belongings up the steps, dumping everything on the decking before the front door.

  ‘Home, bitches,’ said Rae, philosophically.

  ‘Two whole months back in Maplewood,’ murmured Emmy.

  They stood awkwardly, looking up at the house, which creaked in h
ostile response to the wind that fluttered the weakest of the summer leaves off their branches. Homecoming was a funny thing, and none of the sisters quite knew what to expect.

  ‘The three of us don’t spend nearly enough time together,’ Noelle broke the silence. She picked up the nearest bag with one hand, and Emmy’s coolbox with the other, and smiled towards the door with determination, demanding her sisters get on board. ‘I’m looking forward to being back in the nest with you guys.’

  Rae turned the keys in the locks and pushed open the heavy wooden door, disturbing a pile of post on the carpet below that was highlighted by moonlight peeping through the curtains. She stepped over the threshold, dumped the bag she was carrying right in the way of Emmy and Noelle, and felt along the wall for the light switch.

  As the hallway illuminated, Noelle stepped around her sister and plonked down her first load, removing her coat and dumping it on the stairs like she’d always done. ‘It’s really quiet here without Mum.’

  ‘And without Dad,’ added Emmy. She’d only been back once since the funeral, and it felt so strange to think he didn’t live here any more. This old house felt alive, felt safe, with her dad in it. Many times he’d comforted her, or sat there with an interested smile while she told him excitedly in great detail about the plot of her latest Baby-Sitters Club book. He’d ask questions like, ‘Which one is Kristy again?’ and ‘Those are some adventures those girls get into. Do you want adventures like that, Emmy?’

  She moved into the hallway and looked around. She felt off-kilter, like she was in someone else’s home. She grew up in these walls, but for years now she’d only thought of it as ‘Mum and Dad’s house’, and then ‘Mum’s house’. ‘I wonder what Mum’s doing right now,’ she mused aloud.

  Noelle stooped behind Emmy and picked up a postcard from the floor, partially obscured by junk mail and bank statements. ‘I spoke to her yesterday, she was just finishing the Inca Trail. Here, she must have sent a postcard a week or so ago. She says, “Spawn, welcome home! Thank you for undertaking the house spruce-up while I’m away. Don’t let those 60 Minute Makeover people in, I don’t want everything replaced with MDF.”’

  ‘Pretty sure it’s mostly MDF anyway,’ Rae remarked.

  Noelle continued reading. ‘“Help yourselves to anything of course. No parties!!! PLEASE make your rooms presentable and no longer like shrines to your teenage selves. This is not an excuse to snoop through all my stuff!”’

  Rae interrupted again. ‘Um, excuse me; this is the perfect excuse to snoop through all Mum’s stuff. She’s right about our bedrooms though. Emmy, your shelf of Natural Collection toiletries is probably poisonous by now.’

  ‘And finally she says, “Currently in Peru, thinking about doing the Inca Trail, not sure I can be bothered. See you (and the new improved house in the woods!) in a couple of months. Kiss kiss kiss, Mumbo.”’ Noelle looked at the front of the postcard, which was a close-up of a llama wearing rainbow tassels from its ears.

  ‘I wonder how this place will look in two months,’ Emmy mused, pulling in a few more bags from the porch. ‘Where do we even start?’

  ‘We start,’ Rae said, dumping the last of the bags down and locking the front door behind her, ‘with a drink.’

  ‘I brought some wine,’ offered Noelle, unzipping a suitcase in the middle of the hall.

  ‘Me too, and beer,’ Emmy said, carrying the coolbox towards the kitchen.

  ‘No, no, no, I’m talking a “Mum and Dad’s drinks cabinet” drink.’ Rae ushered them into the living room and opened the dark mahogany corner unit. Jewel-coloured bottles containing various levels of silky clear and amber liquids sparkled at them. Aged whiskies, brandy, Vermouth, an open Baileys that should probably be chucked, gin (three types) and, bizarrely, a bottle of Sourz Apple. Rae poured the three of them brandies into chunky crystal glasses. Her mother was not the type to have things like actual brandy glasses.

  The sisters took up their natural spaces in the living room, facing a fireplace that wasn’t lit. The air was cold and a little musty, but they’d figure out how Willow’s new boiler worked tomorrow, and open a few windows in the morning.

  Noelle curled cat-like on to the rug in front of the unlit fire, propping cushions around her, and swirled her drink round her glass. Rae flopped across the length of one of the sunken-seated sofas, exhaling like the weary traveller she was. And Emmy climbed into her dad’s old leather armchair, her feet under her bottom, and stroked the worn arm where he used to dig his thumbnail absentmindedly into the material while he watched movies.

  ‘It really is quiet without Mum barking and singing and hollering at Noelle to pick up her crap, isn’t it?’ said Rae.

  Emmy nodded and sipped at her brandy, which was like foul-tasting fire in her throat. Ugh, no wonder she rarely drank, lemonade was much tastier. ‘I wonder if this is how she felt after Dad died. Just… like everything was quiet.’

  ‘I miss Dad,’ said Noelle, lying back against the cushions, her glass now balanced on her chest. ‘Remember when he grew that big bushy moustache because Mum was really sad that TV show ended, with that man in from Three Men and a Little Lady?’

  ‘Magnum, P.I. and Tom Selleck,’ said Rae.

  ‘Those are the ones. She was sad and he wanted to cheer her up, so he grew it really big but I used to pull on it so much it gave him a rash, so he shaved it off.’ Noelle took a swig. ‘I saved the clippings in a matchbox for years.’

  ‘Ew.’ Rae sat up. ‘You freak.’

  ‘I was only about two. It’s one of my earliest memories. The box is probably still in my room somewhere.’

  ‘Probably, your room is a shithole,’ she agreed.

  Noelle smiled, remembering her father for a while. Then she said, ‘And I miss Mum. Do you think she’s lonely, Emmy?’

  Emmy’s chest tightened with guilt while she searched for an answer. Why didn’t she know if her mum was lonely? She considered her words, mindful of her sister’s feelings. ‘I’m not sure if she’s lonely, or she’s bored. I do think living all the way out here in the woods, in this house, which basically hasn’t changed in three decades, must be a pretty quiet existence now.’

  ‘When she goes on holiday now she always chooses group tours, or cruises.’ Noelle continued to stare at the ceiling. ‘She must want some company. We should make more effort with her.’

  ‘I think she’s probably okay with being on her own,’ Emmy countered. ‘Mum’s always been very independent. But I think she does like noise and action and life.’

  ‘It’s true,’ added Rae. ‘Mum would hate being referred to as lonely. But she loves to people-watch, and is the nosiest cow I know. Remember that PTA meeting when we were finally all at the same school at the same time, where she spent most of it asking us to point out everyone who’d ever been mean to us out of the other kids, and then telling us snippets of gossip about their families?’

  Emmy smiled. ‘“Don’t you dare repeat this, girls, this is for information only. Knowledge is power, and nobody can ever harm you if you have power over them – and they never even have to know you have it.” I remember getting that speech more than once!’

  Laughter hiccuped out of Rae. ‘I always repeated it. Mum was constantly furious at me. “Spawn of mine does not gossip!”’

  ‘But our mother is such a gossip,’ said Emmy.

  Noelle sat up again, the sombre mood lifted for now. ‘No, don’t forget: “It’s not gossip when it’s within the family, it’s awareness.”’

  ‘So we have less than ten weeks,’ said Rae, pulling them from their reflections. ‘What are we going to do with this old house?’

  Noelle laughed, lightly. ‘I can’t believe we live here again. Sort of.’

  ‘Let’s make a plan. We should start by driving to B&Q tomorrow and buying lots of paint tester pots,’ said Emmy, anxious to pull the conversation back from returning down memory lane. Why was she finding this so much harder than her sisters seemed to be? ‘I think every room is goin
g to need to be freshened up, don’t you? I’ll make a budgeting spreadsheet.’

  ‘Definitely,’ Rae agreed. ‘Freshened and lightened. No more dark-purple or maroon, please. We need new carpets, the bathroom probably needs redoing, I wanted to talk to you about spotlights —’ she took a yawn break ‘— and I guess we should think about if we want to change the structure of any of the house. Like, if we need to hire anyone to knock down walls or add en suites or anything. Whatever, let’s talk about it tomorrow.’ Rae stopped talking and closed her eyes.

  Noelle stood up, finishing her drink and twirling her hair up into a high bun. ‘Agreed. I’m going to bed. I can’t wait to catch up with both of you properly, though,’ she said, holding her arms out until Rae and Emmy raised themselves up and gave her a good-night hug. ‘I’m so excited to have this time with you guys.’

  ‘Me too,’ agreed Rae, flicking Noelle’s bun. ‘Maplewood might be the armpit of the world as we know it, but we’re going to have fun.’

  Emmy bid good night to her sisters and they climbed the stairs, taking a handful of belongings with them, and parting ways on the landing. Their three rooms were arranged in a row, with their mum’s bedroom, the master bedroom, watching over them all at the end of the landing. Noelle’s room was next to Willow’s, followed by Emmy and then Rae on the end, next to the bathroom. Rae’s bedroom overlooked the conservatory and had always been the perfect escape route if any of them had somewhere to be – somewhere they shouldn’t be.

  Emmy closed the door to her bedroom and let the silence fill her ears. No, not silence. Muted noise. The type of silence you get when you live with roommates, which she hadn’t done for a while, where things in the house just stir and shift and there are creaks of drawers and steps going towards the bathroom and sneezes at unexpected moments.

  She walked around her room once, barefoot, making an effort not to add to those small noises beyond the walls. She wandered past her dressing table, running her hands over the old pots and bottles – the pencil pot filled with glitter pens that had long since dried up – and felt… disconnected. This could all go in the bin. Maybe not tonight, but tomorrow. Lining the walls were posters of pop stars with frosted eyeshadow or floppy curtain hairstyles. She had so loved those boys with the floppy hairstyles. They were clean and safe and they sang to her with sweet, high voices about taking it slow and loving her for ever and never breaking her heart.