The Ugly Sister

by Jane Fallon

  It’s all horribly indiscreet and Abi keeps looking around to check if anyone else is listening. There’s no point trying to change the course of the conversation because Cleo’s loving holding court and Richard is lapping it up. It’s not that it’s not entertaining, it is, but after a while Abi starts to wish Cleo would let someone else get a word in now and again.

  Richard is oohing and aahing as if on cue. He barely takes his eyes off Cleo, even when the starters arrive (seared scallops for Richard, onion-and-parsnip soup for Jon and chargrilled octopus for Cleo), and at one point he lays his hand on her arm and she lets him. Abi realizes with a sickening feeling that he’s flirting with her again. In front of her, his supposed girlfriend. Never mind that the whole thing is a sham, the sole purpose of tonight was to hammer home the fact that Abi is unavailable because she is in a new and exciting relationship. Not that she has got together with a man who really is more interested in her sister. And let’s not forget – far worse, if truth be told, because as far as Richard knows her crush on Jon was entirely one-sided – that this display is going on in front of Jon, Cleo’s husband, without any regard for the way it might be making him feel. It occurs to Abi that Richard is not a man’s man. In fact, if an attractive woman is in the room, he probably barely even registers if a man is there. Even if the woman he’s chatting up happens to be married to them.

  There’s no doubt that Cleo has picked up Richard’s signals – you’d have to be blind not to. She basks in the rosy spotlight. At one point, after something particularly banal that Richard has said to her, she gives a fake little girly giggle and says, ‘You want to watch him, Abigail. He’s a terrible flirt,’ and Abi feels thirteen again, swimming blindly along in her sister’s wake.

  She can’t even look at Jon. She’s afraid if she sees his pity she’ll burst out crying. Out of frustration, obviously, not because she cares what Richard is doing, but because Jon must think she does.

  When she manages to make eye contact with Richard – which takes longer than you might imagine – she tries to indicate that she wants to speak to him in private. He steadfastly ignores her, so in the end she kicks him on the shin and he yelps in pain.

  ‘I’m going to nip out on the terrace for a cigarette,’ Abi says.

  ‘I didn’t know you smoked,’ Cleo says. ‘I thought you gave up.’

  ‘Yes, well, Richard’s got me started again. Coming?’ she says to Richard. He looks confused. In reality, neither of them have smoked for years, so she’s not surprised.

  ‘Oh. Yes. Of course.’

  Out on the little roof terrace they stand by the heater inhaling the smoke from the cigarette of another exiled diner. He looks quizzically at them when neither of them lights up. He’s probably scared they’re going to ask him for a spare.

  ‘Passive smoking,’ Abi says, smiling at him. ‘I love it since I gave up.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ Richard hisses at her.

  She waits a moment in the hope that the smoker will decide to go inside, but when he finishes his cigarette and lights another from the butt she realizes he’s there for the long haul. She hasn’t really worked out what she’s going to say, so it all comes out in a big inarticulate tumble.

  ‘You’re flirting with Cleo, what are you doing that for because now they won’t believe that we’re real and they’ll just feel sorry for me like my boyfriend’s got the hots for her. As usual.’

  The smoking man is now a captive audience. Damned if he’s going to miss this show. Abi is past caring. Richard is looking at her, mouth open.

  ‘You’re having a go at me because I’m being friendly to your sister? What do you want me to do? I didn’t ask to be here in the first place if you remember.’

  Well, strictly speaking, he did. He was the one who so readily accepted the first dinner invitation. The one who actually suggested the second. In fact, it’s only down to him that they are here now. She decides not to go there.

  ‘I’m sorry. I know you’re doing me a huge favour, but the whole point is for it to look like we’re a couple. Like we’re in that first-flush-of-love thing.’

  ‘Fine,’ Richard says, his tone making it clear that it’s anything but. ‘My mistake. I thought if your sister liked me, then she’d be more convinced that our relationship was real. How you’ve misinterpreted that as me flirting I have no idea, but I can ignore Cleo from now on and play the devoted husband to you if that’s what you want. Then she’ll just think I’m rude, but anyway …’

  ‘Don’t be stupid. I’m not asking you to ignore her …’

  ‘What then?’ he says, petulantly.

  ‘Just … tone it down a bit. Include me and Jon in the conversation sometimes. I’m not asking you to go over the top …’

  ‘Whatever you want,’ he says angrily, and he stalks off. Conversation over.

  Back at the table it seems to Abi that both Cleo and Jon look at them like they know the relationship is a disaster and that she and Richard have been off for a fight. People feeling pity for her is one thing Abi just cannot stand. She is so worked up that she is barely capable of making conversation even when Richard makes a big show of asking her opinion on something. He goes over the top, holding her hand, stroking her knee, at one point even nuzzling her neck. She knows he’s doing it to get back at her. He knows that she’ll be totally uncomfortable with the displays of physical affection. She goes along with it, though. It’s all she’s got.

  On the way home – there’s no getting out of sharing a taxi this time – Cleo says, ‘Now, of course you’re going to stay tonight, Richard. It’s Sunday tomorrow so I know you can’t be getting up for a delivery.’

  ‘Well, the shop does open on a Sunday,’ Abi says, looking at the floor.

  ‘Yes, but not till twelve. I checked.’ Cleo laughs as if to say, ‘Look how clever I am.’

  So that’s that settled.

  They have a nightcap and because Abi and Jon pretty much sit there in silence – Abi just sick of the whole thing and Jon, no doubt, dreading knowing – or thinking that he knows – that she and Richard are about to be getting it on right above his head – Cleo and Richard resume their love-in. Cleo, Abi notices, is practically purring so ecstatic is she with the attention. She lays a hand on Richard’s knee momentarily as if to put emphasis on whatever she is saying. Their body language implies they’re oblivious to anyone else in the room.

  Abi still can’t look at Jon, but now she doesn’t know if it’s him or herself that she feels more humiliated for. She is trying not to drink too much for fear that she’ll say or do something she shouldn’t, so she drowns her brandy in Diet Coke and sips it slowly.

  After an hour or so of more Cleo stories, she stands up and announces she’s ready for bed.

  ‘See you at breakfast,’ Richard twinkles at Cleo as he follows Abi out. She can’t get out of there fast enough.

  On the way up Richard practically takes notes, keeping up a running commentary about how fabulous everything is. Abi knows he wants to store as much information in his memory as he can to share with whomever he thinks he can impress tomorrow. (‘So I had dinner with Cleo at the Ivy Club. Remember her? Her house is just incredible.’) She’s beyond irritated with him. When they reach her room, he makes a joke about bouncing up and down on the bed so that Jon and Cleo think ‘we’re at it’ and she can’t even laugh.

  ‘They’re two floors down,’ she says huffily. ‘And the girls are staying at their friends’ so no one would even hear it.’

  She tells him he can sleep in her bed. She’s only slept in the sheets once. And then she goes off to the other little bedroom next door and lies on the unmade bed under a fake fur throw that she finds on a chair. This has gone far enough.

  In the morning she smooths down the covers to hide the evidence and then she goes next door and wakes Richard up at about half past eight, safe in the knowledge that Cleo won’t even have thought about surfacing yet after a late night. She shoves him into the bathroom for a quick shower
while she gets dressed hastily and then she practically drags him out of the front door. She can tell Cleo and Jon that they decided to go for an early morning walk and that Richard thought he might as well head home afterwards. She’s not going to go through a repeat of last night’s performance over breakfast. She can barely speak to Richard as they walk down the street side by side and when she leaves him at the end of his road she just says, ‘See you on Tuesday.’ She doesn’t trust herself to say anything else.

  She walks across Primrose Hill, having got herself a large coffee on the way. She needs time to think. She’s building up to her big revelation that it’s all over, which, she’s decided, needs to happen sooner rather than later. She can’t quite decide what reason to tell them. She doesn’t want to give Cleo any more ammunition to back up her theory that Abi is incapable of having a healthy love life. Telling them that Richard has dumped her would on the one hand make it look as if she had messed up somehow, but it would also make her the victim and keep alive the myth that she had feelings for Richard and not Jon. She decides to give it a couple more days. That’ll be long enough, surely. Long enough for them to believe it was real – just – but not so long that it becomes a family tragedy that it’s over. Cleo won’t have bought a hat for the wedding.

  Once her head feels clear she starts to walk through Regent’s Park into town. She’ll spend the day at the Royal Academy of Arts on Piccadilly, studying the Summer Exhibition, the traditional open-to-all-comers annual event. She can’t face going home.

  Monday brings more of the same old routine. Cleo is off doing whatever it is she does and Abi ferries the girls around. It’s got easier, though, because both Tara and Megan have decided to drop some of their more arduous coaching sessions in favour of time spent playing like normal children. Cleo doesn’t seem to object although Abi thinks that may be because she hasn’t clocked it yet. She knows that Jon would approve, but as she’s still avoiding spending any more time with him than she has to she can’t confirm that. Cleo has been banging on about how great Richard is ever since Saturday and Abi is still having trouble looking at Jon, let alone speaking to him.

  She feels better now she has a plan, which is to announce the sad demise of Richard and Abi tomorrow evening when she gets home from work. Knowing that she can see the end in sight makes her feel guilty that she has become so snappy with Richard – he has been doing her an enormous favour, after all, and, despite his Lothario tendencies, he is still the best friend she has in London, so she decides to stop by the shop with Tara and Megan in tow to say hi. If it seems as if he’s noticed how offhand she’s been with him, she can apologize. She’ll play it by ear.

  There’s no sign of him as she goes in. Miranda, the assistant on the days when Abi’s not there, looks up from the book she’s reading, sitting behind the till, and jumps, startled. Abi laughs.

  ‘Asleep on the job?’

  Miranda doesn’t say anything, smiles nervously. Abi’s only met her once before, so she assumes this is just her usual demeanour.

  ‘Is he in the back room?’ Abi asks, and it seems to her that Miranda reddens although all she says is, ‘Um …’ Slightly bemused and wondering if, maybe, Miranda isn’t just a little slow, Abi waves her hand over at the children’s section. ‘Go and choose something, girls. I’ll only be a minute.’

  She heads on back behind the counter and through to the small office-cum-staff-room-cum-kitchen. Miranda stands as she passes. ‘Um … I think he might be busy,’ she tells Abi in a quavery voice.

  ‘Oh, I’ll only be a sec,’ Abi says, smiling. ‘Would you keep an eye on the girls?’

  The back room is through a door, down a little corridor, past the toilet. The hallway is practically impassable because new stock is piled up along the walls from floor to ceiling in places. Richard would never be able to employ any obese assistants or, if he did, they would have to go to the pub over the road if they needed to use the loo. Abi assumes he’ll be in there doing the accounts or the orders. She’s flattered that when she’s working he tends to do both those things in the shop so they can chat, but he’s told her before that he finds Miranda mind-numbingly irritating and that when she’s on duty he uses every excuse he can think of to keep out of the way. Or maybe he’s sneaked off for a nap because there’s no noise coming from the staff room, not even the radio, which is rarely turned off, Richard being a devotee of Radio 4. She decides to creep up on him in the hope of catching him snoozing. If she jumps out on him, hopefully he’ll laugh and any atmosphere between them, if there is one, will be broken. She pushes the door handle down tentatively and it makes the tiniest creaking noise, which in the end is probably just as well because it means that when Abi pushes the door open and prepares to leap in shouting, ‘Caught you!’ the two people inside have a split second’s notice that someone’s coming in. Just time to take a pace back from one another and attempt to look as if standing there together in a dingy back room in the half dark with the door shut is an utterly normal occurrence. Abi stops dead in her tracks.

  ‘What’s … what are you doing here?’

  ‘Abigail. Hi. We were just … well, I just needed to ask Richard something …’ Cleo trails off, clearly unsure how to continue. There’s an almost tangible atmosphere in the room; the air feels heavy and full of sexual tension.

  Richard tries to adopt a breezy tone. ‘I … I left something at the house yesterday morning. Cleo just brought it round.’

  ‘Yes,’ Cleo says, attempting a smile. ‘I did.’

  Abi knows they’re lying. She can feel it.

  ‘Nice try,’ she says. She turns to leave.

  ‘Abigail, this isn’t … well, whatever you think this is, it isn’t that.’ Cleo reaches out to touch her arm, but Abi moves away. She can’t even bring herself to think about how many wrongs are being committed here. She looks at Cleo. ‘The girls are in the shop. I’d wait here for a few minutes if I were you and I’ll take them home.’

  ‘Abigail … Abi … wait. Don’t be like this.’

  Abi knows there’s something else she needs to say. She loves her job. It’s the only thing keeping her sane at the moment, but she can’t see herself coming back here tomorrow. She turns to Richard. ‘I don’t want to let you down, but you’ll have to find yourself another part-time assistant.’

  Richard shakes his head. ‘Abi, come on. Nothing happened,’ he says.

  ‘It’s really none of my business,’ Abi says, and then she walks out. She doesn’t want to hear any more.

  20

  The wait while she pays for the books the girls have chosen is agonizing. Abi can hardly look Miranda in the eye. She just wants to get out of there as soon as possible. She tries – and fails – to act as if everything is normal, move along, nothing to see here. When they finally get out of the shop, she exhales loudly and realizes she has been holding her breath.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Megan says, taking hold of her hand and looking so worried that Abi plasters a smile on her face and reaches down to give her a hug.

  ‘I’m fine. I just felt a bit funny for a second. I think maybe I’m getting a migraine.’

  They walk home with Megan rubbing one of Abi’s arms and Tara the other, as if that might help. It’s such a sweet gesture and Abi feels so outraged on behalf of her nieces (not to mention their father, Richard’s girlfriend, herself) that she feels her eyes welling up. She manages to hold herself together just long enough for them to reach home. She can hear Jon in the kitchen. She knows she can’t see him now, he’d know immediately that something was wrong and she doesn’t think she’d be able to stop herself from telling him exactly what it was. Megan runs on into the kitchen to show her father the book Abi has bought for her. Abi touches Tara’s arm gently to get her attention.

  ‘I think I’m just going to go upstairs and lie down. Could you tell your dad I don’t want any dinner?’

  Tara looks concerned, a tiny frown line etched on her smooth forehead. ‘Shall we bring you up something later?’


  ‘I’m going to try to go to sleep,’ Abi says, hating having to lie to her niece. ‘That way I should be fine by the morning.’

  ‘OK …’ Tara says. ‘But if you wake up and decide you’re hungry I can make you a sandwich.’

  Abi kisses the top of her head. ‘Thank you.’

  She heads upstairs and tries to distract herself for a few minutes by looking at Phoebe’s Facebook page. She doesn’t want to have to think. She hasn’t spoken to her daughter for a couple of days and, although she loves to keep track of her as much as she can, she always finds her Facebook entries a bit too revealing. She almost always sees something she wishes she hadn’t and this time is no exception.

  ‘Hungover and knackered from too little sleep (thanks Jimmy!)’ Phoebe’s status, last updated four days ago, reads. Abi has no idea who Jimmy is and why he is responsible for her daughter’s lack of sleep and, to be honest, she doesn’t wish to know. Phoebe is a grown woman; what she does now is her business. Yeah, right. Reluctantly Abi turns her computer off. What you don’t know can’t hurt you. Suddenly that saying seems very apt. An hour ago she didn’t know whatever it is she thinks she might know now and she’d felt fine. Now that she does know, though, there’s no ignoring it.

  She lies back on the bed and forces herself to confront the issue head-on. She walked through to the back room, opened the door and … what? There were two people standing in the room. They weren’t touching. They were fully clothed. They looked surprised to see her, but, by her own admission, she had crept up on them. That’s the whole case, m’lud. Circumstantial evidence. It’s hard to put her finger on exactly why the situation was so compromising. Why she knows something wasn’t right.