When We Were Sisters

by Beth Miller

  ‘You ought to ask Huw about it, you know,’ Miffy says, blowing a row of smoke rings. ‘You ought not let it fester. It might not even be anything. She could just be a colleague. It’s almost as bad as being unfaithful, I think: not saying what you mean, or what you need, in a marriage.’ She doesn’t say it in an unkind way at all. She seems genuinely sympathetic.

  People start to clear dishes. Miffy offers to take the kids to the local steam railway, and a small group forms around her. Evie goes with them, doesn’t even give me a backward glance. Amy starts allocating people to shopping and cooking duties.

  ‘Why don’t you have a rest, Laura,’ Heifer calls across the table. ‘You look ever so tired.’

  ‘I’m fine, thanks.’ You annoying fucking cow.

  Danny tells Amy he’ll fetch some champagne.

  I quickly say, ‘Oh, I’ll give you a hand. I always like anything to do with champagne. Not that I can have any, of course.’

  There’s the briefest of pauses. Heifer looks at Danny.

  He says, ‘Why not? It’s a nice walk. The wine shop’s in the middle of some gardens.’

  My heart pounding, we are somehow outside together – alone – before anyone can stop us. The air is warm and spring-like, so I carry my jacket, relieved I’m wearing my pretty blue empire-line blouse with the long sheer sleeves. We walk along a path at the back of the house which opens out into fields. God, he meant a proper walk. It’s one-to-one time with him, so I’m definitely not complaining. I hadn’t realised how pretty Sussex is. Rolling hills, lush greens, spring sunlight flitting through the trees, sexy out-of-bounds man beside me. We are walking close enough that our arms touch occasionally, each time an electric shock.

  ‘Will you be okay with stiles?’ he asks. ‘I had a look at the map, and there’s a scenic route.’

  ‘Whatever you like.’ Hopefully he’ll pick up my subtle double entendre.

  We chat as we stroll: about the weather, the party and the house – mansion. Danny says he always jokes with Amy that she should swap houses with him, so all of his children could have their own bedroom. The talk turns naturally from his children to mine, and to my pregnancy.

  ‘Are you hoping for a boy or a girl?’

  ‘I don’t mind, I only care about getting it to term.’

  He looks so mortified, I realise he must think I’m referring to the abortion. Of course, he doesn’t know my miscarriage history. Shit! I can’t believe I said that. Before I can think of a way to explain, he quickly starts talking about their latest baby, how moving he found the circumcision ceremony.

  We reach a stile and he lets me go first. I stumble slightly and he takes hold of my elbow to help me. I’d never realised before what an erogenous zone this part of my arm is. We walk through a yellow crop. Wheat? Corn? Daffodils? No idea.

  I wait till he has finished talking about the joy of watching Micah at his recent barmitzvah, which takes us almost right across through the yellow field. Then I say, ‘Danny, can I ask you? When we were kids, you didn’t seem that religious.’

  ‘No, you could say that.’ He coughs.

  ‘So how did you became Orthodox?’

  ‘It’s a long story.’

  Another stile – I am, once again, erotically helped over by Danny caressing my elbow. As I land on the other side, a black-and-white cow looks up at me.

  ‘Oh. I’m a bit scared of cows.’

  Danny hops over the stile athletically. ‘They won’t hurt us.’

  ‘What do you know about it, Edgware Boy?’

  He laughs. ‘We’re nearly there. This is the last field before Sheffield Park.’

  ‘If we make it through this rampaging herd of cattle.’

  ‘You’ll be okay. I won’t let them get you.’

  The cows part to let us through. Is he Moses? Will he lead me to my promised land? What with the heat, and the cow anxiety, and the burn of his touch still tingling on my elbow, I lose the sense of what he’s saying. Then realise with a thud that he’s leapt straight into our joint history.

  ‘Me becoming Orthodox, it goes back to when we were kids. After Dad left. And after, you know. Other stuff.’

  I feel the blood draining from my face. He talks fast, stumbling, telling me about his mother, how she had a kind of breakdown when Michael left them.

  ‘She was still right in the middle of coping with that, and Lissa’s accident, when she had to deal with me.’ His voice drops, almost to a whisper. ‘Getting you into trouble.’

  I can’t help it; I’m so wound up with nerves that I let out a laugh. Getting into trouble is just so quaint.

  He stops walking, stands there, totally still. Fuck! You should see the look he gives me. ‘It isn’t funny.’

  ‘No, of course not! Not in the least, it was just the phrase you used. I’m sorry. I’m feeling sort of nervous.’

  ‘Okay, then, if you don’t like my phrasing.’ His face is red as he spits out, ‘After we murdered a baby …’

  ‘Oh, Danny!’ I cover my mouth with my hands. How have we got from ‘I’ll save you from cows’ to killing babies in just a few minutes? He looks stricken too.

  ‘Laura, I’m sorry.’ He steps back. ‘I’m sorry, sorry, sorry. That was awful. I’m such an idiot. Forgive me?’

  ‘Of course. Don’t worry.’ What else can I say?

  We continue walking towards the far corner of the field. The atmosphere is electric. Incredibly exciting. Who knows what will happen, what will be said, what will be done?

  Danny (taking Laura into his arms): What’s the point of fighting this? We both want it.

  Laura: But what about …

  Danny: Don’t say anything. (He pulls her down onto the grass and puts his hand inside her blue empire-line blouse.)

  At the final stile, we perform my favourite up-and-over elbow routine again, and we’re in the park: a beautiful landscaped garden of weeping willows and lakes.

  I break the silence to say, ‘Oh, it’s lovely! Shall we walk around a bit first?’

  ‘It’s a bit naughty, because we haven’t paid to get in.’

  ‘Well, Danny,’ I dare to say, ‘the thing you used to like about me was that I am a bit naughty.’

  It could go either way and my heart practically stops as he looks at me. Then he smiles; thank you, God. ‘Go on, then, bad girl. Let’s take a stroll.’

  There seem to be no other people around. The vast garden, with its hidden paths and meandering trails, is designed for lovers. We walk round a lake, sparkling with sunlight, and I decide it’s time I took control of the conversation.

  ‘Miffy said your mother was very upset by Michael’s death.’

  ‘Well, of course,’ Danny says. ‘He was the father of her children. I don’t think she ever really stopped loving him.’

  ‘But she’s remarried now?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Morris is wonderful to her. His wife passed away a couple of years ago, and they became close.’

  Yes, I can see it clearly: the helpless widower, struggling to cope without his wife; the brash divorcée, shoving to the front of the single-ladies queue with her kosher chickens and honey cake. Poor fella probably never knew what hit him.

  ‘Morris has fitted into our family well. He’s a better Zaida – grandfather – to the kids than Dad was, to be honest.’

  ‘I know Michael always loved it when you and your family came to Great Yarmouth …’

  Danny stops walking and snarls, properly snarls, ‘Christ, yes. He never stopped going on about it. All of us getting together for lovely cosy seaside weekends with his lovely cosy new family.’

  He’s a different person when he talks like this. I shake my head and say firmly, ‘Danny, don’t.’

  He stares for a minute as if he has no idea who I am. Then, in his ordinary voice, he says, ‘I have absolutely no idea where that came from. I am so sorry, Laura. I can’t seem to stop being horrible to you.’

  ‘Well,’ I say, lightly as I can, though my legs feel shaky – it’s like
Jekyll and Hyde – ‘good to see you’ve got over it, anyway.’

  ‘Okay, maybe there’s still an unresolved issue or two.’

  I laugh nervously and he grabs my hand; no mistaking it, he really means to hold it. His fingers entwine with mine, flesh to flesh, sparks flying. I’m so confused. Is he allowed to touch my skin or isn’t he? What the fuck is going on between us?

  ‘I really am truly sorry, Laura.’ He almost whispers it. ‘It’s so important we get things out in the open. Dad wanted us to.’

  ‘He wanted you to do what?’

  ‘Wanted us to talk to you. Mend bridges. It was his idea to ask you to the party.’

  ‘When did he say this? He never said anything to me.’

  ‘That last time we saw him. At the hospital. He felt it was my responsibility. Mine and Lissa’s.’

  So that’s why they wanted me to come to the party. Michael and his barmy deathbed dreams of reconciliation!

  ‘The Rabbi said this might happen.’

  ‘Said what?!’

  ‘That I’d get emotional. He knows my self-control isn’t all it could be.’

  I put away for now the very excellent news that Danny has self-control issues and ask instead, ‘You talked to your rabbi about seeing me again?’

  ‘Sure. I talk to him about everything.’

  ‘Kind of like a therapist?’

  ‘I suppose so. Except he doesn’t think everything has to do with S-E-X!’

  He really does spell it out; and perhaps the word makes him remember that he’s holding my hand, because he abruptly drops it.

  A signpost directs us to the wine shop, and as we walk towards it we meet a couple coming the other way. The woman smiles at me as we pass. She thinks Danny and I are a couple, like them.

  ‘I still haven’t answered your question,’ Danny says. I can’t remember what my question even was any more. ‘We changed schools, to a Jewish school. That’s where I met Hella. She helped me make sense of a lot of things.’

  I don’t want to dwell on the subject of Danny and Heifer’s hideous courtship, and luckily, before I have to say anything, we reach the shop, a small outbuilding almost hidden by trees. While Danny examines bottles, I sit in a chair and gaze at his lean frame, note the graceful way he moves, his cute backside.

  My head’s full of unaskable questions. You loved me once, do you still? Did my abortion permanently scar you? Is that why you went religious? Why did you marry Heifer? Why have you got so many kids? Have you only ever had sex with me, and Heifer? Does Heifer know about me? Does she know about the abortion? Does Miffy? Can Orthodox Jews have affairs? What about your hard-on last time we met? What would you do if I kissed you?

  I go into a trance with the swirl of thoughts and the horniness and just the general head-fuck of talking to Danny about this sealed-over past, so when he says, ‘Ready to go?’ I jump a mile into the air.

  He suggests we walk back along the road, rather than lug the heavy bags over the stiles. There’s a lot of traffic and no pavement, just a verge, so we walk in single-file without speaking. He’s such a complicated mystery. This same person:

  1. Wrote me that horrible farewell note;

  2. Fucked me senseless in a tumbledown shack at the side of the road in Spain, and subsequently in a wide variety of alleyways and deserted car parks;

  3. Is an upstanding member of the Orthodox community;

  4. Used to cry out ‘Jesus, Jesus, fucking Jesus’ when he came;

  5. Married a hobbit.

  After a while I say, ‘It was good to have a sit down in the shop.’ I say it for no other reason than to make a noise, but it pays huge dividends. Danny asks if I’m still tired and when I say I am, a bit, he suggests a rest. We stop by a detached house set back from the road with a low wall out front. We sit side-by-side on the wall, and he carefully sets the bags of bottles on the ground between us.

  ‘While we’re being honest, Danny, I want to say I’m sorry I was rude to Hella at the cemetery.’ I’m not really, but it won’t hurt to say it. ‘Funerals and hormones – bad combination.’

  ‘That’s good of you, Laura. I know Hella would be the first to admit to being rather tempestuous at times.’

  ‘I guess you must like tempestuous women.’

  An image of Huw kissing that Bardot professor comes into my mind, and without stopping to think I turn to Danny and press my lips against his. He resists at first, pulls away, but I move towards him the same distance and then some more, and for a few long, slow, beautiful seconds, it’s a proper snog and we are kids again, it’s twenty-four years ago, our faces hot and damp, the warmth spreading across my chest. Without a doubt the kiss of my life, I melt into it, slide a hand round the back of his head, my fingers fluttering against his neck, catching in his hair. He shivers, breathes in, a tiny gasp. Then he pushes me away.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Laura.’

  He says ‘Christ’ a lot, for a religious Jew.

  ‘What the hell are we doing?’

  Well, doh, as Glynn would say. ‘I guess we just felt like kissing.’

  ‘Why, Laura? Why did you do that?’ His face is red, flushed. I can’t tell if he’s angry or about to cry.

  ‘I don’t know. Raking up the past?’

  He doesn’t smile. I look into his beautiful severe face. I don’t know what he’s thinking. I barely know what I’m thinking myself, to be honest.

  I say, ‘Do you remember when we went on holiday to Spain?’

  ‘Yes,’ he says politely. ‘It was really hot, wasn’t it?’

  I don’t trust myself to say anything. I stare at my hands. They look old. The freckles look like liver spots.

  ‘It was fantastic,’ he says, in a low voice. ‘The best week of my life.’ He is so quiet I wonder if I have heard him properly. We look at each other. We can see it in each other’s eyes. The memory of the first time we made love.

  He stands up quickly, kicking over one of the bags, and there is a clash of glass against glass. He takes out one bottle at a time, turns it round, checking for cracks. ‘Not broken. Lucky. We ought to get going.’ He looks at his watch. ‘Sunset’s in two hours, and Hella will be wanting me to take the babies off her hands for a bit.’

  I look at his hands, the ones that will shortly be dealing with babies. I’m absolutely ablaze; a fire burns between my legs.

  ‘Danny, shouldn’t we talk some more?’

  He looks down at me, clutching the bags to his chest. ‘Think we’ve said enough for now.’

  We walk the rest of the way in silence. The kiss. His body. His hands. What just happened?

  Heifer is alone in the kitchen, feeding the baby. Poor old Heifer, with her half-covered droopy boobs. Danny starts telling her about the wine shop and the gardens. To my ear it sounds hasty and garbled, but she just nods. I don’t make an excuse; I don’t care what it looks like. I leave them there, dash up to my bedroom, which thankfully I find first time, lock the door, and in less than two minutes give myself the best orgasm of my adult life.

  15 MARCH 2003

  Danny pushes me against a wall. I’m wearing my red dress, nothing underneath. He kisses me, hard. Thrusts a hand up my dress, pushes two fingers into me where I am soaking. Squeezes my breast so the nipple presses against the cloth. His mouth is everywhere, my face, my neck, my shoulders. Our breathing is out of control. He yanks down the straps of my dress, pushes it down to my waist, sucks my breasts, first one, then the other. I am trying to be quiet but I can’t. I cry out, I beg him to be rougher, to bite me. I start to come from the feel of his mouth on my nipples. I moan to him to come inside me. I reach for him …

  And then I wake up, damn it, gasping, in a sweat, legs tangled in the sheet, nightie halfway up my stomach.

  That kiss. Oh, that kiss.

  It’s after ten, sunlight pouring into the room. I dress quickly and after a few wrong turns into unknown corridors, I reach the kitchen to find Miffy trying to force a bowl into a completely crammed fridge. She smiles
and shows me where the breakfast things are. She seems distracted: keeps picking things up and putting them down again. When I say, using our old joking word, ‘Do you want me to help with your transformation later?’ she looks startled.

  ‘Getting changed, you mean? Well, if you’re sure you want to. I won’t be getting ready till about six, though.’

  Evie’s upstairs playing Monopoly with the other children. She barely acknowledges me when I come in; shakes her head when I ask if she wants to go into Brighton. I go back to my room and ring Huw’s mobile, but it goes straight to voicemail. I call Mama, but she’s still sniffy, and isn’t interested in having a nice gossip about the Clines and their rich friends.

  On my second circuit of the house I bump into Heifer, trying to manage her crew of children. Somehow I become embroiled as back-up nursemaid: bouncing toddlers on my knee, reading Sammy Spider’s First Hanukkah, and changing a nappy for the first time in nine years. ‘Good practice for the new one,’ Heifer says, beaming, as I have my first encounter with kosher poo. Very similar to non-kosher, in case you were wondering.

  I ask, a little anxiously, where Danny is, feeling horrified and thrilled at the thought that he might be hiding because of our kiss. Heifer says he’s walked to a synagogue in Haywards Heath. I don’t ask why he didn’t take the car. I remember Michael telling me proudly that Danny never drove on the Sabbath. ‘Good God, that’s a long walk, isn’t it?’ No wonder he’s so trim.

  ‘Oh, it’s only about seven miles. Be good for him. Help get things out of his system. Bracing.’

  Help get what out of his system? Me? Have they discussed me? Maybe had a row?

  ‘So Laura,’ Heifer says. ‘How are we today?’

  We? Yeah, Heif, you and I are so close we’re practically as one.

  ‘Fine, thanks, how are you?’ I examine a child’s drawing – Moses? Santa? Balance of probabilities says Moses – rather than look at her.

  ‘I’m terrific! I’m a lucky woman, you know that?’

  You got that right, honey bun.

  ‘Every day, I give thanks to God for my beautiful children, my wonderful husband. I am so very blessed to have such a good man.’