When We Were Sisters

by Beth Miller

  ‘Shouldn’t you remind him?’

  The traffic speeds up again and I move the car into fourth gear.

  ‘Danny’s clearly still very attracted to me.’

  ‘You’re so much how I remember you, Laura. Go on.’

  ‘He kept getting angry whenever we talked about the past, then had to apologise. Very emotional. His rabbi had told him it would be painful.’

  ‘Love those crazy kosher shrinks!’

  ‘Ha! Yes. Anyway. I kind of implied, uh, that I had, well, feelings for him.’

  God, I hope Evie really is asleep.

  ‘You did, huh? And how did that go down?’

  I wince, thinking of Danny’s face as he slammed the steering wheel. ‘Not great.’

  ‘No wonder he looked like the wrath of God this morning.’

  ‘He seemed so happy to see me when we arrived at the house.’

  ‘I’m sure he was. He really wanted to mend bridges.’

  ‘But it was more than that, Miff. I kissed him the day before the party and he practically came in his pants.’

  I’m trying to shock her, just a little bit, but she says, ‘He can’t help it. He’s probably just thinking about what you got up to when we were kids.’

  This is irritatingly close to Danny’s explanation. Maybe they’ve discussed it.

  ‘Danny and Hella are the strongest couple I know,’ Miffy says, more gently. ‘He thinks she’s the most amazing, beautiful person.’

  ‘You’re kidding, Miff! She’s hideous!’

  ‘Really, do you think so?’ she says calmly. ‘I think she’s very pretty. And they really love each other. Despite some of the old-fashioned Jewish stuff, it’s a proper, caring partnership. Jay and I certainly never had what they have.’

  ‘If he loves his fucking wife so much, why would he get a hard-on just looking at me?’ I try to keep my voice steady, but it wobbles into a higher register when I say, ‘Fucking wife.’

  ‘It’s been strange for all of us, hasn’t it, meeting up again after all this time?’ Miffy stretches her arms above her head and the bracelets clang into each other. ‘It’s brought up a lot of feelings we thought were dead and buried.’

  Fucking psychologists.

  ‘I guess,’ she continues, ‘that both you and Danners had a funny reaction seeing each other again. Things were said in the heat of the moment. That’s all.’

  I get into lane for the M40 exit, and neither of us says anything for twenty minutes. I’m trying to think how to break the frost when Miffy says, ‘It’s a hell of a long way to North Wales, isn’t it?’

  ‘You got that right. Bloody long way to the back arse of beyond.’

  She laughs. Then whispers, ‘Is Evie deaf to us, do you think? You were going to tell me how you got together with Huw.’

  I watch Evie for a moment in the mirror and say her name, but she doesn’t look up. And then, relieved to be chatting again, I tell Miffy nearly everything.

  Voice-over: When Laura was fourteen she had to move to a new town and school. It was a miserable few years. But all that changed when she went to university. A chance to reinvent herself. To talk, drink and flirt with people who knew nothing about her. And then one day she walked into Professor Ellis’s lecture.

  Huw’s Beardy Colleague: Modern Welsh History. Pretty unpopular course it was then. Still is, in fact. Got to wonder why we’ve stuck with it so long.

  Laura: Huw was gorgeous. I used to sit in the front row of the lecture hall, gazing at him.

  Beardy Colleague: As do little girls even now for Huw Ellis, in their tiny skirts and crop-tops. Lucky swine.

  Voice-over: There weren’t crop-tops back then. Laura wore her tightest jeans, her reddest lipstick.

  Laura: I was so flattered he chose me. He could have had anyone.

  Voice-over: He took her for drinks in romantic out-of-the-way places. He told her his wife didn’t understand him. Original.

  Huw: I married Carmen too young, cariad, and she’s crazy. I work late every night to avoid going home.

  Voice-over: Huw would sneak into Laura’s Halls and they’d make love in her narrow single bed. Or they’d meet in his office with the blinds down, the framed photos of his wife and child on his desk.

  Huw: Meeting you, Laura, was the best thing that ever happened to me.

  My eyes fill up as I talk. Has he been fucking that Bardot woman in his office? In front of photos of me and Evie? I am suddenly quite, quite certain that I don’t want to lose Huw. What lovers we were, before domestic life ground us down.

  Miffy says, ‘Wasn’t it a problem that he was your lecturer? Didn’t the college object?’

  I blink the tears away. ‘No one cared back then.’

  It’s all different now. Last year another lecturer at the college, someone in Biological Sciences, had to resign after shagging a postgraduate, and she was twenty-five! Disciplinary hearings, abuse of trust, blah blah. But in 1985, who gave a shit? His colleagues all said, ‘Go on, my son,’ and my friends thought I was the business to be having it off with a glamorous older man.

  Miffy says, ‘What happened to his wife?’

  Voice-over: Everyone knew it was a dead marriage. Carmen was a nutter.

  Carmen: Still am!

  Voice-over: She was depressive, on medication, in and out of hospital.

  Carmen: I cut up Huw’s clothes, sprayed paint on his books. I wrote poison-pen letters to his friends and colleagues. I have no imagination.

  Voice-over: When Huw moved in with Laura, there were phone calls in the middle of the night.

  Carmen: Oh, the names I called Laura, the things I told Glynn to say.

  Voice-over: And then Laura got pregnant. And then Laura lost the baby.

  The words are pouring out. God, it’s good to remember how much Huw used to love me!

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Miffy says. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see her watching me.

  ‘Eventually, Huw divorced Carmen and married me. I didn’t get pregnant again for a few years, but finally, along came our pride and joy, the Charming Miss Evie.’

  ‘Well!’ Miffy sits back and blows out her cheeks. ‘It’s like a soap opera.’

  ‘Look, we’re not too far now.’ Trundling along the winding A5, we have at last reached the outskirts of Gwynedd.

  Miffy goes into rhapsodies about the scenery. ‘If I’d known there were mountains like this here, I wouldn’t have bothered travelling halfway round the world.’

  ‘I guess it is beautiful. I’ve stopped seeing it, I guess. The scenery doesn’t really substitute for a cultural life.’

  ‘So, that’s how you got together with Huw. But why did you choose to be a student here in the first place? Rather far from Norfolk.’

  ‘God, I didn’t choose to come here. My A Levels were so bad, Bangor was the only place that would take me. History was the only course I could get on. And sleeping with my professor was the only way I could get decent grades.’

  ‘Mum!’

  ‘Sorry, Evie. Didn’t know you were awake. Let that be a lesson to you: work hard for your exams. Only joking.’

  Miffy says, ‘Did you have “God Only Knows” as your wedding music?’

  ‘I don’t think so. It was a register office do; bit of a rush job. Was that what I said I would have? I think I’m getting Alzheimer’s. I can’t seem to remember anything.’

  There’s a lot I can’t recall about life in Edgware. Mind you, Miffy remembers too much to be healthy, if you ask me.

  She laughs. ‘Pregnancy hormones rather than Alzheimer’s, I’d have thought.’ Then she says, ‘Go back a step. How come your A Levels were bad? You were always so smart.’

  We pass through Capel Curig, my marker for being nearly home. I look longingly at the Byrn Tyrch, where Huw and I had many illicit drinks in our secret courting days. That little bar where we drank wine and held hands, ready to drop them the minute anyone we knew came in.

  Laura: I arrived in Great Yarmouth at a new school in the m
iddle of the term. Two weeks later, I had to take time off to have an abortion.

  Voice-over: Laura never settled back into school. She failed her O Levels and spent her A Level years smoking dope and screwing around.

  Laura: Well, if you’re known as the English tart, you may as well live up to it.

  Voice-over: And there you have it: why Laura didn’t get very good A Levels.

  I don’t say this bit. I’ve already told Miffy way too much. And Evie’s listening. When I think about some of the things I went through – at not much older than she is now … Well, I can’t bear to think about them. I just say, ‘I didn’t fit in too well at my new school.’

  Miffy says, ‘You were always the cool one at our school.’

  ‘It might be different now; all the kids in Evie’s class try to sound like they come from Brixton, rather than Menai Bridge.’

  ‘I love Evie’s accent.’

  ‘She thinks she sounds like a Cockney, don’t you, darling?’

  I pull off the main road and on to the winding lane that leads up, up, into Aber, our tiny village. To our cottage, built into the side of a hill. Huw hears the car coming along the road and stands in the doorway to meet us. Too late, I realise I haven’t rung to tell him Miffy’s with us. Nonetheless, he is courteous and welcoming. He hugs Evie, and says, ‘I’m sure you ladies would like a cup of tea after your journey. Or perhaps Melissa would prefer a glass of wine?’

  Miffy smiles up at Huw and says, flirtatiously, ‘Think I’m going to like it here.’

  Miffy

  1979

  Lucky Day

  Dad dropped me off at shul for my historic first batmitzvah lesson with Rabbi Aron. All week I’d been planning to wear my belt-skirt, but Mum made me throw it away. She wouldn’t even let me give it to Oxfam. ‘The last thing the poor Cambodians need is clothes that don’t cover their bottoms,’ she said. So I was just wearing my usual jeans.

  It was odd being in the shul on my own. There were funny noises, and I was just starting to get scared when the door opened and there he was, looking gorgeous in casual slacks and a jumper. ‘Melissa!’ Good start – right name. ‘Right, let’s get started.’

  He pulled up a chair and sat opposite me, and asked me to start reading. I injected lots of feeling into it, and moved quickly over the difficult bits. I could feel him watching me. When I finished, I smiled, but he looked very serious, like a strict teacher.

  ‘I think, Melissa, as time’s getting on, we had better meet twice a week now. Don’t be upset – it isn’t your fault. Max hasn’t moved you on quickly enough.’

  I just stared at him. Upset? I couldn’t believe it. It really was my lucky day.

  Blooms

  Brilliant, amazing, fantastic news! Mum and Dad told us that we’re going on holiday with Laura and her mum at half-term! We’re going to Spain for five days, to stay with Laura’s grandparents, who live in a villa with a swimming pool. I’m so excited!

  Dad said to me, ‘I know you had your heart set on Pontins.’

  ‘I don’t mind.’

  ‘We’ll go there next time. A weekend in autumn, before your batmitvah.’

  ‘Will we, Michael?’ said Mum, and she walked out of the room. I really don’t know what she has against Pontins. It looks lovely in the brochure.

  In the afternoon, Mum, Danners and I visited Booba Preston in hospital. She was sleepy and her head was hanging down onto her chest. Mum held her hand and chatted about what we’d been doing. She didn’t seem to mind that Booba stayed silent. Danners and I went to the canteen. It had one of those brilliant machines you put money in and the chocolate falls down, but we didn’t have change so Dan sent me back to get some. Mum was still chatting to Booba. I heard her say, ‘He said she made a pass at him.’

  Booba didn’t say anything.

  ‘Leila says I’m mad, Mum, but the holiday will be make or break and I’ll be able to see exactly …’ Then she saw me. ‘Hello, darling. Are you all right?’

  Afterwards, Mum took us to a kosher restaurant called Blooms. It was very busy and the waiters were rude, but Mum said they were always like that: it was part of the tradition. When one of them crashed down our plates so the soup spilled onto the tablecloth, she just started laughing. I couldn’t believe it. Normally she would be furious. She could barely eat her meal for giggling. Danners and I started laughing too, because Mum was, and in the end all three of us were in hysterics. But Mum carried on laughing after we left the restaurant. She couldn’t seem to stop, and it was a bit embarrassing on the tube home.

  When we got home, I looked up ‘pass’ in the dictionary, but I still didn’t understand what Mum had meant.

  Sarong

  I took my packing list to Laura’s, but she was in a really bad mood. She scrunched the list into a ball and threw it across the room.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said, in a nasty voice. ‘I wanted to go to the church disco with Fiona, not be stuck here with you, but it’s fine, fine, fine.’

  ‘Why did you ask me to come over, then?’

  ‘My bloody mother, that’s why.’

  I burst into tears and ran to the door. But she grabbed me into a big hug and said, ‘Sorry, sorry, little Miffy-sister. I didn’t mean to hurt your little rabbity feelings,’ and lots of other nice things.

  She told me she was mean because she was pre-menstrual, which always made her ratty with those she loved the best. We did ‘make up, make up, never, never break up’. When I was sure she wasn’t cross any more, I asked what she’d meant about me coming over because of her mother.

  She said, ‘It’s embarrassing. Mama thinks you’re a good influence. Can we shut up about it now?’

  I felt very proud. I’d never realised Mrs Morente thought anything about me at all. She never talks to me unless Dad’s there. Even when she taught me piano, which is how I first met Laura, she often called me the wrong name. It felt amazing to think I was an influence on Laura. I jumped up and autographed one of her Beach Boys posters in red felt-tip pen, pretending it had been signed by Brian. Laura fell about laughing when she read the message. Then she carefully smoothed out my packing list. ‘This is good, but you’ll need a sarong as well. You can buy one in Spain.’

  She showed me her sarong, which was gold and red. I think a sarong would be perfect for my transformation. I drew a picture of myself with straight hair, no glasses and a sarong, and Laura said it was very realistic. She’d saved a cigarette to share with me, and we sat on the window ledge smoking. She said it was easy to buy cigarettes in Spain, so hopefully we can get some more. Then we talked again about whether she should sleep with Danners. Laura said that at confession the priest had told her it was a mortal sin as well as being illegal.

  When I went to throw away a tissue, I saw the gold pipe-cleaner jewellery tree I’d given for her birthday, all bent and shoved into the bottom of the bin. I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt, as Dad always says I should do when I don’t know the facts. Probably it got broken and she didn’t want to tell me.

  Gorilla Man

  Laura and I became friends six years ago. When I was six, in fact. Half my lifetime. Mum wanted me to have piano lessons, because she wished she had learned the piano when she was little but couldn’t because it was the war. I’ve never really understood why the war stopped her. Maybe pianos were rationed? She found Mrs Morente, a piano teacher who lived a few miles away. When I first met her she shook my hand. No one had ever done that before. Her nails were red and sharp on my wrist. She had big black hair and wore tight dresses. I didn’t think someone like her could be a mother.

  I used to go to her house for my lessons, which was scary because Mr Morente still lived there then. He was huge, with a bushy beard and dark hair covering his arms like a gorilla. His accent was so thick I couldn’t understand him, and I dreaded him opening the door. Mrs Morente’s accent was easier to follow, but I didn’t always understand what she meant. When I was playing sh
e would say things like, ‘Imagine you are in love with a wonderful man. Let the love play through your fingers.’ I don’t remember being very interested in wonderful men when I was six.

  Then there was the day Mum dropped me off early for my lesson. I was waiting in the living room when an older girl came in, wearing a red velvet party dress with a frilly petticoat. She had long straight black hair and brown eyes, and I thought she was the most beautiful person I’d ever seen. ‘That’s my mama in there,’ she said, pointing to the piano room. I thought it was funny someone so grown-up should use such a babyish word, though later I found out it was Spanish for ‘mum’. Laura didn’t hear me properly when I said my name. Back then I called myself Missy, which I don’t like any more. She thought I said Miffy, and I didn’t correct her.

  The front door banged and Laura jumped up quick as a fairy, and ran behind the sofa. Then the big gorilla man – her dad – came in, and asked me if I’d seen a little girl. I shook my head and he went out. His footsteps banged upstairs. Laura crept out and sat next to me, put an arm around me. I stroked her hair and it was just as silky as it looked. We smiled at each other and I said, ‘Will you be my best friend?’

  Secrets

  Laura’s grandparents had a pool but no telly. Laura said everyone here has a pool because it’s so hot. It was the hottest I’d been in my whole life.

  The best thing about the holiday was sharing a room with Laura. We talked for hours after we’d gone to bed, just like sisters. Last night she said she had a big secret. She got into my bed and snuggled down next to me, under the covers. I could smell her soap. She squashed my arm but I didn’t say anything because it was so nice to be cuddled up together. She was wearing a short T-shirt and I could feel the heat from her legs right down the bed.

  Her breath fluttered against my ear. She whispered, ‘You’ll never guess. Danny and I did it today.’

  I practically fell out of bed. ‘What?’

  ‘Danny and me. Today. Together. Making sweet lurrve.’