When We Were Sisters

by Beth Miller

  Oh really? I say something non-committal like ‘Uh-huh?’ willing her to go on.

  ‘I was always worried it would cause a breakdown between them, and sadly, I was right. Children are so bonding in a relationship, don’t you think?’

  Not always, love. ‘Mmm. They tried for a baby for years, didn’t they?’ It’s a guess, but these not-able-to-have-kids stories only have one plot. I should know.

  ‘Yes, we lost count of all the IVF treatments. The expense! Poor Jay. You know it was his fault, they finally discovered.’

  All I have to do is make encouraging noises and she just keeps going.

  ‘I always wished I could give her a baby, you know, Laura. It seems so sad, doesn’t it, that some like me are so blessed, and others so unlucky? God’s will, of course, but terribly sad.’

  Heifer continues prattling, but I barely pay attention. I always wished I could give her a baby, says the woman with a hundred kids. Why didn’t you then, bat-brain?

  When she at last hangs up I go into Evie’s room to change her bed. I pull back her duvet and a sweet musty smell reaches my nostrils. Thank God Mama doesn’t know how long these have been on. When I take off the pillowcase, some papers fall out, and I remember Evie shoving something in there when I came into her room the other day. It’s a letter, three pages of small, unfamiliar handwriting. ‘Dear Evie, Told you I would write, and I really hope you write back …’

  I flick to the end.

  ‘…the most interesting and unusual girl I have ever met. Love, Micah.’

  Dear God. Micah. I laugh out loud. She’s a total chip off the old block with that Judaeo-Christian romance thing. I sit on the bed, intending to read the letter in full, but my conscience kicks in. My eyes close almost against my will, stopping me from reading. I carefully fold up the pages, put a new case on the pillow, and put the letter back where I found it. I’m clearly going mad.

  I head downstairs to the kitchen and find Miffy wiping the table. I hand back her phone and she says, ‘Thanks for that. Glynn’s gone off to finish his application.’

  ‘It’s so kind of you to help him. You’ve got the patience of a saint.’

  ‘Oh, he’s a nice kid. Easy to talk to.’

  She’s a loony. He’s as easy to talk to as a sandwich.

  ‘Can I give you this now?’ she says, all excited, and hands me a small package in dark-green paper, tied with a flamboyant purple bow. It’s a very expensive lipstick. Gold case, tasteful little diamante for decoration. I twist off the cap to reveal a beautiful glimmering red.

  Cock-sucker red.

  ‘You always used to love make-up. Do you still?’

  ‘Yes. I need even more of it these days. This is perfect. Thank you.’ I peer into the mirror over the sink and smooth the deep rich red onto my lips, then pout at her.

  ‘Beautiful. I’m a lot better at presents than I used to be. Do you remember that jewellery tree I once made you, out of pipe cleaners? It was terrible! I got the idea off Blue Peter.’

  She looks so eager that I say, ‘Oh, yes, that’s right,’ but she can see that I don’t remember. I run a bowl of soapy water to wash last night’s wine glasses. Miffy sweeps the floor, puts cereal packets away.

  ‘I’m really enjoying it here,’ she says. ‘Hope I’m not outstaying my welcome. I’ll leave soon, I promise.’

  ‘Oh, don’t, we’re loving you being around.’

  ‘It’s nice to get to know Evie and Glynn. And Huw, of course.’

  She turns away and bends down, her back to me, to open a cupboard. Jesus, her tiny bum in those jeans.

  I say, ‘That working late thing he did the other night.’ A glass almost slips out of my soapy hand, and I catch it by its spindly stem. ‘It’s an academic thing. They all do it. Some of them sleep in their offices!’

  ‘Sure.’ She doesn’t look at me. I don’t know if she believes me. I don’t know if I believe it myself. But I very much want this to either be nothing, or to blow over quickly – a last hurrah before he settles back down with me and Evie and the new baby. I’ve decided that if I don’t make a big fuss about it, it’ll be okay.

  ‘I’m just delighted you’re having a good time with us. Though it’s got to be pretty dull after your travelling.’

  ‘Not at all. It’s good to stop moving. Be somewhere I speak the language. Well, dim Cymraeg.’

  Oh, she’s remembered the ‘no Welsh’ phrase I taught her.

  ‘Anyway,’ she says, wiping glasses, ‘I need to work out what I’m going to do next. Make plans. Find a job, somewhere to live.’

  ‘Stay as long as you like.’ I mean it. ‘You could look for jobs near us.’

  ‘Ooh, I’m vibrating.’ She pulls her phone out of her pocket again. ‘Text from Danners. Says Jay’s been to visit – calls him “your lovely ex-husband”. Ah, that’s why Hella was phoning. She and Dan would so love it if Jay and I got back together.’

  ‘I guess they’re not very pro-divorce.’ I rinse the cloth under the tap.

  ‘You could say that.’ She giggles. ‘Well, you probably realised that about Danners when you made a pass at him.’

  ‘Thanks, Miffy. Do you have to bring that up?’ I pout, half joking, but she stops smiling, grabs my damp hand and holds it tight.

  ‘I think you’re great. I wish I was more like you.’

  ‘Christ, why?’

  ‘You just always go for what you want. Take risks. I never have. Except for travelling. Suppose that was better late than never.’

  She lets go my hand and sits down at the kitchen table. In a fluid, elegant movement she picks up her cigarette box, taps one out, puts it between her lips. ‘Yeah,’ she continues, talking round the cigarette like Humphrey Bogart, ‘lived at home while I was at university. Married a boy I’d known for years, because he was safe. Took the first job I was offered.’ She ticks off her decisions on her fingers. ‘It’s time to be more adventurous.’

  ‘Is that how you see me? Adventurous?’

  She shakes a box of matches, lowers her lashes, strikes a match with a whoosh and a flare. How I used to love the paraphernalia of smoking. ‘When we were kids, I always wanted to be you,’ she says. She blows out a long stream of smoke. ‘I love your sassiness. Listen, over the years, a lot of women have fallen for our Danny-boy, but far as I know not one of them has had the balls to put the moves on him.’ She smiles hugely, her cats’ eyes creasing with amusement like they used to when we were young.

  ‘What, just cos he’s a married Orthodox Jew?’ I say, playing up to the image she has of me. ‘What wussies they are to be put off by little things like that!’

  She cracks up, and so do I, and we sit there giggling like teenagers.

  25 MARCH 2003

  Because I can’t sleep, I hear Huw come in very late, after three. I roll onto my side but can’t get comfortable because there’s a dull pain in my back. I wish I could take a paracetamol. Huw doesn’t come up. I suppose he’ll crash on the sofa again.

  I think about Miffy saying I’m someone who goes all out for what I want. My mind flashes an image of Huw, that first time I saw him, leaning against the table; and me, deciding there and then that I was going to have him. The first man I’d wanted since I was fourteen.

  Since Danny.

  I know Miffy thought I was sophisticated when we were teenagers. But when I found out I was pregnant, just weeks after we’d left London, it transpired I was really naïve. About everything.

  I drift, the past playing in my head like the afternoon drama on Radio 4.

  Mama and Michael, they promised nothing would change.

  ‘It’s only Norfolk. Not the other side of the world.’

  ‘Of course you’ll still see Danny.’

  ‘Cheer up, Laura! Let’s see a smile!’

  It couldn’t happen to me. It only happened to stupid girls, ugly girls grateful to be screwed, girls who wanted someone to love.

  The magazines say don’t worry about irregular.

  Except mine w
ere always Bang. On. Time.

  ‘Don’t you need more Tampax? How long has it been?’

  When Mama slapped my mouth I tasted metal.

  ‘You little slut, you stupid girl.’

  What a mess on her shiny new life.

  ‘He’s your brother now, it’s sick, it’s wrong, you’re just children.’

  First time since we left I dialled the familiar number.

  ‘Hello?’ Shit, it’s Miffy.

  Dial again.

  ‘Hello?’ Fuck off, will you, Miffy?

  Dial again.

  His voice at last. ‘Having a lovely time by the seaside are you? With my dad?’

  ‘Danny, I am … I have got … It’s yours … It’s ours … I’m …’

  Big breath.

  ‘When you make love and you get something … Not crabs, nicer.’

  He says, ‘I don’t believe you.’

  He says, ‘You slut, you shiksa slut.’

  Mama says, ‘We’ll have to deal with it. You know what I mean.’

  But we are Catholics!

  Mama says, ‘It’s all arranged a week tomorrow.’

  No one hugs me.

  Shiksa slut.

  I get to work late, my back one big dull ache. Ceri’s in the shop window arranging the velvet cushions she’s optimistically over-ordered, and she mimes drinking tea. I go out back and put the kettle on, and a few minutes later she joins me.

  ‘Thought maybe you’d decided not to bother today.’

  ‘God, Ceri, sorry I’m a bit late. I slept badly.’ I hand her some tea, and put the telly on as a peace offering. It’s Jeremy Kyle, her favourite. She lights a cigarette and there’s an awkward silence, into which some first-class moron on the TV says, ‘She can do a BEEP lie-detector test and put my BEEP mind at rest or she can BEEP off.’

  I say, ‘So, did you and Rees have a good time at ours the other night?’

  She wrinkles her nose, meaning no. ‘Yes, thank you.’

  ‘Miffy said she liked meeting you.’

  ‘Did she.’

  Oh my God, I’m pulling teeth here. ‘Yes, she said you were very interesting.’ White lie.

  ‘She’s certainly, uh, vivacious.’

  ‘She is, isn’t she? Nice to see a bit of London glamour. Hard to believe she was so geeky when we were kids.’

  ‘Yes. Well.’ She blows out smoke. ‘No easy way to say this, Laura. So I’m just going to come out with it.’

  ‘Oh God, what?’

  She turns off the telly. So it’s something big.

  ‘I’m going to have to let you go.’

  ‘You’re what?’

  She taps ash into the sink. ‘The shop’s not doing so well. Going to have to make cuts. You can have a week’s wages.’ She doesn’t look at me.

  Rees flashes across my mind. What has he told her? ‘It’s been slow for years! I thought we liked working together.’

  I’m being fired by a woman wearing a jumper decorated with a dancing penguin. He’s got a top hat on. She fucking well ought to have worn a fucking suit. Tears come into my eyes.

  ‘Listen, Ceri, you can’t just sack me. I’ve been here a long time. I have rights, you know!’ I put my hand on my stomach, and add, ‘I’m pregnant. It’s not very PC of you to sack me in my condition.’

  ‘It’s not very cool of you to make a pass at my man in your condition, either, but that didn’t stop you.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘I know all about it, so don’t worry. That tart from London been giving you ideas, has she?’ She starts crying now. ‘How’s it work? She shags Huw and you shag whoever’s around? Swapsies, is it?’

  This framing of my life like something off one of her crappy TV shows dries up my tears nicely. I stand up.

  ‘Ceri, I’ve no idea what you’re on about. I’m sorry to have to tell you that Rees lunged at me the other night, but I made it very clear that I wasn’t interested.’

  ‘That’s exactly what he said you’d say! You’re so predictable.’

  ‘Go on, then. I’m fascinated. What’s his version of events?’

  ‘That you tried to drag him into your bedroom, tried to kiss him.’

  I laugh. ‘Well, Ceri, be honest, how likely does that seem?’

  ‘Pretty likely, Laura. After all, I hear you snogged your stepbrother at that fancy fucking party down south.’

  ‘Jesus Christ, Ceri, where d’you get that from?’

  ‘And as you were happy to snog your stepbrother – you know, your brother, your religious married brother – I’m sure Rees being my boyfriend wouldn’t bother you in the slightest.’

  ‘At least have the decency to tell me who’s spreading these lies.’

  She drinks her tea, the tea I made. I should have spat in it. ‘Glynn told me.’

  I think fast. Glynn knows … how? The only people who knew were Danny and Miffy. So Miffy must have told Glynn. But why would she? It feels as if my world has tilted. I don’t know who my friends are; don’t know who to trust.

  ‘I love it that you believe Glynn. You know he’s always hated me. You believe him and not me, who’s been your friend all these years.’

  ‘Have you, Laura?’ She folds her arms across the penguin. ‘All I hear about all day long is your lovely husband, your wonderful life. You set me up with the most godawful men and expect me to be grateful. And then when I finally get one who’s halfway decent, you try to take him off me.’

  ‘For the last time, I am not trying to take Rees off you! I wouldn’t touch him with a bargepole! The one time we had sex he said my fanny was his “cuddly furry bear” and came in about three seconds! I DON’T WANT HIM, OKAY?’

  Ceri’s hands fly to her mouth, her face as red as the bow tie on her jumper. She says, ‘Could you please just go now?’ Then she turns her back and starts washing up her cup. As usual, fails to rinse the suds off, for fuck’s sake.

  I become aware of the clock ticking on the wall. I’ve never noticed it before, which is odd because it’s really loud. Then the bell on the shop door pings, making us both jump. While Ceri goes out front, I take the things out of my cupboard. Not much to show for seven years. My mug and decaffeinated tea bags and a drawing Evie made for me to take to work, when she was little. Wish I’d got round to sticking it up.

  I walk past Ceri but she says nothing, doesn’t even acknowledge I’m there. Carries on chatting to the customer about rose-shaped fairy lights. I can’t slam the door because it’s got one of those slow hinges, but when I’m outside I stick two fingers up. And then I drive myself slowly home.

  Miffy coos like all tourists do as we drive over the Menai Bridge. It does look beautiful this afternoon, the sun glinting off the iron chains, the gentle hills of Anglesey ahead of us, the Menai Straits to our side.

  ‘How you feeling, pregnancy-wise?’ Miffy asks.

  ‘Fat.’

  ‘Apart from your bump, you’re slim as anything.’

  ‘God, I’m not. My arse is the size of this car. I feel a bit depressed, to be honest.’

  ‘Poor you. I suppose it’s all the hormones zapping about.’

  ‘It’s not just that. This morning I got sacked.’

  ‘Oh no, Laura!’ She whips round to look at me.

  ‘Ceri pretended it was because the shop wasn’t making enough money, but really it was because Rees told her I made a move on him.’

  ‘That’s outrageous! She can’t do that. You’re pregnant! You should get a lawyer right away.’

  Ah, it’s so lovely having someone on my side. Even if she did tell Glynn about Danny.

  ‘I know, but what would be the point? Aggro, bad feeling, spending money I haven’t got, for what? We wouldn’t want to work with each other again.’

  ‘I’m a witness, that it was him not you.’

  ‘That’s true! I wonder if it would be worth you talking to Ceri?’ I steer the car through the main street of Llanfair PG. Tourists are parked on both sides of the road so they can buy shitty memorabilia
with the full name of the town printed on. Some people and their uncomplicated lives. Must be nice.

  ‘Actually, though, you know what?’ says Miffy. ‘Now I come to think of it, I didn’t really see who did what to whom.’

  ‘Oh God, Miffy!’

  ‘No, don’t be silly. I know which way round it would have been. But I didn’t actually see anything. It wouldn’t stand up for five seconds in a court.’

  ‘Ceri thought her case was made because she somehow knew about me kissing Danny. Glynn told her.’

  ‘He did? Bloody hell, how did he know?’

  I glance at her. She looks genuinely shocked. Is she just a good actress?

  ‘Laura, this is just awful. I’m really sorry about your job, and about you being treated so appallingly. How are you feeling?’

  I think about it. How am I feeling? ‘A few weeks ago I banged my head against the wardrobe door.’

  ‘Deliberately, do you mean?’

  ‘Yes. I know that’s weird, but I felt so pissed off and frustrated. Then we went to one of those stupid dinners and I bet Jenny thought Huw had been walloping me.’

  ‘So are you saying that equates to how you feel now?’

  ‘Very Psychology doctor sort of question.’

  ‘Sorry, didn’t mean it to come out like that. But I’m worried about you.’

  ‘Don’t be. I’m saying that despite that bitch Ceri, I don’t feel quite as bad as that right now.’

  As we pull into the car park of the birthing centre, a young couple, brand-new parents, come out of the entrance, carefully holding a car seat between them. Tiny baby strapped in tight. Miffy says, ‘Happy punters.’

  ‘You sure you’re okay to go round with me?’

  ‘Of course. I love anything to do with babies.’ We get out of the car and she says, ‘Talking of which, I’m thinking of looking into sperm donors, did I tell you?’

  Before I can reply, we’re through the doors and a smiling nurse is coming forward to show us round. It’s a nice place, modern but homelike. There are five rooms, decorated like bedrooms, and the midwives wear normal clothes. Miffy goes into raptures over the decor, the duvets, the birthing pool, asks me if I’d like to have the baby here, but I can’t concentrate at all because an idea is bubbling in my head.