When We Were Sisters

by Beth Miller

  Maybe I am transferring a bit too much of how I felt onto Evie.

  What to tell Laura? Where to start? Once upon a time a little girl went to her batmitzvah with two parents, and came back with one. Her mother went to bed and didn’t get up for a week. Her brother dumped her unopened presents under the table in the dining room. I can’t even remember what happened to them now. So many memories have faded beyond my reach. I know that we ran out of food after a few days, and neither Mum nor Danners seemed able to do anything about it. So I went to buy bread and milk and on the way to the corner shop I saw Mrs Peterson, our next-door neighbour, who’d known me all my life. She crossed the road right in front of me. I was so astonished she hadn’t stopped to talk – she always stopped to talk – that I turned and watched her. She walked a few more paces, then crossed back again to the side she’d been on in the first place. The side I was on.

  I know now that she just didn’t know what to say. Divorce was a huge stigma then. Especially divorce in a nice Jewish family. But Mrs Peterson crossing the road was the first time I realised everything had changed. Not just the big things: Dad gone; Mum falling apart; losing my best friend. But a million little things. People avoiding us (Mrs Peterson was only the first of many). Eating weird makeshift meals at the oddest hours. Mum abruptly abandoning our bedtimes because she didn’t want to be alone, so Danners and I were permanently tired. Mum deciding none of this would have happened if we’d only mixed with Jews. So Danners and I were sent to a Jewish school where we didn’t know anyone. I was on crutches for the first term, so that was fun. And then Mum decided our familiar shul was too full of nosey parkers, and we started going to a much more religious synagogue. In the midst of all this, Mum’s Mum, Booba Preston, died. It was just two months after Dad left, and it finished Mum off completely. After Booba’s funeral, Auntie Leila took Danners and me to Pontins in Lowestoft for a week, and I cried every day.

  My eyes swim and I blink.

  ‘Are you okay, Miff?’

  I nod, take another drag on my cigarette, which has almost burned out, and sip my coffee. ‘What do you want to know?’

  She looks down at the table. Says quietly, ‘I’ve always wondered. You know. If you and Danny blamed me.’

  Well, of course that’s what she wants to know: what did we think about her? I stub out my cigarette, light another one. ‘You’re making me a chain-smoker.’ I decide, for my sanity, and for our renewed friendship, and because she’s been through the wringer lately, to be honest but not harsh. ‘Yes. I’m afraid we did blame you.’

  She nods, slowly. ‘I know you did. I’ve always known.’

  ‘You were just a kid, though.’

  ‘I’m not fucking well going to cry.’ As she says it she starts to sob. ‘I don’t even know which bit I’m crying about.’

  I put my arm round her. ‘I don’t think you really meant anything. Did you even know what was going on?’

  ‘I just wanted Mama to be happy.’

  ‘We all want our parents to be happy, don’t we?’

  She straightens up, dabs the mascara under her eyes. ‘I want you to know how sorry I was – am – about the … the thing.’

  Which of the many things, I wonder? I look quizzically at her.

  ‘The, you know, when you hurt your leg.’

  Ah, that thing.

  ‘It was an accident, Laura. You just wanted me to get out of the way. You didn’t know a car was coming.’

  She grips my hand. ‘Exactly! Thank you. I think I was still a bit deafened from that alarm; I honestly didn’t hear it. What happened? You still limp a tiny bit.’

  ‘I don’t know. Something didn’t set exactly right. Mum wasn’t really paying a huge amount of attention and I just had to get on with it, use my crutches and not make a fuss. I thought the limp was more or less unnoticeable these days.’

  ‘I guess I’m looking out for it. Can I ask one more thing? Did you feel bad that you didn’t get back to see Michael before he died?’

  ‘I’ll be honest, Laura.’ I sit back in my seat. ‘I’m not telling Danners this, but I got all his emails. All the ones that said Dad was ill. And I decided not to rush back.’

  ‘Why?’

  I blow smoke through my nostrils like Auntie Leila. ‘I guess I just thought … Well, Dad wasn’t there for me. Why should I be there for him?’

  Laura sits very still, gazing at me. ‘Oh.’

  ‘I’m sorry if that shocks you.’

  ‘It’s a relief to find you’re not Little Miss Perfect after all.’

  ‘Is that what you think of me?’

  ‘Little Miss Do Everything Right, yeah.’

  My coffee’s cold now but I drain the cup anyway.

  ‘Even after you know I beat up pregnant women?’

  ‘Ah, well. You had your reasons.’

  We smile at each other.

  I want to tell Danners that grown-up Laura is a considerable improvement on her younger self. She’s still funny, still exciting to be around, but less brittle and a lot less manipulative. I don’t want to hurt her, or tell her how bad things were for me in the past. Instead I say, ‘Evie will have fun in Spain, won’t she? Do you remember when we were there, playing in the garden? Getting covered in mud?’

  ‘Yes, I remember the sheets flapping in the wind.’

  ‘We spent the whole day digging in the back garden because your grandfather told us there was a hidden well.’

  ‘Fancy you remembering that.’

  ‘I remember everything about it.’ It was our last family holiday.

  ‘I’m getting a bit cold,’ Laura says. ‘Shall we go?’

  As we walk to the car she says, ‘You’re right that it’s time to name the baby. I’ve decided to call him Melvin.’

  ‘Melvin?!’

  ‘If he makes it.’

  ‘Of course he’ll make it. Why Melvin? It’s a bit, er, old-fashioned.’

  ‘I know. But it’s so I can call him Mel. After you.’

  I stand by the car door, staring at her. Now I start to cry like a baby.

  Miffy

  1979

  Evaporation

  I bunked off school today. I’d never done it before, but it was easy. Those kids who were always boasting about bunking weren’t so clever after all. This was all there was to it: I didn’t get on the bus.

  Sasha got on ahead and called my name out of the window, but I pretended not to hear. I looked at the ground till I heard the bus move off. Sasha’s voice got fainter and fainter. When I couldn’t hear it any more, I looked up. The bus was at the end of the street, and Danners was standing in front of me.

  He grinned. ‘Saw you not get on. Good idea.’

  We didn’t discuss where we were going; we just went. I’d never walked there before, but Danners had been there loads on his bike, so it was good he was with me. I’d probably have got lost otherwise. It started raining but we both had our cagoules Dad bought us in Wood Green. We unzipped them out of their pouches. Mine went down to my knees.

  I wondered if the school would phone Mum to find out why we weren’t in. We passed a man in a beige mac who looked at us as if to say, Why aren’t you at school? I told Danners we should call home and he said okay, long as I did the talking, so I went into a phone box while he waited outside. Mum always made me keep two pence in my sock for emergencies, so I prised it out and dialled our number.

  She picked up straight away. ‘Michael?’

  I pushed the coin in. ‘No, Mum, it’s me.’

  ‘Oh, sweetie. Why are you phoning? What’s the matter?’

  Crappy useless school, they obviously hadn’t called her. What was the point of taking that bloody register every day? What if we were dead in a ditch? Then they’d be embarrassed.

  ‘I’m with Danners. We’re not at school. We’ve just come round to …’ The rain got really heavy for a minute, drumming on the roof of the phone box, and I could hardly hear my own voice. ‘We’ve come to say goodbye to Daddy.’

/>   The silence went on and on.

  Finally I said, ‘Mum, I’ve only got two pence.’

  The pips started. Over the top of them, Mum said, ‘I’m going to rely on you two from now on. Come straight home after. I’ll phone school and tell them you’ve …’ Then the line went dead.

  It was still drizzling but the sun came out when we turned into Laura’s street, and made my eyes water. There was an enormous lorry parked outside Laura’s house. Danners and I sat on a wall a little distance away and watched. Men were putting furniture and boxes into the lorry. I could hear laughter. One man came out of the house carrying Laura’s dressing table with the three-way mirror.

  The sun started drying up the water on the edge of the wall, and little puffs of steam blew along it. Evaporation. We did it in Science last week.

  Danners said, ‘I’m going to give Laura a note.’ He ripped a piece of paper from the back of his Maths book and started writing. A fat woman came out of the house we were sitting in front of. She didn’t say anything about us being on her wall. She got into a blue car with a Chessington Zoo sticker on the back window and drove off.

  Danners folded his note and we walked over to the house. Laura was sitting inside the back of the lorry, dangling her bare legs over the edge. She was wearing her white broderie anglaise shorts, even though it was cold. When she saw us the smile disappeared from her face.

  ‘Oh! Hi! I’ll get your dad.’

  She jumped down from the lorry, stumbling a bit as she landed, and ran into the house. One of the removal men called, ‘Oi-oi,’ but she didn’t turn round. We waited on the pavement, watching the men coming and going. Then Dad came out. It felt weird seeing him after all these days. As if he’d died and come back to life, like Jesus. I was doing Luke’s Gospel in RE and we’d just got to that bit. When we started the syllabus, Mum wasn’t too thrilled I was learning about Christianity, but Dad said, ‘After all, Jesus was a good Jewish boy,’ and made her laugh. That was only a few weeks ago.

  Dad was wearing the blue jumper Danners and I bought him last birthday. He wrapped his arms round us both and squashed us against his chest. No one said anything for what felt like hours but by my digital watch was only one minute and eighteen seconds. When he let us go I saw my tears had made a wet patch on his front.

  He said, ‘Soon as we’ve got a permanent address in Norfolk, you’ll come and stay for a long holiday.’

  Danners shook his head slowly, and kept shaking it.

  I said, ‘You told me you and Mum don’t love each other any more, but I asked her and actually she still loves you.’

  ‘Oh, darling.’ Dad reached for my hand.

  I looked up at the house and Laura was watching us out of her bedroom window, just as I knew she would be. She ducked away when she realised I’d seen her.

  ‘You’re going to be Laura’s dad now,’ I said.

  ‘You’ll always be my daughter, Lissa.’ Dad had those black bags he gets under his eyes. ‘It’s going to rain again. Why don’t you both come inside?’

  Danners said, ‘You must be fucking joking.’

  We weren’t normally allowed to swear, but Dad didn’t tell Dan off.

  Mrs Morente appeared in the doorway and called, ‘Michael, at least bring them into the hall.’

  In my head, I stuck my middle finger up and said, like Colette Fitzgerald once did to Miss Gibbs, ‘Swivel on it.’

  Dad didn’t make any attempt to move, and Mrs Morente went back inside.

  I put on a pretend smile. ‘Could you ask Laura to come out? I want to tell her we’re still friends. Sisters, now.’

  He believed me. ‘You’re an angel. I’ll send her out.’

  Danners and I went back across the road to the wall. It was drier now; the sun had soaked up more of the rain. In a way, I knew it wasn’t her fault. It was the grown-ups. Laura’s mother swinging her legs at the table, polished toenails in shiny sandals. Dad drinking whisky and laughing. But I also knew that Laura had helped make it happen. All those times she’d asked me to come round and play. All those times she’d said, ‘Get your dad to bring you.’ Fiona’s party.

  Nearly eight minutes by my digital watch. Then she came out of the house and walked over to us.

  ‘Why you sitting here?’

  Danners said, ‘We’re waiting for you to grace us with your presence.’

  ‘Mama says you should come inside. The neighbours will wonder why everyone’s outside in the rain.’

  ‘You’re moving away,’ Danners said. ‘What the fuck does she care about the neighbours?’

  Laura sat next to me, so I was in the middle of her and Dan. If I turned towards her I could smell her Charlie perfume, and if I turned towards him I could smell his familiar sweaty boy smell. It felt strange, sitting between them.

  Laura started picking at the flowers growing behind the wall. Her white shorts had dust marks over them. I thought of all the things I’d planned to say. Walking here this morning; in bed last night; the last few days. I had planned many different ways to tell Laura how much I hated her. But now with her next to me, her shoulder against mine, I just felt sad right through my body. Sad, and very tired. Last night I sat on top of my covers and stared out of the window till midnight. I was freezing but I knew if I moved, Daddy definitely wouldn’t come. Actually, he didn’t come anyway, so I needn’t have bothered.

  I wished the wall was my bed and I could just lie down and go to sleep. I opened my mouth to see what would come out. ‘Your shorts are dirty.’

  She gave a snorting laugh. ‘Is that why you wanted to see me? So you could discuss my laundry?’

  She was wearing her usual make-up; her hair was in one of the high ponytails she liked. But something about her looked different. She was more like one of the bitchy girls at school than the Laura in my head. Her eyes seemed smaller and narrower. There were three spots on her chin, shining through a layer of brown cover-up stick.

  ‘They’ve got messed up because of the packing.’

  The shorts.

  ‘Mama’s making me throw out loads of my things. We won’t have room where we’re going.’

  ‘How very sad for you,’ Danners said.

  She went on quickly, ‘Look what I’ve got.’ She glanced back at the house, and pulled two battered cigarettes from the pocket of her shorts. She gave me one, then opened a flat packet of matches, the sort you get from a restaurant. It was black and white and the writing said ‘Gusti’s’. I wondered how she’d got them; if she’d been to a restaurant with my dad. How many more restaurants would she be going to with him? I put the cigarette into the pocket of my cagoule.

  She offered the other one to Danners, but he shook his head.

  Laura lit it and blew out a stream of smoke. ‘You know when we pretended we were sisters?’ she said. ‘Now we really are. Your dad is my dad too.’ She grabbed my hand, and I couldn’t get it back without yanking it, so I left it there, my fist scrunched inside her damp palm.

  ‘What about me?’ Danners said. ‘Are we brother and sister now?’

  ‘Aren’t we still going out? Mama said we could.’

  ‘It isn’t up to her,’ Danners said. He leaned across me and gave her the note. ‘Read it later. I’ll wait for you outside the phone box, Lissa.’

  We watched him walk away, till he disappeared round the corner. Laura looked at me and I remembered something I wanted to say. ‘Why didn’t you come to my batmitzvah?’

  She touched my shoulder. ‘I wanted to. I’d bought a new dress. Yellow. From Chelsea Girl. And I was going to wear my gold flats. But Mama didn’t think it would be a good idea.’

  ‘I thought you were my friend.’

  ‘I am.’ She dropped the cigarette butt onto the pavement, then pulled some more red petals off the flowers behind us and held them out to me. I ignored them.

  ‘You’re taking my dad off me.’ I wish I could have said it in a more mature way. But I didn’t know how else to say it.

  She crushed up the peta
ls in her palm and scattered them on the ground. ‘Silly Miffy-rabbit! It’s nothing to do with me. He’s fallen in love with Mama.’

  I was thirteen now, and officially a grown-up. I was not going to cry. I took such a deep breath I thought my bra would come undone. ‘I don’t think you were ever really my friend.’

  ‘Of course I was. I still am!’ She started doing crocodile tears. ‘It’s even better now, because we’re sisters.’

  I undid the silver heart-shaped pendant from round my neck. For a moment, I felt its weight in my hand. Then I held it out to her. ‘I don’t want this any more.’

  She handed it back. ‘It’s yours.’

  I pushed it into her hand. ‘I don’t want it, Laura.’ Then I stood up. ‘You know what I think?’ I said. ‘I think you were friends with me so your mum’ – and I had to stop for a moment because my throat filled with lumps. I stepped back, and said in a louder voice – ‘so your mum could be with my dad.’

  ‘Shut up.’

  ‘And that’s why you went out with Danners too.’

  ‘Shut the fuck up!’ She looked really frightening. Her face was blotchy and her mouth was a huge black cave. Her eyes looked red, like the Devil. I thought she was going to hit me, like her dad had hit her mum. She yelled, ‘That’s total bullshit, and if you believe that you’re even more of a stupid cow than I thought you were.’ She grabbed my hair and pulled it really hard, so that tears prickled my eyes.

  ‘Let go!’

  ‘You think I want to go away and live in some stupid shit-hole in the middle of nowhere? I don’t even know where Norfolk is.’