The Sister Swap

by Fiona Collins

  ‘Yes. Yes, of course I’m coming in.’

  Meg got out of the car and walked up the drive. The cottage still looked like one of those make-believe houses children draw. Red front door – now a little faded – a garden that wrapped all the way round, a winding path down to the front gate. She’d drawn it herself many times, as a kid. With them all standing outside.

  Meg looked up at the top window, in the eaves, with the floral yellow curtains. That would be her room, wouldn’t it? It had been hers as a child and a teenager; she presumed the gothic stars and crescent moons had been painted over by now, the ancient tins of stinky, contraband tobacco removed from their hiding places. She certainly hadn’t cleared out the room properly when she’d left. Done a bunk, that’s how it was referred to. By her, anyway. She’d stayed in another attic room recently, in Kensington – with a man she saw casually for two weeks: a man who thought Lynx Africa was a room spray and not a body one.

  Meg followed Connor to the front door, which he unlocked. She stepped over the pile of shoes that were styling the porch and into the small front hall, where she almost gasped at how familiar the smell was. It hit her like a tomahawk, that slightly musty, unmistakable odour of Old House. She breathed it all in; the wonky walls, the wall-mounted family photos she knew she wouldn’t be in; the potpourri. She could see beyond into the sitting room. It looked the same – sunflower yellow walls, oak floorboards obscured by the ‘posh’ ‘Persian’ rug Mum had loved so much – yet distinctly more cluttered: a hoodie thrown on the back of a sofa, magazines lying on the floor; mugs and plates and glasses everywhere. Mum had never allowed clutter downstairs; neither had Sarah, back in the day. It was so, so weird to be back. Meg felt like grabbing her suitcase from Connor and running away all over again. Instead, she watched as a tall girl as graceful as a gazelle came wafting down the stairs in front of her. Thick, wavy honey-hued hair. Not a scrap of make-up but it was a face that didn’t need any. And the legs on her! Meg’s model scouting radar was twitching.

  ‘Olivia?’

  Olivia stepped forward to give her aunt a vague, barely touching hug; she smelled of raspberries and freshly washed hair. ‘Hello, Meg. Auntie Meg.’

  Again, Meg was assaulted by guilt and sadness that she’d never met her niece and nephew, had missed so many years of them. They were her flesh and blood. Olivia had the same wide-set eyes, the same brown hair as Connor. But how could she have had a relationship with them when she didn’t have one with their mother?

  She smiled at Olivia then noticed something. A note of suspicion. Olivia’s wide-set eyes were narrowed, her head was slightly tipped to one side; Meg was being appraised.

  ‘I’ll go upstairs and unpack, shall I?’ said Meg brightly, deciding to ignore her appraisal. ‘Am I in the attic?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Olivia. Her eyes were still narrowed. Meg realized she was so used to staring at people, checking them out as prospective models; she didn’t like it when it was the other way round. ‘You look nothing like Mum, but at the same time you do.’

  ‘Right,’ said Meg. ‘So, I’ll go on up …’ Meg took her case and climbed both sets of stairs, momentarily amused that she could remember every creak, and walked into her old bedroom. It was now decorated a pale cream, with a fraying beige carpet, a double bed with white bedding with tiny yellow roses, a chest of drawers with a dusty jug and bowl on top and a huge oak wardrobe with a padded gingham heart hanging off the key in its lock. All very slightly down-at-heel country cottage, but far from the gothic den she had once wallowed in, Sisters of Mercy blaring from her stereo, black bitten-down nails skittering on bare boards in time to the music, joss sticks and weird lava lamps, blackout blinds permanently drawn, skull and crossbones scribbled on the walls and empty gin bottles sliding around under the bed.

  Meg put her case in one corner, lay on the lovely white bed and looked up at the clean white ceiling and the little skylight where she had once hung a grotty wind chime thing. A seagull – a proper one, from the distant Suffolk coast, not the London variety, intent on nicking someone’s panini – circled overhead, cawing happily.

  She was back. Back here for two months. Against her will, basically.

  Meg felt a horrible sinking feeling in her chest which surely couldn’t be good for her blood pressure.

  What the hell was she doing here?

  Chapter Six

  Sarah

  ‘The pavement’s for walking on, you dozy mare. Move out of the way!’

  ‘Oh, terribly sorry. Sorry about that.’ Sarah looked up from her phone and Google Maps to see a pugnacious man in a football shirt of unspecified denomination glaring at her before he rolled his bulging eyes back in his head and stormed past.

  ‘Sorry!’ she called ineffectually after him. She’d forgotten how busy London streets could be, even at eight o’clock on a Sunday night, and how she, too, used to get irritated by people who veered all over the pavement, or tourists who came to an abrupt stop when they spotted a blue plaque or some Ye Olde London monument.

  She was outside Meg’s flat, or at least she thought she was. She double-checked the address again. Yes, this was it – 44 Raglan Street, W1 – and Meg was Flat 3, fourth floor.

  It had been a long, arduous journey to get here – far longer and slower than she had expected – which she had mostly whiled away planning what clothes shops she was going to visit and browsing Pinterest for ‘work looks’ she could probably never pull off. By the time she’d got to Liverpool Street she couldn’t face the Tube, so she’d taken a taxi, with a very chatty driver who’d told her each and every famous person he’d had in the back of his cab. Each time she’d seemed remotely underwhelmed he’d added another one until the ‘celebrity’ pool was well and truly dredged; by Tottenham Court Road it was an H from Steps impersonator and a woman who’d once baked a Cornish pasty for John Major. The taxi had also been very hot and she’d opened the window all the way down and breathed in the smells of London: the food, a different cuisine for every restaurant they flashed past; the diesel fumes from rumbling, brake-hissing buses; the smell of beer and cigarettes from people enjoying a warm Sunday evening outside pubs and bars; and the unmistakable honk of opportunity and new beginnings. She was here; she was back in London. She was actually doing this.

  Right, she thought. Meg had gamely said she’d leave a key under the front door mat of her flat for her, but how was Sarah to get into the building in the first place? She hung around for a bit; perhaps if someone turned up she could slip in behind them, like they did in the movies. Not that she belonged in the movies; she was in mum jeans, a creased lilac T-shirt and a pair of supermarket trainers.

  Nobody came. She stood there for quite a while. OK, this was no good … Perhaps someone on the list of names and buzzers to the right of the door would take pity on her and let her in.

  She pressed the top buzzer. Nothing. The second, ‘C. Clegg’. The buzzer rang twice, then, ‘Hello?’ a clear voice rang out.

  ‘Oh hi, my sister lives in Flat 3, fourth floor, I’ve got a key for it, but I can’t get into the building. Is there any chance you could let me in, please?’

  ‘You’re Meg’s sister?’

  ‘Er … yes?’

  ‘I didn’t know she had one, darling!’ the voice laughed. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Sarah.’

  ‘Sarah …’ The voice sounded like she was mulling it over, trying it out for size. ‘OK, Sarah, I’m buzzing you in.’

  A buzz sounded, the door clicked and Sarah pushed it and stepped inside. The hall was blank, devoid of personality or any feature apart from a lift at the back. Sarah didn’t like lifts; she took the stairs, and four floors later she was outside Meg’s front door, as was a blonde in a pair of ripped boyfriend jeans, a white vest and a striped neck tie, who was sitting crossed-legged and bare-footed at the foot of it, tapping away on a phone.

  ‘Hi, Sarah.’ The woman looked up, and stood up, and Sarah did a massive, quite embarrassing double-take. Blood
y hell, it was Clarissa Fenton-Blue! She’d recognize her anywhere. She had calves longer than most people’s full legs. She had sapphire blue eyes that could pierce bubble-wrap. And what Harry would have declared a ‘rack that could stop traffic’. And she completely surprised Sarah by lunging forward and enveloping her in an enormous hug. ‘I’m Clarissa,’ she breathed in the direction of Sarah’s ear. ‘I live downstairs.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Sarah. She wished she’d taken the lift now; why had she thought it a good idea to lug the awkward family case up three flights? Clarissa was (of course) all cool looking and stunning; Sarah was sweating like a pig and feeling incredibly frumpy in front of this goddess. She decided to burn all her clothes immediately.

  ‘So, Meg’s gone away for a while,’ said Clarissa, releasing Sarah and tossing her long blonde ponytail from side to side. ‘She texted me from a coach.’ She screwed her face up.

  ‘Yes,’ said Sarah as the ponytail swung like a propeller above Clarissa’s head. ‘She’s gone to stay in my cottage in Suffolk and I’m coming to stay here for a couple of months. We’re doing a bit of a swap.’

  ‘A bit of a swap? She didn’t mention that! I didn’t know she had a sister, either. She always says I’m her sister from another mister.’ Clarissa laughed, then her beautiful face turned more serious. ‘A bit scary about the blood pressure thing, isn’t it? Probably sensible for her to get out of London for a while. You don’t look much alike,’ Clarissa added, looking Sarah up and down. ‘You’re a lot taller. Rocking body, though.’

  Sarah was taken aback. A rocking body? Really? She looked down at her horrible jeans then back up to Clarissa’s clear, earnest face.

  ‘So, what will you be doing in London, honey?’

  ‘Events Organizer,’ said Sarah. ‘It’s what I used to do.’

  ‘Cool!’ Clarissa put her phone in her jeans’ back pocket and suddenly loped off down the corridor, her impressive thigh gap about a foot wide. ‘Come for gin and Hobnobs with me sometime?’ she called over her shoulder.

  ‘OK,’ said Sarah, to Clarissa’s retreating figure. ‘Thank you.’ And she reached under the mat for the key and let herself into Meg’s flat.

  *

  It was just as she would have imagined a trendy London studio flat. Super modern: all character features long stripped out and replaced with white walls, a polished floor and one of those modern, inset fireplaces on the wall with nothing in it, not like Sarah’s ever-unswept sitting-room fireplace with its permanently foot-high fire basket of ash, grotty hearth, and accompanying log basket full of sweet wrappers. The whole place was tiny, though; Sarah could virtually see the entire flat from the front door. The kitchen was simply a corner at one end of the room, the ‘bedroom’ another – it was just a bed, a narrow wardrobe and a chest of drawers – and a door to the left was open to a minuscule bathroom which was sparkling white and very clean-looking.

  Sarah would never have imagined this to be Meg’s flat. It appeared the sisters had not only swapped dwellings, but domestic ranking. Sarah always used to be the stickler for tidiness; since having the twins she lived in a cluttered pit. Meg used to be a messy little rat; Sarah was astonished to find she now had Howard Hughes’s standards of cleanliness.

  Sarah paced around, taking it all in. There were Warhol pop-art prints of Marilyn on the walls, framed arty photos of models on floating shelves, a huge stack of Vogues on the floor, by the ‘fireplace’. The bathroom had black and white tiles and a large canvas of Ava Gardner above the loo. The ‘sitting room’ had a squishy pink suede chair and white voile drapes at the window. It was all rather gorgeous.

  ‘I bet the cupboards are bare, though,’ muttered Sarah to herself, as she went to the corner where the kitchen was. Her own were always bulging at the seams. ‘Bingo!’ she said, flinging a door open. There was a box of low calorie Cuppa Soup – half empty – and a small tin of sweetcorn. Another yielded a packet of unopened spaghetti and a jar of pesto sauce, use-by date three years ago. The fridge was bare too, except for a miniature bottle of champagne and two of perfume in a Perspex box. Sarah checked the oven expecting it was used to store jumpers, but it was empty, and she saw a pile of cards for posh takeaway places on the counter, weighted by a bottle of vitamin C tablets. She doubted Meg would get any home-cooked meals at Orchard Cottage either – there’d be three of them there now who couldn’t cook.

  Sarah lugged her case over to the corner of the flat where the bed was. It was freshly made with white sheets – Egyptian cotton? There were no cushions, no fraying, slightly grubby throws. The whole ‘bedroom’, apart from the Marilyn portraits, was stark, spare and pared down. Perfect. She could do with some pared down in her life, she thought, as she sat on the bed. Clear the decks, start afresh. Get her life back as it had been a long time ago. Although of course she didn’t want it exactly back to how it was, because then she wouldn’t have Connor and Olivia. She sent her son a quick text.

  Has Auntie Meg arrived? Everything OK?

  Yeah, she’s here, a text winged back. All good thanks.

  Expansive, as always. Connor would be on the beanbag in his room, playing Minecraft, eating the last of the Pringles.

  Don’t forget to tell her how to work the hot water.

  I won’t.

  She could see him flinging his phone down on the beanbag, sniffing, then resuming his game. He didn’t really want to talk to her, but that was nothing new. He was a boy of few words. Then she started worrying. Did he sound particularly clipped? Bitter? Despite his chilled nonchalance when he took her to the station, was he secretly angry with her for leaving them? Was he furious she’d abandoned them to go up to London? Sarah smoothed the immaculate top sheet with her hand. Maybe both her children would resent her for ever for leaving them.

  Her heart started pounding. She shouldn’t be here. She shouldn’t be up in London and in this strange flat of the sister she didn’t know any more; she should be home, with her children, cooking them hot meals and looking after them. How could she have been so happy on the way up here, so excited, when she was leaving starving, suffering urchins at home?

  Sarah decided to worsen her sudden anguish by pulling a photo of her babies from her handbag and had to suppress a giant sob (thank goodness Monty wasn’t also in the picture or she’d be inconsolable). Look at them! Look at their faces! Placing the photo on one of Meg’s pristine pillows, she stared at it. She’d always been the ultimate helicopter mum, hovering over them, micro-managing their every move; hot-housing them into clubs and activities of every description … and yes, overcompensating for the lack of philandering, adulterous Harry, who’d buggered off down to the West Country after they’d divorced. She liked being all-encompassing, smothering Tiger Mum. She’d poured her heart and soul into it. She’d kind of given up on it in recent years and let the chaos take over, but they needed her. They couldn’t function without her; they would flood the house, burn the kitchen down, forget to put the bins out … and she knew Meg would be no use in stopping these disasters. Sarah had an overwhelming urge to go home. To lock Meg’s door behind her and go. But she couldn’t. Meg was there now; they had promised to swap. She’d also agreed to take this job, which started tomorrow. She’d made her bed and she’d just have to lie in it, so she lay back on her sister’s and took a deep breath.

  There was a ring at the doorbell. Who on earth could that be? Clarissa, brandishing Hobnobs? The fashion police come to wrench these heinous trainers off her feet? Sarah got up from the bed and opened the door to a very well-dressed thirty-something bloke sporting loafers and no socks, chinos and a white shirt, and an expensive-looking navy jumper slung over his shoulders.

  ‘Oh hiiiiii,’ he drawled. ‘I was visiting someone else in the building. My uncle,’ he added, vaguely – Sarah guessed he had used the ‘slip in behind someone’ approach she hadn’t had the patience for. ‘Is Meg here?’

  ‘No, she’s not here. I’m her sister.’

  ‘I’m Mikey.’ He looked
past Sarah’s shoulder as though she hadn’t been telling the truth.

  Very posh, Sarah decided. And sort of good-looking, if you had a thing for reptiles. ‘Hello, Mikey.’

  ‘I was wondering if she might come for dinner.’

  ‘Well,’ said Sarah, ‘she can’t as she’s not here.’ She was instantly taken back to her twenties when all sorts of undesirables had come knocking for Meg and she’d sent them away with an increasingly far-fetched range of excuses, depending on her mood: Meg was in the bath, Meg was out at a Girl Guide meeting being presented with her Hostessing badge, Meg had run away to join the circus and wouldn’t be back for three years. That last one Sarah had actually hoped was true on a number of occasions. Then, she wondered, was this man Meg’s boyfriend? Meg always had a boyfriend. ‘Do you want me to tell her you called?’

  ‘No, I’ll text her.’ He looked fairly jolly about it.

  ‘Super,’ said Sarah, out of nowhere. Is that what they said in London? And Mikey jogged off in the direction of the lift, the arms of his jumper swinging.

  Her sister’s boyfriend. Interesting. Meg had never mentioned anything about leaving someone behind in London. Then again, why would she? The two sisters knew nothing of each other’s life, especially not love life. Meg would have met Harry at distant Uncle Compton’s funeral fifteen years ago (not that she would have paid much attention; she was on her phone most of the time) – it was just before the straw that broke the camel’s back; the discovery of affair number four – but she didn’t know the story of Harry. How after Meg had left for London, Sarah had met him in The Duke of Wellington and had virtually leapt into his arms. How he’d been staying in the room above the pub, that he was an artist, painting local pastoral scenes. That, from his very first word, he had treated Sarah like she mattered – which was just what she needed. She had drunk him in, lapped up his love like a thirsty dog at a bowl; she had moved him in within a month. The twins didn’t take long to follow, but a mere few years after that Harry, a historical loner, clearly found the cottage too crowded. Solitude and solace were sought elsewhere. Many elsewheres, in many beds …