The Sister Swap

by Fiona Collins

  Which was why she was panicking now, at 5.20 a.m., whilst frantically going through the guest list for the hundredth time, because someone in the fashion food chain had just alerted her to the fact that a top blogger, who was, like, so now, apparently, might not be on it. Sarah couldn’t afford to make a single mistake. Things had been great at House for the past few days and she was determined to continue her good record.

  Dylan had been right. There had been no great music to face on Sarah’s return to the office after Baroness Trott’s charity lunch last week – no blare of shame and blame, no drum crash of outrage. Michael had actually come up to Sarah and shaken her hand to thank her for a job well done.

  ‘Two million raised,’ he’d said. ‘And a more than happy client. Well done.’

  ‘Thank you, Michael.’ She had waited for more; was he going to mention the tragic cat bothering?

  ‘I’ve had Baroness Trott on the blower already, singing your praises. I’m very pleased with you,’ he’d added and Sarah had prayed he hadn’t noticed the massive sigh of relief slowly escaping from her being. She had got away with it; she wasn’t going to be fired for cooing ‘monster boy’ to a ginger moggy in full earshot of London’s finest society ladies.

  Michael had called Felicity over to thank her too. Sarah hadn’t been able to bear to look at her saboteur as Felicity had nodded and said she was delighted and it was a pleasure. She had also said nothing. She could hardly start pointing fingers about what she thought Felicity had done, when Michael clearly knew nothing about it, and even if he had, Sarah was not one to tell tales, especially ones that would sound far-fetched and utterly ridiculous. Felicity had returned to her desk, where her blonde hair had flicked at her keyboard as she’d typed. A wolf in sheep’s clothing, Sarah had mused. Like butter wouldn’t melt. She had no idea what she was going to do about her.

  It was 5.45. Sarah was running out of time. She couldn’t find the email from the fashion blogger, confirming her attendance. She checked the junk box of her personal email account. Phew, there it was; the blogger was definitely coming: false alarm. Sarah was about to close her account down when she noticed there was an email from Meg, sent last week. They’d had no communication since they first swapped places; was it more questions about the house? There was nothing written in the subject line and the email had been sent in the very early hours, last Wednesday morning.

  Sarah scanned it quickly: pop-up shop, vintage dresses, launch party, libraries … it was all a bit random and out of the blue, after Meg’s previous missive about the bins. And surprisingly friendly, too. Meg was even inviting Sarah to reminisce. Yes, she did remember playing libraries, she thought. Sarah always cast herself as chief librarian and sat shushing Meg as her sister read at her dressing table, before stamping her books with a home-carved potato and charging her extortionate piles of dog-eared Monopoly cash for overdue fines. Sarah smiled at the memory. Then closed down her junk mail. She really didn’t have time to think about this now; she had to get going.

  *

  ‘Where to today, kiddo?’ said Dylan, as Sarah met him outside Old Street Tube station. She hadn’t seen him since that coffee place. He was in his usual photographer’s uniform, but looked like he’d had a haircut; she could almost see his eyebrows. Sarah was wearing another of Meg’s dresses, a tight navy Ponte number with a peplum skirt and an exposed zip, and her new high heels. It was quite a sexy dress, once again – it seemed that was all Meg had – but Sarah was starting not to feel so self-conscious about wearing them. She was almost working it.

  ‘You know where, my little ray of sunshine,’ she said, and Dylan grinned. ‘We’re off to Hoxton Wine Cellars for the most ridiculous fashion show in London.’

  ‘John James’s new clothes for some very stupid emperor?’

  ‘That’s putting it a little harshly,’ laughed Sarah, although the phrase Emperor’s New Clothes was pretty apt for most of the garments in John James’s chaotic collections. Since he’d taken London by storm earlier this year, all sorts of people were wearing his ridiculous clothes round town and thinking they looked good in them. And maybe they did, if pink velvet frock coats with the elbows cut out, high-waisted leather jodhpurs and ‘ironic’ merkins were in any way attractive.

  ‘And my role is again?’ asked Dylan. ‘I was so thrilled when the fiendish Felicity phoned to book me, I’ve forgotten the finer details.’ He had sunglasses on; it was hard to read his expression, but sarcastic probably covered it.

  ‘Thanks for the nod to my nemesis,’ she said.

  ‘Have you done anything about it?’

  ‘No. How can I? Anyway, anyone and everyone is going to be there,’ instructed Sarah, changing the subject. ‘Reality stars, actresses, bloggers, all the darlings of the fashion world, plus press from the big magazines and newspapers. They’ll all want their picture taken with each other, plus we need lots of the reportage style you do so well.’

  Dylan nodded. ‘OK. Not a problem. It sounds delightful.’

  They walked. It was another hot morning, with the sun beating down on London. At least it made people cheerful, noted Sarah. Quite a few people actually looked quite happy. Dylan looked perky too, she noticed. He kept glancing across at her and smiling as they walked. She smiled back at him, trying to convince herself she didn’t fancy him.

  They could hear the young designer before they even got to the bright red door of the wine cellars just off Hoxton Square. John James’s shrill high voice was carrying like a clarion through the foot-thick oak and the black ironwork hinges.

  ‘No, no, no, like, that is just so wrong!’

  Dylan looked at Sarah and raised his eyebrows above his sunglasses. ‘Brace yourself!’ he said.

  Sarah already had, several times. She’d had the pleasure of meeting John James on three occasions now and each time he fully lived up to his reputation as London’s latest and loudest enfant terrible, in the most literal sense: he was a horrible child who stropped like a tantruming toddler in a supermarket when he didn’t get his own way.

  ‘Darlings, like, oh my god! Just no, no, no, innit!’ His voice – a confusing blend of public school English peppered with London street and Californian Valley-speak – echoed up the stone steps which Sarah and Dylan were walking down to get into the cellars. Everything was always wrong with seventeen-year-old John James. Today, his wince-inducing voice was ricocheting around the vast domed chamber of the red-bricked cellar and bouncing from its low white ceiling onto the artfully dusty wine racks flanked down each side. A white, jewel-encrusted catwalk ran the full length of the space’s gleaming black slate floor and the young designer was at the end, a collective around him looking concerned and wearing stupid outfits – including very silly hats, a pair of Perspex platform boots and some Elizabethan bloomers.

  ‘Sarah! Thank god you’re here, darling!’ called John James, rushing over to them. ‘I’m working with a shower of ruddy imbeciles! Is that the photographer? He looks fly, man.’ John James looked Dylan up and down; Dylan shrugged obligingly. ‘Don’t let him take any photos until I give the say-so. Seriously, we’re in proper disarray back there.’ He pointed vaguely to the back of the space, beyond which Sarah knew the models would be getting ready. ‘It’s all getting on top, innit?’

  John James was the only son of a huge Hollywood power couple who had moved to London five years ago. At first, his super-famous parents were content to have him skateboarding round town in a terrible beanie hat and ripped jeans, snapped by the paparazzi at every turn, but when they got fed up with both press and public mocking him for being a rich layabout without a job, they created one for him. He became a fashion designer and within months had a flagship store on Bond Street, his name lit above it, in diamanté.

  ‘I know, I know,’ said Sarah soothingly. She also knew John James had a team behind him doing all the dog work like, you know, actually designing things. But no one could deny he’d made it big. He was bigger than London Fashion Week, even, that’s why he was �
�showing’ on his own, at the height of summer.

  ‘Take me to the dressing rooms!’ John James called into the air, and one of his entourage escorted him, on what Sarah realized were Heelies, to the rear of the cellars.

  ‘Good Lord,’ murmured Dylan at the departing figures. ‘Now I really have seen it all. L’enfant c’est horrifique.’

  ‘Nice French,’ observed Sarah.

  ‘A level.’ Dylan nodded. ‘I bring it out when required.’

  ‘Right, well, I need to go and check on the seating and the caterers,’ said Sarah, looking at her watch. ‘You can mill around and take whatever shots you wish. Ignore him, he’ll want them.’

  ‘Fantastic at milling around,’ saluted Dylan and he sauntered off, taking his camera from his bag as he walked.

  The next three hours flew by in a crazy rush. Sarah dashed from backstage to front of house, from the kitchens and the dressing rooms to the reception desk. Before she knew it, the hordes were coming in. Extremely well-dressed ones, filling up the low seats either side of the runway. The front row remained empty; the ‘chosen ones’ occupying those seats didn’t have to do anything as unglamorous as file in with the masses – they would glide into their seats just as the lights went down.

  Sarah made a final check on the models backstage.

  ‘Sarah!’ It was Clarissa, dashing free of a herd of six-foot models, in a pubis-grazing frockcoat and a pair of red fishnet tights. She bestowed a double air kiss on Sarah’s cheeks. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Fine, thanks, Clarissa, you?’ She might have known John James had hired Clarissa for this show; she was the best, after all. Clarissa really was stunning, thought Sarah. Not a scrap of make-up on yet and she looked breathtaking. Her hair had been back-combed so it resembled a dandelion clock and she was wearing enormous earrings shaped like dangling, phallic daggers.

  ‘I haven’t seen you since you moved in!’ exclaimed Clarissa, excitedly. ‘Have you been in touch with Meg lots?’

  ‘Er, not really,’ replied Sarah. ‘We’ve both been really busy. I did get an email from her … er … last week. She seems … fine.’

  Clarissa sighed and made the ‘love’ symbol with her hands, like Nicole Scherzinger does on The X Factor. ‘She’s such a good girl. Love Meg! We’ve been texting each other but I miss her. That girl is my rock!’

  Sarah couldn’t imagine Meg as anyone’s rock. More of an annoying pebble, in your boot, historically. She smiled at Clarissa. ‘Well, that’s great,’ she said. ‘Everyone needs a rock.’ She didn’t have one, but that was OK. Her last rock had been Harry, but he had turned out to be horribly slippery and capable of causing shipwrecks, of course. Rock free, that’s how she currently rolled. ‘Well, break a leg for the show,’ Sarah said, at a loss at what else to offer. ‘See you later, Clarissa.’

  ‘Bye, Sarah.’

  *

  As the lights went down and the last uber-celebrity placed their enormous Mulberry tote under their seat and crossed their long, elegant legs, ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’ burst out over the high-tech speakers. Down the catwalk the first wave of models went, with that cloppy, newborn foal strut and expressionless faces. They looked so bored, thought Sarah, hovering in the wings, but she knew that was how John James wanted it. They also didn’t seem to mind being dressed in giant bin bags, Stetsons and pink fluffy slippers. Sarah allowed herself a small sigh of relief. So far, so good.

  The track switched to David Bowie and ‘Boys Keep Swinging’. The models were now biker fairies and Victorian dandies. Clarissa, easily the tallest and most stunning, elicited almost a gasp from the audience. John James, in front of Sarah, nodded and smiled.

  ‘I’m so, so sorry I’m late.’ Sarah turned, and Felicity was behind her. ‘The bloody bus I was on got stuck at the Barbican – I had to get off and run all the way here. I’ve been absolutely frantic!’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ whispered Sarah. ‘Everything’s under control. I didn’t really need you today, anyway.’ She’d tried to keep Felicity away from this project, to be honest, after what had happened at the lunch; she couldn’t risk a hat-trick of humiliation – not today – with a client who made both Laura-Faye and Baroness Trott look positively laid-back.

  ‘Oh, but I had to come! I simply couldn’t let you do this on your own.’

  ‘I’m not on my own,’ said Sarah. ‘I’ve got Dylan.’

  She looked out over the audience and could see him roaming at the back, working hard to get shots of both crowd and models.

  ‘So, where do you want me?’

  Where did Sarah want Felicity? Hmmm. In a wheelie bin, out the back? Locked in a wine vat so she couldn’t make trouble?

  ‘If you could go to the dressing room and mollycoddle the models some more that would be great,’ Sarah said. ‘You know what they’re like. Tell them they’re fabulous.’

  Felicity trotted off and Sarah began to relax again. Nothing would go wrong. Her phone was turned off this time; there would be no calls from home. Everyone looked happy, especially John James.

  ‘Tune!’ he declared. Another ironic music choice, ‘True’ by Spandau Ballet, boomed out from the speakers, and the models moved down the catwalk to it in furry, belted macs. John James then disappeared, reappearing three minutes later.

  ‘Help me with Denise!’ he hissed, and motioned for Sarah to follow him, uncomprehending, backstage. John James had chosen a middle-aged woman to model the finale of his collection – a show-stopping wedding dress with a many-layered lace skirt and a bodice beaded with copper rivets. He wanted ‘juxtaposition’, he’d told Sarah, on one of her visits to his studio. Backstage a beautiful woman, probably no more than forty, had been made up to look really old and miserable with the aid of chalky grey foundation, pale silvery eyeshadow and zero eyeliner or mascara, so she resembled a rabbit. Sarah still didn’t really get it.

  ‘Are you with Equity?’ whispered Sarah to Denise, as she helped fluff up her skirt. There was one more track to go then she was on. ‘I hope you’re getting double rate for this!’

  ‘I certainly am,’ said the bride-to-be. ‘I wouldn’t be doing it otherwise. I’ve got a holiday in Tenerife to pay for. At least there’s champagne,’ she said, clutching a mini bottle.

  ‘True,’ said Sarah. She returned to the wings. The last splay of models was sashaying down, in denim kimonos and lederhosen. As the final one turned on her heel and strutted back down the catwalk, John James Heelied up to Sarah and started waving his hands frantically at her.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Our past-it bride. Denise. She’s only gone and bloody collapsed!’

  ‘What? She was all right a minute ago!’

  ‘Well, she’s not now! She’s gone down, bro! She’s pissed!’

  Sarah rushed backstage. Oh dear, there was the bride, in a crumpled heap of lace and copper, out for the count whilst one of John James’s minions flapped at her face with a 3D lanyard.

  ‘Maybe she just fainted?’ offered Sarah. ‘It’s ridiculously hot in here.’

  ‘Who cares why, Sarah?’ lamented John James, fanning his own face with a skinny hand. ‘The fact is she’s down and out.’ He began to wail. ‘Where on earth are we going to find another middle-aged bride?’

  He looked around him in desperation as though expecting one to just appear.

  ‘Sarah could do it,’ said Felicity. She had turned up again, like a very bad penny.

  ‘What?’ said John James and Sarah in unison.

  ‘Well, she’s middle-aged, and I bet she could fit into that dress.’

  ‘Really?’ John James sniffed, looking Sarah up and down like she couldn’t be further from model material.

  ‘Well, you don’t want a model for this, do you?’ said Felicity. ‘From reading your productions notes – and I have, extensively – you just want a middle-aged woman. The cultural subjugation and appropriation of young women’s fashion by the old, remember?’

  Ugh. Sarah was incensed. John James wasn’t. ‘Yes!’
he cried. ‘Sarah’s assistant, you’re a genius! We spray the hair Crone Ash!’ he declared, lifting a section of Sarah’s hair. ‘We wipe the visage free of make-up!’ He stared into her bewildered face before nudging her into turning a mortified circle for him. ‘Yes, yes, yes, she’ll do. She’ll do very well indeed. Bravo, Sarah’s assistant, bravo!’

  Felicity flashed a bright smile and Sarah was led, like Veruca Salt by the Oompa Loompas after the nut episode, into the dressing room. Faceless lackeys stripped her clothes off her – the lovely dress of Meg’s, her fabulous new shoes – and dumped them in a pile on the floor. Soon Sarah was standing in her non-matching, Debenhams undies as they put that massive dress over her head, yanked it down and attempted to zip it up, but the zip wouldn’t close. They had to use giant metal clamps to bridge the wide gap at the back.

  ‘So ugly,’ commented John James. ‘Nice, nice,’ he mused, his hand on his chin, the other thrust down the front of his shorts having a bit of a fiddle.

  Her make-up left her via a handful of baby wipes. A powder puff of something was shoved into her face several times, white pencil was put on her eyebrows and her eyelashes were coated in white mascara. There were mirrors everywhere, sadly, for her to spy an old, ugly version of Tilda Swinton in The Chronicles of Narnia, without the sleigh or the hot chocolate. And she was stifling in that thing – she willed on a fainting fit of her own, but there was no such luck. Sarah was still conscious when they eased some hideous stripper heels onto her feet and sprayed her hair silver.

  ‘Oh, darling, fabulous, fabulous!’ John James was clapping his hands like a baby seal. To her horror, Dylan appeared in the doorway, looking all handsome, with his camera, and Sarah shooed him frantically away. Not now, Dylan, she thought. Not with me resembling the aged Miss Havisham, had she decided to trot down a second aisle …

  They trundled her to the wings of the catwalk.