‘It’s Sarah. Where’s Olivia gone?’
‘I’m sorry, but I don’t know. I’ve just seen a note she left. She says she’s gone somewhere with Jude. She was here this morning and—’
Sarah rolled her eyes. Meg’s voice was making her angry. ‘You like running away, don’t you? Have you put her up to this?’
‘What?’
‘Have you encouraged Olivia to run away and be a model? Is that what this is about? You said she was “model material”. You said you wouldn’t wish the life on many people, but have you wished it on Olivia?’
‘No!’
‘Are you sure she hasn’t come up to London? Are you sure that if I headed there right now I wouldn’t find her in the offices of Tempest with a tape measure round her waist and a stick of celery in her hand?’
‘No, I promise you! I haven’t encouraged Olivia to be a model!’
‘So, where do you think she’s gone?’
‘Jude’s parents’ house – possibly – or to Birmingham …’ Meg’s voice had gone horrible quiet.
‘Birmingham! Why on earth?’
‘He writes silly plays. A lot of them are set in Birmingham.’ Meg sounded very, very sheepish.
‘Well, she can’t go to Birmingham! And how long for, for god’s sake? She’s got Durham in September!’
There was a pause. A rather long one.
‘Erm … about that …’
‘What?’
‘Olivia told me she might not be going.’
‘What? Why? When did she say that?’
‘A few days ago.’
‘A few days ago … And you didn’t think to tell me! I mentioned her Accommodation Viewing Day to you the other night. Why the hell didn’t you say something to me?’
‘It wasn’t definite, I thought she might change her mind, that she didn’t mean it … I didn’t want to jeopardize …’
Sarah didn’t believe this. ‘I can’t believe this! That you knew something this … catastrophic … and you didn’t tell me!’
‘I’m sorry.’ Meg sounded like she was on the verge of tears, but Sarah didn’t care.
‘Well, it’s too late.’
There wasn’t a new version of Meg, Sarah decided. Her sister was the same as she ever was: irresponsible, feckless, careless, and selfish. Lazy and all about Meg. Nothing had changed. Sarah felt a mug for the all the friendly emails and texts she’d sent her sister and so, so angry all over again.
‘Is there anything I can do, Sarah? I could maybe—’
‘Oh, for god’s sake, no!’
Sarah hung up. She didn’t have time for all this. She was leaving London – now – for Tipperton Mallet. She dashed round Meg’s flat throwing things in a bag. She slammed the front door and ran down the stairs. She thundered down the escalator at Tottenham Court Road Tube station and sprinted towards a waiting train just as she was being told to ‘Mind the closing doors’. Sarah prayed the trains from Liverpool Street to Suffolk were running OK today – no hold-ups, no replacement bus services. She had to get home; she had to get to Tipperton Mallet and find out where Olivia had gone. She would march round to Jude’s house, demand to talk to his parents – they must know something. She would search Olivia’s room for clues, read her diary if she had to. And she would drag Olivia back from wherever she had gone.
Sarah blamed her sister. It had all been so clear, Olivia’s path: Durham in the autumn, three years of study and then a brilliant career, but since Meg had arrived – surprise, surprise! – that path had been careered violently from. No Durham, a fantastic future down the drain: Sarah had to put it down to Meg’s bad influence. The hedonism, the selfishness, maybe even her sister’s own career. Did Olivia see her aunt as a cold workaholic; that fabulous careers only burnt you out – and had decided to give it all up for love?
Sarah had to get to Tipperton Mallet and put things right. She settled herself on the train, rear carriage, forward facing – she pulled Little Women from her bag but then shoved it back in. She couldn’t read that; she couldn’t concentrate on anything except getting back home. And then she felt angry with herself, too. She had moved to London, abandoned her children, taken her eyes off the ball because they were dazzled by going on hot dates and sleeping with people they really shouldn’t be sleeping with. As the train pulled out of the station she felt something close to desperation.
Olivia, Olivia, where are you and what the hell are you doing?
Chapter Twenty-Three
Meg
The train rattled out of Platform Two as the guard on the platform below blew his whistle and hitched up his trousers. Someone behind her was eating a very smelly pasty. Someone in front of her was rustling a newspaper as though they were furious about something.
Meg leant back in her seat and exhaled. She was on her way back to London. She couldn’t just sit at the cottage doing nothing; she would go to London and see if she could find Olivia. Connor said the money box smashing had only occurred about fifteen minutes or so before Meg had arrived back at Orchard Cottage; she would head to Victoria Coach Station and scour the crowds of travellers there, then on to Euston Station where she would do the same. Maybe she would spot Olivia boarding a bus or a train to the Midlands and talk her out of going. If that brought no luck, Meg would check out Tempest, just in case. She couldn’t just wait for Olivia to get in touch; she had to do something. The guilt she felt for keeping Olivia’s secret about Durham was almost killing her.
Her phone vibrated, from somewhere within her bag. Meg frantically rummaged for it and pulled it free. It was a text from Jamie. They had exchanged numbers at the shop yesterday.
All right, gorgeous? I called back into the shop, between rabid cats☺, but you weren’t there.
I’m on my way up to London, replied Meg. Olivia’s gone AWOL. Long story, but possibly Birmingham? I’m going to a couple of the stations.
Oh right! OK. Hope you’ll be OK. Do you need me? I’m off for the rest of the day now.
No, I’m OK. Thanks though.
Are you sure?
Yes, thanks, Jamie, I’ll be fine.
OK, keep in touch. Call me if you need me!
Thanks, Jamie.
The train rattled down the track at high speed. Meg pulled Little Women from her bag and tried to read. She was at the part where Amy burns Jo’s book and Jo is incandescent with rage. She couldn’t read it; it reminded her too much of her and Sarah and how much Sarah hated her. She shoved it back in her bag in disgust and stared out of the window instead, where the landscape under darkening skies, threatening rain, did nothing to detract from her mood. She’d screwed up, hadn’t she? She should have told Sarah as soon as Olivia said she might not be going to Durham. She should not have been so stupid. All the inroads the sisters had made in getting closer to each other again were now split and splintered, and they were careering away from each other again, as fast as this train.
Meg closed her eyes, tried to block out how awful she felt. It didn’t work. Even in her disjointed, ebbing sleep she felt steeped in disappointment and isolation.
Her phone buzzed again. She opened her eyes and yanked it from her bag. Sarah.
I’ve heard from her. She’s at Mashbury Hall in Dalton St Clare. I’m on my way there now.
Mashbury Hall in Dalton St Clare? thought Meg, startled. Where Sarah and Meg used to go for family outings? What on earth was Olivia doing there? she wondered, staring at the text. Mashbury Hall was about halfway between Suffolk and London – it was a stately home with a café and a doll’s house museum in the conservatory and a lovely big, stripy lawn they used to run around on. Meg couldn’t understand what Olivia and her boyfriend might be doing there; it certainly wasn’t the typical Jules backdrop.
Meg looked up at the LED ticker tape screen three rows of seats’ down. The next stop was Claverton. The train was pulling into the station now. Meg stood up and grabbed her bag. She was getting off.
It was tipping it down with rain when Meg stepped ont
o the platform at Claverton Station. She was still wearing Violet’s vintage dress and a pair of red suede court shoes, as she hadn’t had time to get changed. Fabulous! There were never any taxis here, and it was a two-mile walk to Dalton St Clare. She would get soaked. Still, she pondered, as she walked through the ticket office, perhaps she could dry off under one of the dryers in the loos at the Mashbury Hall café, like Madonna in Desperately Seeking Susan.
Meg and Sarah had come up here by train many times with Mum and Dad and, apart from a small booth flogging chocolate bars and crisps, outside the entrance, Claverton railway station looked exactly the same. It felt weird being back here again, after all this time. Meg half expected to see Dad hauling a camping chair up over his right shoulder before sneaking off round the corner of the station for a quick Benson &Hedges. Or Mum double-checking the tickets for the journey home and fussing over her youngest daughter’s fallen-down socks.
Meg set off up the road in the direction of Mashbury Hall. It would be a left turn, then a right, then one long straight road to the house. They had walked it on summer days: Mum’s picnic basket swinging from her arm; a bat and ball set in a canvas bag dangling from Meg’s hand and making a satisfying noise as it dragged along the road, until she got told off by Dad; and Sarah’s Sony Walkman playing Bros so loudly everyone could hear it.
There had been one occasion, exactly like today, when it had been chucking it down. They all had cagoules on – yellow ones – and Mum’s picnic basket was laden with her infamous cheese and cucumber sandwiches, which always went soggy at the edges, and Dad’s trouser pocket housed his ubiquitous giant powder-blue hanky, usually used for mopping up ice-cream spills, employed that wet day for raindrops on brows and damp faces. Meg realized her face was damp now; she was crying, as she walked in the rain towards Mashbury Hall, for all of them. There was no hanky now. She would have to make do with the handy pack of tissues in her bag, not that there was any point in getting them out.
Meg walked on. She was on the final, straight road – flanked on either side by low trees – to the Hall. They’d loved that café, her and Sarah. They usually had shortbread, but occasionally Sarah would have a cream tea and enjoy carefully dipping her knife in the jam and spreading the cream evenly on top, Cornwall style; while Meg would go for the biggest, stickiest chocolate fudge cake and end up with it smeared all over her face …
Meg stopped. There was a figure, up ahead. In a blue raincoat, hood up. Marching. Trainers, jeans.
‘Sarah?’
The figure turned.
‘Meg?’
They both stood still. They both stared. Sarah looked different but exactly the same, though it was hard to see much of her, what with the raincoat and all that rain driving down.
They stepped towards each other, until they were a few feet apart. Sarah was not smiling. She looked older; she had a few wrinkles round her eyes. She looked lovely, actually. Meg was glad of the rain.
‘Hello,’ said Meg.
‘Hello,’ said Sarah. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I was on the train, on my way up to London, when I got your text, so I got off.’
‘I was heading back to Tipperton Mallet when I got mine from Olivia,’ said Sarah. ‘I got off my train too.’
So, they had been travelling towards each other, all the time, thought Meg.
‘How are you?’ Meg asked, which was silly because they’d been in communication with each other so much recently, but that was what you asked someone when you hadn’t seen them for years, wasn’t it?
‘Concerned about Olivia,’ said Sarah ruefully, and Meg felt ashamed again. ‘It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?’ she added.
Did she mean since she’d seen Olivia, or Meg, or both? ‘Yes, it has,’ said Meg.
They both just stood for a moment, the rain on their faces. The air otherwise still.
‘Right, well, come on then,’ said Sarah sharply. ‘If you’re coming! We need to go and find my daughter.’
Sarah turned back towards Mashbury Hall and continued walking. Meg struggled to keep pace with her. Her tears gone, she was angry Sarah had spoken to her like a child. It was her sister’s default, though, wasn’t it? The same old, same old. Bossy. Judgemental. And it was weird, walking next to her. Meg felt like she should be dragging that canvas bag, that Mum and Dad should be behind them, chatting and laughing.
She and Sarah didn’t chat or laugh. Neither spoke to the other. They just walked.
As they walked, Meg could hear music. Pop music. As they got nearer and nearer to Mashbury Hall, the music got louder. Above the stately home’s huge walled garden, to the left, Meg spied what looked like the top of a stage and some lighting rigs.
‘Is there a concert or something going on here today?’ she dared ask Sarah.
‘I don’t know,’ scowled Sarah. So, this was as good as it was going to get between them today, thought Meg. Clipped, bare minimum conversation. She was no nearer to her sister than she’d been all those years before. Funny, it had only been this morning when Sarah had confided in her about Dylan, and how scared she was … That seemed hard to believe now.
‘Maybe it’s one of those summer music festivals,’ Meg continued hesitantly. ‘There seems to be more and more of them every year. It sounds like Girl Squad.’
‘Yes. Olivia used to like them.’
The music was loud now. They were at the main entrance to Mashbury Hall. A tarpaulin gazebo had been set up beyond the main gate and under it were a handful of security people in black waterproof uniforms standing around and laughing about something.
‘Are we going to try to get in?’ asked Meg.
‘I don’t know!’ muttered Sarah. ‘Olivia didn’t say anything about a concert – she just said she was here! I think we should, though. Come on!’
‘OK.’ Meg trailed behind her sister to the gazebo. She had definitely fallen into the little sister role again, like a rabbit down a hole, and she didn’t like it one bit. For twenty years, when she more or less pretended to the world she didn’t have a sibling, she hadn’t needed to feel like this, and it had been fabulous. She had been her own woman, re-invented in London; a well-liked and respected figure in the modelling industry. She didn’t like being told what to do by her angry older sister; she didn’t like being chastised and made to feel bad. Not again.
‘Sorry,’ said a security woman, as they approached, dropping her smile and turning on an exaggerated, Prisoner Cell Block H expression as she stepped forward with a clipboard. ‘We’re fully sold out. No touts, nothing. Sorry.’ She sternly looked the pair of them up and down, her eyes widening as she checked out Meg, who was absolutely soaked and resembled a totally ridiculous, drowned vintage rat.
‘Never mind. It looks rubbish anyway. Maybe just try and call Olivia?’ said Meg to Sarah. ‘Tell her to come out?’ There, she could take charge if she wanted to. She looked at the security lady as if to say, See, I’m not that ridiculous! No need to widen your eyes at me, lady!
‘I’ve been trying her since the station,’ said Sarah. ‘No signal.’
‘Oh,’ said Meg, looking around her.
‘You’ll have to move on,’ said Prisoner Cell Block H woman, tapping her clipboard. ‘No stragglers.’
She was beginning to get on Meg’s nerves. ‘Let’s get out of the way, shall we?’ Meg said sweetly to Sarah, and shooting the woman a look of a thousand daggers, she ushered her sister away from security and to the wall. ‘Right,’ she said, lowering her voice further – if she was going to play the ‘naughty little sister’ role, she may as well play it to their advantage. ‘There’s only one thing for it. We’re going to have to go over that fence.’
‘Which fence?’
‘That one!’ Meg subtly pointed out a piece of dark fencing at the far corner of the wall, where it took a sudden dip. It looked temporary; perhaps part of the wall was being rebuilt. It was also just out of sight of the security gazebo.
‘Really?’ said Sarah, looking uncon
vinced.
‘Yeah.’ Meg nodded. ‘It’s our only way in.’ She wiped her sodden hands down the front of her dress and took a deep breath. ‘Well, come on then, if you’re coming!’
Chapter Twenty-Four
Sarah
This was different to the fence Meg had made Sarah climb when Meg was seven and Sarah was seventeen. It was at Brands Hatch, where they had been dragged by Mum and Dad for a day’s motor racing. The sisters had gone to get a burger and had got slightly lost on the way back, but Meg had spotted her parents, behind a high chain link fence, which if they climbed over would save them a very long round trip. Meg had scaled it easily; Sarah had gone for a burton and gone face down, splat in the mud. It had taken more than Dad’s enormous hanky to clean her up that time – she’d had to be hosed down by two stewards whilst Mum and Dad did that thing where they’d tried desperately not to laugh … until Mum was crying silent tears and clutching at her sides so helplessly she nearly fell over herself.
Sarah stared at the fence at Mashbury Hall. It was wooden and slatted, but at the same time, it was really rather similar. It was high and precarious-looking, but Sarah was not going to go for a burton this time; she got her leg over the top and jumped down neatly onto the muddy grass the other side. Meg took off her heels, climbed the fence and jumped, too. As she landed, her foot dislodged a clod of earth which flew upwards and splatted Sarah on the nose.
‘Oops!’ said Meg, trying not to laugh.
‘Thanks for that,’ said Sarah. She wasn’t finding anything funny at the moment. She was still just so furious with her sister for not saying anything about Olivia and causing them to be here in the first place. She rubbed the mud off her nose and looked beyond them. A massive, dense crowd to the stage started about a hundred yards from them and Sarah guessed it must be at least two hundred people deep.
‘Remember when you got hosed down at Brands Hatch?’ Meg asked, as she put her shoes back on.
The Sister Swap Page 26