It Would Be Wrong to Steal My Sister's Boyfriend (11 page)

I was so engrossed in talking to Oliver that I’d almost forgotten Pers was there. He was telling me about some near miss he’d had on a black run when there was a sort of strangled squeak from the floor behind me, and I looked around to see if she was okay. I could tell straight away that she wasn’t. Her face was brick red, except around her mouth which was bluey-pale, and her eyes were bulging. I said stupidly, “Shit. I think she’s choking and I don’t know how to perform the Heimlich manoeuvre.” And I froze, and everything started moving in slow motion. I could feel a huge lump in my throat and my hands were shaking so hard I couldn’t hold my phone to call 999.

Before I could even start dialling, Oliver had picked Pers up. “You don’t perform the Heimlich manoeuvre on babies,” he said, completely calmly. Then he sort of laid her along his leg and gave her a series of gentle thumps between her little shoulder blades. I stood watching, numb with panic, and after about the sixth thump a soggy lump of pita bread shot out of Pers’s mouth on to the floor, and I heard her take a huge gasping breath and start to wail. I’m afraid to say I wailed too, and Oliver ended up with both of us in his arms, absolutely howling, until his strong, soothing presence and “there, there, it’s okay” noises calmed us down.

The way I felt about Oliver changed completely after that night. Of course before
that I’d fancied him, I’d been fascinated by the world he represented: the world of money and designer clothes and friends with titles, of which Rose was a part and I categorically was not. I’d been faltering at the entrance to a dangerous arena, playing a game against my sister at which she was far more skilled than I was. I knew it was wrong, and my conscience had held me back. But that night, in spite of myself, I fell in love. My head disengaged and my heart took over – and my body was still very, very much involved.

Oliver was amazing that evening, he really was. He comforted me and Pers, heated up some milk for her, changed her nappy without so much as flinching, and read her a story until she fell asleep, all sort of sprawled out on his lap. He said he’d wait with me until Claire came to pick her up, because I’d had a horrible fright and must be feeling really shaken up – which I was – and we sat together on the sofa and finished the bottle of wine and watched
Masterchef
, except I wasn’t watching the telly so much as Oliver, transfixed by the beauty of his profile, the way his long eyelashes swooped down over his cheekbones when he blinked, the soft lick of dark hair that flopped down over his forehead, his perfect skin, tanned golden from skiing. Occasionally he made some innocuous comment about the contestants or the food, and we both laughed, but I didn’t really listen to what he was saying just basked in the warmth of his smooth, resonant voice that sounded as if it could turn into a laugh at any moment.

I know I sound like a fifteen-year-old with a crush on the captain of the hockey team, but honestly, that’s how I felt. I hadn’t had that shy, almost reverent feeling for someone, that sense of desire so strong it hurts to swallow, since I was travelling in Asia on my gap year, and fell headlong for a shaggy-haired, guitar-playing waste of space called Kyle. Of course I hadn’t known at the time that Kyle was a loser, and I squandered nine months of my life that I’ll never get back finding out: nine months putting up with his
infidelities, his unreliability, his pointless and persistent drug use, all because I was in luuurve. I more or less swore off that sort of emotional incontinence post-Kyle. A couple of weeks after he finally dumped me because one of the other girls he was shagging was proving to be even more of an all-forgiving, bankrolling sucker than I was, I met Sean and we went out for almost a year, but I was never particularly serious about him if I’m honest, just swept away by his glorious looks and the fact that he wrote poetry that was actually rather good. Then along came Chris, but he cheated on me and my tolerance for that sort of thing was pretty low after Kyle, so I dumped him as soon as I found out (he literally came home with another girl’s knickers in the pocket of his jeans), and swore off emotional involvement forthwith. Then I met Ben, and after a few months of not being each other’s boyfriend or girlfriend, he met Nina, so I was properly single again. I stayed that way for ages and was pretty sex-starved to be honest, until I got together with Wallace. That really was his name. And (I am cringing slightly remembering this) he used to like me saying it while we had sex. As in, “Fuck me, Wally! Fuck me harder! Give me your hard cock, Wally!” Call me shallow, but after a month or so of this I realised I simply couldn’t live with myself and I certainly couldn’t live with Wally, so I told him to sling his hook. That had been a couple of years ago and, barring the occasional drunken post-pub shag, I’d been more or less celibate. I was about due for an emotional shake-up, and it had well and truly come.

At ten o’clock we heard Claire knock at the door, and I let her in and between me and Oliver the whole story came spilling out, and Claire said Pers quite often gagged on her food and generally managed to sort it out herself, but it sounded like Oliver had done exactly the right thing if we were worried. And she gave Pers a massive cuddle and said she’d better get her home to bed, so yet again I failed to glean any meaningful information about where she’d been and who she’d been seeing. A few minutes after Claire and Pers left, Oliver said
he’d better be going too.

“Are you okay now, Ellie?” he asked.

“Yes, I’m fine. Sorry I went all wobbly on you, and thanks so much for taking care of Pers.”

“No, thank you.” He gave a lovely, soppy smile. “She’s an absolute sweetheart, I’ve really enjoyed spending the evening with both of you. I used to… I miss… Anyway, it’s been a pleasure.”

He reached out and tucked a strand of hair that had escaped from my ponytail away behind my ear, and when his finger brushed my cheek it felt like an electric shock. He pulled me into his arms and gave me what I really, really hoped was a bit more than a brotherly hug, and said he’d see me soon. And I went to bed, cherishing the memory of his lean, strong arms around me and his scratchy jumper against my lips, with the heat of his body beneath it.

I’d arranged to work from home the next day, and normally I get an amazing amount of work done in bed with my laptop, endless cups of tea and Radio 4 in the background, but that day I simply couldn’t focus. Every time I tried to think of catchy lines for our ad campaign or draft a lucid and compelling press release, my thoughts scurried off in the direction of Oliver. Every time I heard the sound of a woman’s heels on the pavement outside, I worried it would be Rose, and felt a horrible sinking sense of guilt and shame, as if she was going to walk in on me trying to squeeze my lardy thighs into her jeans, or something. After a couple of hours I lost patience with myself and went to have a shower, and the rush of the water must have muffled the sound of the front door because when I came downstairs in search of toast and Marmite, there she was in the kitchen filling the fridge with
the various noxious-smelling cheeses she’d brought back with her.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey, Ellie.” Like Oliver, Rose had a gorgeous, golden tan, but she looked tired and her hair was all over the place – I suppose she’d spent the night stranded in some airport lounge.

“How was it?”

“Apart from the stupid delay at the end we had an amazing time,” she said. “Pip’s finally dumped Sebastian, she shamed him by getting off with a ski instructor called Hans in front of everyone, and Sebastian’s furious. We spent most of the holiday making jokes about Hans off to wind him up, I wish you’d been there.”

“All Hans on dick?” I suggested with a grin, and Rose laughed.

“Exactly. And Vanessa said she’d picked up a stomach bug so she wasn’t drinking, or eating much, but actually she was panic-dieting. She told me she put on a stone over Christmas.”

“Marriage will do that to you,” I said.

“And I brought you chocolate. Loads of chocolate, and a bottle of this lethal aquavit stuff.”

I felt another wave of guilt. Great, thanks, Rose, come back from your holiday with presents for me and I’ll just try and steal your boyfriend, it’s all good.

“Thanks. I’ll try and resist it though, I’m sort-of dieting, too.”

“Really? You’re looking amazing, actually, I noticed as soon as I saw you. Not that you aren’t always gorgeous of course. My lucky sister, who was at the front of the queue when the cleavages were handed out.” That was Rose’s kind way of saying I was fatter than her.

“Oh, and,” I tried to make my voice sound casual, “Oliver came round last night. I was babysitting Pers and he stayed for a bit. I think he was expecting you to be here.”

Rose’s smile disappeared and her face smoothed into a sort of blank mask, the way it does when she’s upset. “Did he, now?” she said.

“Yes,” I blundered on. “Honestly, Rose, I do think it’s a bit unfair of you not to have told him you weren’t going to be here. Even if you’d had a row.”

“What makes you think we’d had a row?” she snapped. “What did Ollie say?”

I hastily assured her that he hadn’t said anything at all, beyond general ski-related chitchat. Then I told her about Pers choking, so she’d understand that Oliver and I had had more important things to talk about than any row they may or may not have had.

“But it was obvious,” I said. “You texted me to tell me your plane had been delayed, why didn’t you text him? It’s not his fault he had to come back early. Especially as you’d made arrangements to meet him.”

“Well, Ellie, it’s very good of you to be so concerned about Oliver not experiencing any inconvenience,” she said, “but frankly if he chooses to treat our relationship like it’s some meaningless, casual fling then he should be expected to be treated the same way.”

Then of course it all came spilling out. Unlike me, Rose can never resist confiding all the gory details about her boyfriends: what they get up to in bed, what they row about, when they do and don’t call. I suppose it’s an outlet for the insecurity and turmoil that everyone feels when they’re in love, even if they’re as poised and beautiful as Rose.

It was on the sixth night of their holiday, she told me, a gorgeous, radiant evening, with the moon and the stars pouring light down on to the glittering expanse of snow and the mountains looming over it all like white ghosts. She and Oliver had gone for a walk, taking a bottle of
champagne with them.

“It was like something out of a fairytale,” she said. “You know, the little gingerbread-style houses and the narrow, cobbled streets, and Ollie and me walking along hand in hand. It was so romantic, it was just perfect. I know we haven’t even been together that long but I was sure he’d brought me out there for a reason.”

So Rose, swept away by these surroundings and, if I know her and her mates on holiday, emboldened by copious amounts of wine, had decided to seize the moment. Like a total numpty, instead of shutting up and letting Oliver do the talking, she’d mentioned Commitment.

“And he just went all remote, Ellie,” she said, sniffing. “He said I’m a lovely girl – cold fucking comfort – but it was early days and we should get to know each other better and have fun and,” her voice wobbled a bit, “maybe see other people. The complete fucking fucker! See other people! Just because some silly cow he lived with upped and left him, he thinks he can play the broken heart card for ever.”

“What silly cow?” I said. I knew nothing about Oliver’s relationship history and of course I was intrigued, as I was by anything to do with him.

“I don’t know,” Rose said. “He won’t talk about it. Just kind of burbles wistfully about the one that got away. But we’ve all got one. Look at me. I’ve got loads and I don’t let it stop me. Anyway, then the next day he said he’d had a call from work and had to fly back to London, and there I was left there looking like a total loser.”

“I’m sure you didn’t look like a loser,” I said soothingly.

“Oh, I so did,” said Rose. “And I had to play gooseberry to Pip and bloody Hans while they practically shagged each other in the bar every night.”

“Ugh, grim,” I said.

“Oh, Ellie,” Rose said, and there was a wobble in her voice that made me worry she was about to cry. “What am I going to do?”

“You need to think about this rationally,” I said. “What’s gone wrong with previous boyfriends, where can you spot parallels with the Oliver situation, and how can you prevent yourself falling into the same traps again?” I pulled my shorthand notebook out of my handbag and picked up a pen. “Come on, you were talking about your one that got away – or several that got away – let’s do a Venn diagram.”

Rose sniffed, blew her nose and managed a watery giggle. “Okay, Venn diagram it is then.”

“So, Danny. What happened with him?”

“It was all going really well,” Rose said. “We’d got to the stage where we were seeing each other almost every night and I mentioned moving in together – because after all we were practically living together anyway – and after that he just sort of switched off, and then I found out he was seeing someone else, so I finished with him.”

“Right,” I said. “Infidelity following premature suggestion about commitment.” I wrote it down. “Next?”

“Neil,” Rose said. “I was, like, so in love with Neil. Even though he was a lot older than me. I thought that was a good thing, I thought it would mean he’d be more mature and stable, more likely to want to settle down.”

“But?” I said.

“But he’s American, obviously, and he was only out here for six months, buying art. So I thought perhaps I might go back with him. I even looked into getting a Green Card and talked to Quinn’s Manhattan office about getting a job there. I was really excited about it, and then when I told Neil my idea he told me not to be ridiculous.”

“What was ridiculous about it?”

“I was just a fling, he said. ‘A summer full of fun’ was his phrase. Dickhead.”

“Okay, so dumped by dickhead after taking casual fling too seriously.” I wrote. “Aiden was next, right?”

Rose nodded. “We’d been going out for about a year. Then this new woman started working with him and he talked about her, like, a lot. And you know how you sometimes just know something’s going on?”