The A-Z of Us (12 page)

‘You never mean to, Molly. But you do it anyway.'

I await the bellow of wounded outrage, maybe even a curse or a blow to my shoulder. But curiously, Molly is nodding sympathetically.

‘I'm sorry. It must be really hard for you…'

‘Hard? Why? I've done it to myself. Nobody forced me into it, I told him I didn't love him, he left. Who else is to blame?'

‘Raj.'

‘What?'

‘It's his fault too.'

‘Why?'

‘One, you don't storm off like a teenager unless there's been actual infidelity, and even then you should be
the one to kick the guilty party out. Two, he should have known something was up and asked you what the problem was.'

This is not what I want to hear. I want to hear that I am to blame, that I am too demanding, that I live too much in the future, that I plan for things, then get disappointed and destructive when my plans don't work out. I want to hear that what I have, what I've been given, this unexpected and dreadful gift, I deserve.

‘How could he have known?'

‘By opening his bloody eyes!' Molly sounds genuinely outraged. ‘You haven't been happy for months!'

‘What? I have been happy.'

‘Come on Gemmi. Even Mum's noticed it.'

‘What? When?'

‘She said the other day that you seemed to have lost your old spunk.'

‘Spunk?'

‘Yes, well, Mum's vocabulary did stop developing around 1969.'

‘I'm fine!' I declare, a little too ferociously.

‘It takes two to ruin a relationship. He shouldn't work so bloody hard!'

‘It's not Raj's fault!'

‘Yes it is. He needs to pay more attention to you.'

‘I'm not you, Molly! I don't need what you need!'

I pull myself from the sofa and stride to the kitchen area, not caring that I'm wearing my shabby old pyjamas and the Gap sweatshirt Molly gave me last Christmas. I rip open the carton of orange juice and pour myself a glass without offering any to my sister.

‘Aren't you meant to be at work?'

‘I'm taking personal time.'

‘Personal time? What fucking corporate nonsense is that?'

Angrily, I push open the glass doors to the garden and for the first time in three days step out into the late-August sunshine.

I sit on one of the plastic chairs that the builders use at lunchtimes to drink their tea and smoke roll-up cigarettes. My sister maddens me. In some ways she is so like our mother – she always applies her own criteria, her own feelings and experiences to judge others. Molly's blame of Raj reflects her feelings of culpability over her own marriage break-up. Her insistence that Raj pay more attention to me stems from Molly's own cravings for attention, which she voiced to Will only after it became far too late.

Almost immediately, my sister appears, carrying her own glass of juice. She pulls up another chair. Her tone is text-book conciliatory.

‘You know, Gem, you're welcome at mine any time. You could stay for a while. Until things sort themselves out.'

I don't answer. In one of the numerous plans I've drawn up in my head, I've envisaged just such an occurrence – a protracted stay in the vast contemporary loft-space in hip and trendy Clerkenwell, during which time the two sisters will head to numerous bars and be chatted up by countless dashing young men, thus becoming the friends they never were in childhood.

‘I could cook. I'm getting better, those courses I took were really good…'

But it's all fantasy. We will never be friends. Maybe, at one stage we could have been, in our early teens when the world was new and thrillingly intoxicating, but then my father died and Molly clung closer to Mum and I retreated into solitude.

So, rather than leaning on each other for support during that horrible time when we needed it most, we kept secrets, ignoring each other's tacit pleas for love, and the silence between us swelled rapidly, like air rushing into a vacuum, until it became a solid immovable barrier. Since then, we have tried many times to open up, to be vulnerable with one another. But it's too late. We're divided, and guarded.

Perhaps it has always been too late. We are so different. Molly, squeezed first into the world, is more outgoing. She's sociable, impetuous, brash on occasions. I am wary. I always paused first to analyze what my big sister was doing before committing myself. I like to plan, to structure. I'm no good at being impetuous, I like to know the ending before I embark on anything. Which makes my present situation all the more ridiculous.

We sit in the sunny building site that is the garden of number 26 Raleigh Street. We sip orange juice, one after the other, in silence, like colonial wives awaiting our husbands' return on some soporific Ceylon afternoon. It's such a familiar silence, reminiscent of the wordless hours we used to spend before bedtime, when we read books without talking, only whispering goodnight as Molly turned off the light. It was Molly's rule, she was the eldest, she needed her ‘Book Time', as she called it. We sat in our twin beds, reading, like an old married couple – me always
flicking to the last page before commencing the first, so I'd know what would happen, so there would be no unpleasant surprises. This ‘cheating' used to infuriate Molly, but I stood firm, telling her that it was ‘just a different way of doing things' in the most pompous voice I could muster.

Over the top of the juice glass, I sneak a glance at Molly, who's squinting against the bright sun. She looks good, I think, her hair cut shoulder length. She's lost weight since the divorce. Her face is pretty, but I feel no jealousy in that department, we've both been granted our mother's delicate symmetrical features and nice full lips. What annoys me the most are Molly's legs. They're beautiful limbs, long and toned, with definition in thigh and calf. Not like my own, the tree trunks, the meat slabs, the horrible lumps of clay. And then there are my sister's breasts, which have always been bigger and more fulsome, the lucky cow.

I wonder, for an instant, whether I can tell my sister my innermost fears. I play with words, lolling them around my head, as I did with the spell that made Raj vanish from my life. But I can't utter them. After a lifetime of concealment it's impossible to expose myself now.

We sit in awkward silence for a moment. Then I look up at my elder sister.

‘So, are you going to tell Mum about me and Raj?'

‘What do you think?'

Molly smiles. I attempt a smile back at her. We sit in silence again. Somewhere, a police siren wails. Then Molly speaks.

‘It's okay, Gemmi. It'll work itself out.'

‘I wish I could turn to the last page. To know what happens.'

‘That would be cheating.'

I smile, despite myself. Can you ever escape the past, I wonder? Or are we born with the characters we will die with? I breathe in, anxious to be different with Molly, brighter and more confident.

‘Is Ian coming back?' I ask, gaily. ‘Or have you stolen him away?'

‘I asked him to give us an hour or two.'

‘He's been really kind.'

‘I'm sure.'

‘He's a friend, Molly.'

‘Yup.' Molly's expression oozes amused disbelief.

‘He's my best friend.'

‘Of course.'

I shake my head. We can't break free.

‘Why is it, darling sister, that you find it so hard to conceive of a relationship between a man and a woman that doesn't involve sex, or the potential for sex?'

‘It's impossible. It's always there.'

‘For you.'

‘You too.'

‘What do you know, Molly? You don't have any male friends.'

‘Yes I do.'

‘Greg and Simon? They're ex-boyfriends.'

‘So?'

‘So, your “friendship” is based on a complex sexual history. It's not pure friendship. They still want to sleep with you.'

‘No they don't.'

‘Come on, Mother Teresa. Have you seen the way Simon looks at you?'

‘Yeah? Have you seen the way Ian looks at you?'

‘Ha, fucking ha.'

‘I'm serious, Gem.'

I wonder for a moment whether perhaps Molly might be re-opening this stale old argument on purpose, to make me feel angry enough to forget my present wretchedness. But it's unlikely – Molly is no master of pop psychology.

‘Can I ask you a question, Gemma?'

‘No.'

‘I don't want you to get mad. Just think about it…'

I stand, taking both empty glasses. The sun is hot on my face.

‘So? What?'

‘Did you tell Raj you don't love him because deep down you want to be with Ian?'

I look at my elder sister. Her face is open, gentle even, not accusatory.

‘Molly, Molly, Molly…' I reply, each word intoned more wearily than the last as I walk away into the house, placing down the glasses and marching upstairs to the bathroom where I take a lengthy shower, smoothing down the cellulite in my thighs again and again with the fat yellow loofah Raj bought me for Christmas.

I'm not angry with my sister. Merely tired. Molly has always been prosecutor, judge and jury. Yet this time I have brought judgement on myself, I've slipped up and given the prosecution a key piece of evidence. I should
never have said that thing about Ian being kind. I saw Molly's eyes. There was jealousy glinting.

Is she scared of losing Ian? It seems unlikely – neither of them seem to be taking it too seriously. Is she annoyed that I chose Ian (a man!) over my own sister when it came to seeking solace and solutions? But I have no reason to feel guilty. It's horses for courses. In my time of need I simply chose Ian's male bustle over Molly's emotional bludgeoning.

The thing is, they are similar in some ways, Ian and my sister. They share the oldest and the only child's blend of confidence and insecurity, of calm intransigence and turbulent self-doubt. They are both above average in the food chain of attractiveness, they are both stubborn, both prone to random acts of selfishness.

Shit. They're perfect for each other.

I feel a sudden sickness grip me, like the onset of cramps. Ian and Molly should be together. Mr and Mrs Similar.

Not like Raj and me. Mr and Mrs Opposite.

The water turns cold. I dry myself quickly, patting my body gently, feeling, not for the first time in the past two weeks, as if I'm dabbing flesh that no longer belongs to me. I wrap myself in the towelling robe and begin to take all of Raj's remaining toiletries from the cabinet, stacking them neatly on the floor by the door. I line up the razor blades, the aftershave I bought him a year ago that he never wears, the half-empty bottles of contact lens solution, and I curse every novel, play, sonnet and Hollywood blockbuster that perpetuates the foul myth that differences can be overcome, and that true love will see it through.

Romeo and Juliet? Bollocks! Superman and Lois Lane? Screw them! Bogart and Bacall? To hell with the trouser-wearing pair of them!

Differences don't work out. They can't be overcome. Two opposites can fall in love, but they can never love each other for ever if they don't share the same taste in films, food, morning swimming or gentle gestures of everyday love!

When I come downstairs an hour later, I'm pleased to find that my sister has gone, without leaving any trace that she's ever been here.

I stare at the black shining door. Below the 22 is a large silver knocker. All I have to do is reach up and take the cold metal and swing it hard, three times, against the door. The thin rakish man will open it, and I will ask him who he is and what he does, and then I will call Raj and tell him.

I take a deep breath. A child's voice shrieks from the playground in the park. I turn quickly and walk away down the steps, hurrying to my own front door, unlocking it swiftly and disappearing inside.

I catch a taxi from Mare Street, feeling a modicum of guilt that I'm deserting Gemma for a few hours, but filled with that wholly male certainty that almost anything is justified if there's a chance of sex. Anyway, Gemma probably needs some space. She'll take a nap, replenish her energy. I'll see her later this evening, a new man.

I am going to wait for Molly to return to her refuge after seeing her younger sister. I'm prepared to wait for a long time. This might sound romantic, noble and chivalrous even. The truth is, what else have I got to do?

In Boots I buy a sixteen-pack of Durex Ultra Thins. There's nothing wrong with being prepared.

I sit in the coffee shop opposite the converted printworks on St John Street, with Gemma's groceries by my side. As I sip my latte, I consider the two sisters.

Molly is more attractive. There's no doubt that I got the sexier Cook girl. She's probably not quite as bright as Gemma, if I'm brutally honest, but sometimes Gemma's over-analytical side can be tiresome. I like the way Molly can switch off and leave her work behind, the way she dedicates energy to enjoying herself. She might lack Gemma's great sense of humour, but any Molly deficiencies in the funny bone department are easily compensated by the rest of her body, which is breathtaking, a magazine figure. I love her confidence and style, which
seem to open any door in London. Molly engages, with that devastating smile. Gemma pulls away in social situations. She's more awkward. Like me.

If there's one thing I would change about Molly, it would be to make her a little sweeter, a little more caring, like Gemma. Molly's frequent need to be on her own, the way some mornings she asks me to leave her apartment, her ability to be away from me for weeks and then greet me without any outward sign that she's missed me greatly – these are characteristics that occasionally bother me. But she is a banker after all. And I recognize that in many ways these very traits make our relationship possible. They allow me to jet off around the world, safe in the knowledge that there's no resentment festering back home.