The Sisters (3 page)

Beatrice laughs a little too loudly. ‘I haven’t got a sister,’ she says, before turning to me. ‘I’ve always wanted one though,’ and a lump forms in my throat when I think of Lucy, and I know that my instincts are right about Beatrice.

She places an arm over my shoulder protectively. ‘Everyone, this is Abi. She’s our first … what would you call it? Potential client?’ Beatrice raises an eyebrow questioningly. I’m aware of all these pairs of eyes on me and it makes me want to run straight back to the security of my little flat. I’m not used to meeting new people, not any more. I spend my life – my new life – keeping my head down and my emotions in check, and here I am in this massive, funkily decorated house with strangers.

‘You’ve come to see our art?’ says Pam. ‘That’s splendid. It’s probably obvious we haven’t done this before?’ She laughs, it’s loud and booming and I warm to her straight away.

I stand mutely. When did I become inept at making small talk? Although I know the answer. Lucy was always the gregarious one out of the two of us. Beatrice squeezes my shoulder as if she can read my thoughts and I’m grateful to her. I know she understands me already.

‘Pam paints amazing pictures and she lives in one of the attic rooms,’ says Beatrice. Taking her arm away from my shoulder she turns to indicate the pretty girl with a bleached blonde pixie cut perched at the table. ‘And this is Cass, she’s a fantastic photographer. She lives here too and sitting next to her is Jodie. She’s a sculptor.’ I nod at Cass, and then at Jodie, who looks not much older than Cass, with mousy brown hair, striking blue eyes and a sulky mouth. I imagine she’s responsible for the three-headed monstrosity upstairs.

Beatrice leaves my side to skip over to the only man in the kitchen, the man I’ve been trying to avoid looking at even though I’ve sensed his eyes on me since I walked into the room. He stands up as she approaches, lanky but substantially built. ‘And this is my Ben,’ she says, wrapping her arms around his waist. She only comes up to his shoulder. He looks a similar age to Beatrice, with a freckled face, hazel eyes and tousled sandy-coloured hair. With a jolt of realization I note that he’s handsome. Not my usual type but good looking nonetheless. He’s dressed in smart indigo jeans and a white Ralph Lauren polo shirt. I glance at his left hand to see if they’re married and for some inexplicable reason I’m relieved when I see the absence of a ring. I can’t quite fathom why this pleases me so much or if it’s her or him that I want to be single.

To my annoyance I blush. ‘Hi,’ I say shyly, thinking they make an attractive couple. ‘Are you an artist too?’

His eyes scan my face and I get the sense that he’s trying to place me, that I remind him of someone. ‘Definitely not. Some people might say I’m a piss artist, but I don’t think that counts,’ he grins. He has a soft Scottish accent, more pronounced than Beatrice’s. He sounds like David Tennant.

Beatrice prods him in the side. ‘Ben,’ she admonishes, ‘don’t put yourself down. My brother’s the clever one, he’s into computers,’ she explains, glancing at him fondly. Brother. Of course. Now that she’s said it I can see the resemblance: the identical smattering of freckles over a ski-slope nose and full mouth. Only their eyes are different. She disentangles herself from him almost reluctantly and claps her hands. ‘Right, come on, everyone, let’s get to our stations. Abi, why don’t you come with me – I could do with an honest opinion on how I’ve set everything up. Is that okay?’

I nod, flattered to be asked, and we all troop after her as though we are her obsequious maids. As I’m following the others up the stairs, I turn to glance behind me. Ben is still standing in the middle of the kitchen. My eyes meet his and I quickly turn away and run up the remainder of the steps, my cheeks hot.

‘I haven’t got a studio at the moment,’ says Beatrice as she ushers me into her bedroom, propping open the door with a floral cloth door-stop. Pam, Jodie and Cass have disappeared into their own rooms to begin setting up, although I can’t imagine that Jodie will be selling the three-headed sculpture that I saw downstairs any time soon.

Beatrice’s room is huge with its high ceilings and intricate coving. It could belong to a movie star from the 1940s; a velvet buttoned headboard in sable, pale silk sheets and walls the colour of plaster. My feet sink into a champagne-coloured carpet. By the sash windows Beatrice has set up a French-style dressing table with sparkly stud earrings carefully laid out on midnight blue velvet and it has the effect of stars twinkling in the night sky. Behind the earrings is a stand in the shape of a tree. Silver necklaces dangle enticingly from its branches.

‘Wow,’ I say, going over to the jewellery. ‘Did you make all of these? They’re brilliant.’

‘Thank you,’ she says shyly. She’s standing behind me so I can’t see her face, but by the tone of her voice I imagine she’s blushing at my compliment, and I find it endearing that she doesn’t know how talented she is.

And then I see it, hanging from one of the branches. A short silver chain with raised daisies intricately arranged in the shape of a letter A. My heart flutters. That necklace is meant for me, I’m sure of it. It’s as if Beatrice somehow knew a girl would come into her life with this very initial. I reach over and touch it, running my fingers over the daisies.

‘Do you like it?’ Beatrice is so close her breath brushes the back of my neck.

‘I love it. How much is it?’

She steps in front of me and lifts the necklace from the stand, draping it over the palm of her hand. She holds it out towards me. ‘Here, I want you to have it.’

‘I couldn’t …’ I begin, but she hushes me, tells me to turn around so that I can try the necklace on. I lift my hair away from my neck to allow her to place the chain around my throat. Her fingers are cool against my skin.

‘There,’ she says, her hands on my shoulders, gently steering me so that I’m facing her. ‘Perfect.’

‘Please let me pay you for it,’ I say, uncomfortable with her generosity.

She waves her hand dismissively. ‘Call it a thank you for helping me out this afternoon.’ She wrinkles her nose in concern. ‘You will stay and help, won’t you?’

I touch the necklace at my throat. ‘How can I resist now?’ I joke, not wanting her to know that it was always my intention to stay. And that I would have done so for free.

The afternoon flies by as a steady stream of people trickle into Beatrice’s room to view her jewellery. Some are time wasters who have come purely to nose around Beatrice’s lovely home, a few are on the way down from the attic rooms after buying one of Cass’s photographs, or Pam’s paintings. We quickly fall into our roles, Beatrice as the sales person, me as the cashier, and in spite of how busy it gets I find that I’m enjoying myself. Beatrice interacts with everyone with such confidence and aplomb that I can’t help but admire her. I’m disappointed when Pam pops her head around the door at seven to ask if they should call it a day.

‘Definitely, I’m exhausted,’ says Beatrice as she flops on to her bed. Pam rolls her eyes good-naturedly and I can hear her heavy footsteps as she disappears off down the corridor. ‘Well, that was good fun. You will stay for a glass of wine?’ Beatrice asks me. ‘I think we need to celebrate.’

‘I’d love to,’ I say, although I would prefer to stay up here with her. We’ve had such a lovely afternoon, the two of us and I’ve enjoyed her company more than I thought possible. We were a team and I don’t want it to end. If we go downstairs I would have to make small talk with the others. I’d have to share Beatrice. I feel slightly deflated as I help her pack the few items of jewellery she has left into their respective boxes.

‘I wonder what Ben’s been doing all afternoon?’ she muses as she forces the lid shut on a bangle. ‘I think he wanted to steer clear of the whole thing.’ She gives a small sharp laugh but I sense her disappointment that Ben didn’t come up to see how she was getting on.

‘Is he older than you?’ I say as I hand her a pair of earrings.

She takes the earrings from me and shoves them in a drawer. ‘Only by a couple of minutes. We’re twins.’

I’m aware of the blood draining from my face.
Twins.

Beatrice pauses. ‘Are you okay, Abi? You’ve gone pale.’

I clear my throat. ‘It’s … well, I’m also a twin. Was a twin. Am a twin.’ I’m rambling because I hate telling people about Lucy. I hate the way they look at me, with a mixture of pity and embarrassment, terrified that I might dissolve into tears. Inevitably there is an awkward silence, then they turn away to glance at their shoes, or at their hands, anywhere but at me, while mumbling how sorry they are before they change the subject, leaving me
worrying if I’ve made a
massive faux pas by mentioning my dead sister. Some of my old friends have avoided me since Lucy died. Nia assures me it’s because they don’t know what to say to me, but why can’t they understand that saying something, anything, is better than not acknowledging it at all?

I hold my breath, expecting something similar from Beatrice. But she stops what she’s doing and looks me directly in the eye. ‘What happened?’ she asks, and I can tell she genuinely wants to know. She’s not pushing me away, afraid of my grief. She’s not embarrassed by it. She’s facing it head on. I’m so relieved that she’s not like everyone else that I want to hug her.

‘She … she died.’ Tears cloud my vision.
And it was my fault,
I want to add. But I don’t. If she knew the truth about me it would ruin everything.

‘Abi, I’m so sorry,’ she says and she places a hand on my arm. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

I pause, knowing I can’t talk about Lucy. What is there to say? That she was my identical twin sister, that I loved her more than anyone else in the world, that she was the other part of me, my other half, my better half, and that without her I am lost, in limbo, that it doesn’t seem right being alive without her, that it’s my fault and that I can never forgive myself even if the courts of law did exonerate me. I shake my head.

‘I understand,’ she says, her voice gentle. ‘Our parents died when Ben and I were small but I still find it hard to talk about it, even after all this time. I don’t think you ever get over losing a loved one.’

And in that moment I sense it, the bond between us; formed over a shared grief and the special relationship that can only be understood by twins.

By midnight I’ve lost count of the amount of champagne I’ve consumed to stem my nerves and give me the confidence to talk to all of Beatrice’s friends. I excuse myself from her gathering and lock myself in the downstairs loo, afraid I’m going to be sick. I should have eaten more. I lean over the sink and take deep breaths until the nausea subsides. I need to go home, I think as I splash cold water on my face and assess myself in the glass of the bathroom cabinet. As always, I jolt at my reflection; at the dark circles under my eyes, the blonde hair that has long grown out of its neat bob, the too-big mouth that always gives the impression of jollity even when I’m anything but happy.

I see Lucy everywhere, but never more than when I look in the mirror.

Chapter Three

The front door slams. Beatrice moves to her bedroom window just in time to see two dark figures weaving out of the front gate and towards the bus stop at the end of the road. They’re giggling, stumbling, quite obviously a little drunk. He has his arms about her slim waist as if to keep her from folding in on herself and their pose reminds her of a puppet-master holding up his marionette.

They pass a streetlamp, thrusting them into the spotlight and her stomach falls when she realizes it’s Ben. And Abi.

The number fourteen bus trundles past her window like a lethargic old man, the brakes squeaking against the still-hot tarmac as it halts. Beatrice watches as Abi disappears on to it, watches as Ben continues to wave even after the bus has rounded the corner out of sight. It’s too dark to see the expression on her brother’s face, but she can imagine it. The twinkle in his hazel eyes, the crooked smile on his full lips. It’s the look of a man who’s been stupefied, it’s a look she’s only ever seen on his face once before.

And as he turns slowly, reluctantly back towards the house, she knows – in that special way that only a twin can – that this is the start of something.

Beatrice thrusts the curtains together so vigorously that they continue to swing even when she turns away from them to pace the room. She refrains from switching the light on, preferring to listen out for the telltale sounds of the key in the lock, the clip-clop of Ben’s Chelsea boots on the flagstone hallway, the thud as he climbs the stairs two at a time to her room. Why does the realization that her brother might have found someone he likes make her want to cry?

He flings open the door, flooding the bedroom with light from the landing.

‘Why are you in the dark, you mad cow?’ he laughs, flicking the switch.

She shrugs and perches at her dressing table. Ben sits heavily on her double bed, the mattress sighs under his weight. ‘Cass and Jodie have gone out and Pam has fallen asleep at her easel again. So, how do you think it went?’ He seems genuinely concerned for her, which tugs at her heart.