The Ugly Sister (25 page)

The hint of hurt that she thinks she can see in his eyes tears at her stomach every time. She wonders if he can see the same in her, because she can’t imagine she is disguising it well. It’s all she can do not to reach out to touch his arm when he walks by her and, at one point, she almost stretches out a hand to stroke his head when she passes behind his chair. There’s a point where the hair stands up from his crown rebelliously – a cowlick she thinks it’s called – and it’s all Abi can do to stop herself smoothing it down.

On the surface, though, everything is just as it
should be. If they can just keep this up for another few weeks they’ll be home and dry. She might have an ulcer, but that seems like a small price to pay. She can go back to seeing Cleo once or twice a year and Jon almost never. She’ll miss the girls, though. They’ve definitely bonded, so she’ll invite them down to stay with her in Kent once in a while. She finds herself daydreaming little scenarios whereby Tara, Megan and Phoebe are all running in and out of the house on a beautiful sunny summer’s day. OK, she knows that Phoebe, at eighteen, is too old to be playing like a child and, anyway, the house is sold and the fantasy doesn’t work quite so well with an above-ground-level flat, but she indulges herself anyway.

This, by the way, has been one of her more successful coping mechanisms throughout her life: if things aren’t going well, inhabit a whole other existence in your head that you can control. It’s a bit like playing Second Life, but you don’t even need a DS. Tragically, even in her daydreams, she holds herself back. She can’t just imagine she is successful or rich or happily in love. She gets bogged down by the detail. She has to rationalize each step. How did she become successful? What qualifications did she get? Did she work her way up from the bottom and, if so, how did she get her foot in the door? It’s exhausting. It still works as a distraction, but as escapism it’s doomed.

Somehow she gets through to the relative sanctuary of work on Tuesday. Word seems to have got
round the neighbourhood about Richard and Stella, because all day there’s a steady stream of distraught-looking young mums giving him disappointed looks across the bookshelves. Almost no one buys anything. They just stare mournfully, waiting for him to come and tell them it isn’t so, which, of course, he doesn’t. He soldiers on regardless, greeting them in the same way he always does, relentlessly flirtatious and friendly while they make Bambi eyes and sigh miserably. Richard steadfastly refuses to acknowledge their pain. Abi is grateful that in deference to Stella he doesn’t play out the charade of her and him in front of them, but when they’re on their own he’s merciless.

‘Darling,’ he says, sidling up to her during a brief quiet period. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to pop out back for a quickie while the shop’s empty?’

‘Fuck off, Richard.’

‘What’s wrong? Don’t you love me any more? Have you gone off me already? I’m devastated!’

‘Not funny,’ she says, shaking off the arm he has snaked round her.

‘Oh, come on, it is. And, besides, you have to be nice to me or I might be compelled to go round and tell your handsome brother-in-law the truth.’

She knows he’s only joking and, to be honest, usually she’d laugh. She definitely would if it concerned anyone except her. But she seems to have had a sense-of-humour failure. Richard must be able to tell that
from her expression, because he drops both his arm and the joke.

‘God, you have got it bad, haven’t you?’

‘No … yes, OK, I have. But can we just pretend I haven’t? Please?’

‘You only had to ask,’ he says, and Abi smiles for the first time today.

‘Yeah, right.’

‘OK, well, you only had to ask in that miserable tone of voice and look suicidal, how’s that?’

She grants him a quick peck on the cheek. She really is fond of him and she tells herself she has to remember that he is doing her an enormous favour. ‘Thank you.’

She is sticking to her resolution not to tell him about Cleo’s dinner invitation, though. Her plan is to keep up the pretence at home while fighting off all attempts to integrate him into the family, and then in a week or so, once the equilibrium is restored at home and she thinks Jon has firmly got the message that she’s not interested, she can announce that it’s all over – she and Richard have broken up. She can cry pitifully for a couple of days, which shouldn’t be too much of a stretch, and then announce her intention to swear off men for the foreseeable future. There’s no reason for them not to believe her; they are both aware of her tragic track record. She’s just allowing herself to think that everything might work out OK when the door opens and Tara and Megan come running in, followed
by Cleo at a more stately pace, who gazes around the shop with an amused expression on
her face. Abi moves forward to greet them, hoping that she can head them off at the pass and, maybe, suggest that they all go straight out for something to eat when Megan points a finger across the room and shouts, ‘That’s him!’

Too late. Richard looks up from whatever he’s doing. Abi sees the brief moment of delighted recognition when he spots Cleo and then he turns his charm straight on to the girls, welcoming them as if they were members of his own family.

‘So … back again so soon. Did you enjoy the books? How was the Jacqueline Wilson, Megan?’

‘Fab,’ she says, and then she turns to her mother. ‘This is Richard. This is Auntie Abi’s boyfriend.’

‘Pleased to meet you. I’m Cleo,’ Cleo says, and holds out a hand for him to shake. Richard does a phony double take.

‘I know who you are,’ he says, charm offensive back on. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you.’

Abi finds herself getting annoyed. He’s supposed to be pretending to be her boyfriend. What’s he doing flirting with her sister? Now Cleo will think she’s a complete loser whose new beau is already looking around to see who’s next.

‘And you,’ Cleo says. Is she flirting right back at him? Does no one have any morals today? Abi needs to save the situation. She links her arm with Richard’s.

‘Cleo is my sister.’

‘Your sister? I had no idea,’ he says disingenuously. ‘You don’t look alike.’

Abi pinches his arm where she’s hanging on to it. He flinches then remembers who they are all meant to be playing in this little drama, and puts the arm round Abi’s shoulders proprietorially.

‘What I mean is you’re both beautiful, just different. Actually, now I look closer, I can see some similarities.’ Nice try, but he’s fooling no one. Abi and Cleo both know that he was bowled over by seeing her in the flesh. She’s used to having that reaction from men and Abi is used to her having it too.

‘She’s our mummy,’ Megan says conspiratorially.

‘Well, I can see that, because you’re just as gorgeous,’ he says, and half of Abi hates him for still going on about the way Cleo looks even though it’s in a roundabout way, while the other half is happy for Megan that she’s been given a compliment while she’s still young enough to take it at face value. Maybe if anyone had ever told Abi she was as beautiful as Cleo when she was seven she wouldn’t have grown up to be such a fuck-up.

‘So, what brings you in here? Checking up on me and Abi?’

‘She wanted to get a look at you,’ Tara says.

‘She said most of Auntie Abi’s boyfriends always sounded as dull as dishwater, but we told her you weren’t like that, so she wanted to see you for herself.’

‘I don’t think I said that, Megan …’

‘Yes you did. You said that exact thing, dull as dishwater, because I had to ask you what it meant and –’

Cleo, to give her credit, blushes a little. ‘I think you’ve got confused. What I said was we should go and see Auntie Abi and see if she’s remembered to ask Richard to come to dinner yet.’

‘No, you didn’t …’

Tara, realizing that things aren’t quite going to plan, jumps in. ‘Yes, she did, Meg. Stop being stupid.’

Abi looks at Richard, trying to communicate ‘don’t even think about it’ with her eyes, which is harder than you might imagine, but he’s got a smirk on his face and she knows she’s lost him. The kudos to be earned from having gone round to Cleo’s house for dinner far outweighs his feelings of loyalty towards her.

Before she can stop him he’s saying, ‘That would be amazing. Thank you. And, no, Abi hadn’t mentioned it …’

He looks at her, mock scolding. She looks back at him like she hates him, which at the moment she feels like she does.

‘I didn’t think you’d want to,’ Abi says with what she hopes is the right amount of threat in her voice. ‘It seems a bit early to be meeting the family and all that.’

‘Nonsense, darling. You know I’ve been dying to meet your family.’ He turns to Cleo. ‘When would you like me?’

‘Well … how about tonight? That is unless you have other plans?’

Abi has one last-ditch attempt. ‘Weren’t we going to go and see
On the Waterfront
tonight? He’s never seen
On the Waterfront
and it’s on at the South Bank somewhere. A Marlon Brando retrospective.’ She realizes she is sounding slightly desperate and forces herself to shut up.

‘Were we? I don’t remember us deciding that. We can do that another night.’

‘Yes, come to dinner,’ Megan chips in. ‘I can show you my room.’

‘And mine,’ Tara adds. ‘It’s much better than hers.’

‘Well, I think that settles it,’ Richard says. ‘What time?’

When they’ve gone, having agreed that Richard will show up at the house at seven thirty, Abi turns on him even though she knows she has no right to.

‘What the fuck? Why didn’t you say we were busy?’

‘Listen,’ he says, ‘you want them to believe we’re going out together, this’ll convince them, OK?’

‘But we can’t keep it up all evening. Not with them all looking at us …’

‘This whole thing was your idea. I didn’t ask you to involve me in your domestic dramas.’

He’s right. She knows he is. ‘I know you didn’t. I’m sorry. I just … You don’t know what she’s like. She’ll see through it in a moment.’

‘Well, I’m clearly a cut above all your other boyfriends,’ he says, and he raises one eyebrow James Bond style. ‘I mean, what was it she said? Dull as dishwater. All of them?’

‘Yes. All six of them. Well, since Phoebe’s father, anyway.’

‘And she’s … what? Eighteen? Wow, you’ve lived an exciting life.’

‘I’m not looking for excitement. I’m looking for reliability and responsibility.’

‘Dullness …’

‘Excitement’s overrated, OK? And, anyway, I’m fine on my own.’

He gets her in a bear hug. ‘Well, don’t worry, you’ve got me now. I’ll save you!’

‘Just behave tonight. Please.’

Richard holds her at arm’s length, a hammy look of horror on his face. ‘I’m devastated you could even doubt it. Don’t you know I love you?’

OK, he’s got her. She can’t help herself. She laughs.

Tara and Megan are fussing like two hormonal teenagers over the fact that Auntie Abi’s ‘boyfriend’ is coming to dinner. If she really had found herself a boyfriend, Abi thinks she would be insulted by the momentous importance this event seems to have assumed. Auntie Abi has a boyfriend! Some poor sap has somehow been conned into thinking our dried-up old spinster aunt is a catch! Get the bunting out! Let’s celebrate!

They have tried on at least three outfits each and now Megan is sporting some of her mother’s red Chanel lipstick that makes her look more like a malevolent doll than the sophisticated young lady she’s hoping for. You would think that they were the ones gearing up for a date, not Abi. Although, of course, in reality, she’s not, but she’s having to make the effort to look as if she is. In fact, she is making far more of an effort than if she was going on a real date, because on a real date she makes precious little effort at all. She puts on heels with her jeans, and proper make-up, not just mascara, and she ties her hair back in a high ponytail. It’s a shame there’s no one to really appreciate it.

Jon is crashing around in the kitchen, somehow managing to make cooking dinner sound like a contact sport. Abi wonders if he’s sneakily spitting in the soup when no one’s watching or slyly tossing in some peanuts in the hope that Richard has a nut allergy and will go into anaphylaxis at the table. Cleo, when Abi eventually comes downstairs, is dressed to kill in a short black backless dress that she tells her sister is by Martin Grant, no doubt eager to show off her fabulousness to someone who couldn’t quite disguise that he was an admirer, despite the fact that he is meant to be Abi’s boyfriend.

Abi sheepishly asks Jon if there’s anything she can do to help and he gives her that forced grin he’s taken to wearing in her presence over the past few days and says, no, he has it under control. It all smells fantastic and she feels her heart go out to him for making such an effort when she knows how much it must be costing him. He’s wearing old combat trousers and a faded army green T-shirt that she thinks are his way of trying to say he’s not bothered about looking good. Why should he be? It’s not like Richard is the competition. But if he’s hoping to play down his attractiveness his ensemble is actually having the opposite effect. Well, on Abi at least. It makes him look vulnerable. A confused boy in a room full of power players. She feels a lump rise up in her throat and she backs out of the room.

At exactly seven thirty the doorbell rings and
there’s Richard, bottle of champagne in hand and a big self-satisfied smile on his face.

‘Hi, darling,’ he says theatrically, even though there’s no one else in the hall so for all he knows his performance is just for her. She, of course, knows that Jon is in earshot in the kitchen. Richard leans in and gives her a noisy kiss on the lips. She recoils. She knows they have to be convincing as a couple, but there are limits.

‘Behave,’ she hisses at him.

‘Just getting into character,’ he whispers back. ‘Where is everyone?’

‘In here.’ Abi leads him through to the living room where Tara and Megan greet him like he’s their long-lost brother and Cleo offers him her hand like it was a precious gift. Richard is looking around, taking it all in, no doubt so that he can report every detail to the others in the pub. Abi wonders how he’s squared this evening with Stella.