Versace Sisters (19 page)

What to wear, what to wear? Another blouse flew off its
padded hanger to land in a heap on the floor. Jacqueline's
hands shook as she flicked through the array of floral, silk
and knits.

She pulled another contender from the wardrobe and
held it up against herself. Beige was respectable. Beige was
humble yet reassuring. She threw it to the ground and sank
down onto her bed.

What was she thinking, going to a job interview, for
goodness' sake? She should never have taken Joan's advice.
Her time would be better spent visiting poor Mallory in
the hospital, or taking casseroles over to young Tilly. Now
here she was with this ridiculous plan, already creating
chaos and reducing her to a jittery, dishevelled mess. She
looked at her reflection. Her baby paunch hung over her
stockings, her auburn bob straggled across her face and
her eyes were dull with sleeplessness.

Who'd want her in a patisserie? Patisseries were refined,
elegant places where mille-feuille pastries were delicately
layered into fine lacy towers; where high tea was sipped
from fine china. And Laurent Boulangerie Patisserie
in Double Bay was all that and so much more. It was
French!

Finally she decided to team a knee-length black skirt
with a crisp, white blouse, emulating the uniform of the
elegant staff at the world-famous patisserie. She pinned her
silver cupcake brooch to her shirt for luck.

*

Jacqueline's knees were shaking as she entered the shop.
The customers were three deep as orders for brioche,
baguettes and olive sourdough were drowned out by
demands for éclairs, croissants and galettes.

André, the manager, had a thick Gallic accent that
belied his unlikely ginger hair and freckles. He held out one
of the café's wrought-iron chairs for her, glared at her slim
CV and then back at her.

'So, 'ow are you? Eh?' he demanded. 'You are enjoying
the sunshine?'

'Yes, thank you,' Jacqueline replied nervously. 'It's
lovely outside.'

'What about inside? You like zis place? What do you
think?'

Jacqueline turned to gaze at the enormous white chandelier,
the black-and-white flocked wallpaper, the delicate
three-tiered cake stands, the flashes of pink that accented
the purely Parisian space. And the pastries, the breads, the
gateaux, the mountains of elegantly prepared delicacies that
seemed to shimmer in their display cabinets.

'Oh yes,' she breathed, 'it's the most beautiful shop I've
ever been in.'

'Good! That is very good! You will work here. You will
work at Laurent.'

'But, I . . . I haven't experience . . . I can't use a cash
register.' Suddenly she was stricken with self-doubt. This
guy was crazy hiring her, but she was forty and had never
worked in her life.

'Bouff!' he exploded. 'We have a cashier. Look at you:
you are beautiful, you have a passion for pastry, you have
ze uniform. And you love my shop. Zis is good, it is a
beautiful shop. You even have zis little silver cupcake
brooch here, it's nice; I like it. Start Monday. Eleven.'

Jacqueline sat dumbfounded as he stood to click his
fingers and roar at an unseen worker out the back. 'Monique,
ici maintenant. Les escargots sont terribles
!'

'I yell at them in French,' he confided to Jacqueline,
'because it sounds so much nicer.'

In a daze Jacqueline said goodbye and stepped out into
the bright Sydney sun, blinking at the unexpected turn her
life had just taken.

Then one hand flew to her cheek in panic. How on
earth was she going to tell Thomas and the boys?

It had been a week since Bella had called Sera. She was
coming to Sydney and she wanted to have some special
time with her, alone. After Mallory's accident, Bella realised
that life was too short for being cross at your sister. So
she had arranged a five-star hotel suite for the weekend so
that they could giggle, bond, chat and try and mend the rift
that remained between them.

Sera had been relieved when Bella had rung with the
offer. They were getting on so much better since their
night out in Paddington, but things were still a bit on edge.
Anyway, she and Tony were having a rough patch and a
night away from the house would be a welcome relief.

Normally Sera would have spent hours planning her
outfits and matching accessories for this brief foray into
her old world. But this time it was different. She could
sense from the brief call that Bella just wanted to see her,
the real her. And besides, she was getting a little sick of
the constant battle with maintenance. Not that she'd give
up her acrylics or anything drastic like that, but she just
felt more relaxed about the get-together. It was to be two
sisters hanging out, not a fashion parade.

When the kids and Tony were happily eating their Saturday
morning pancakes, and Joan had her cup of tea, Sera
ran upstairs and donned the first outfit her hand touched:
a black shirtdress and black long leggings teamed with
pearls – perfect. She threw a beige and red ensemble into
her favourite oversized Versace handbag (a gift from Bella)
and jumped in the car with barely a backwards glance at
her family.

This was going to be fantastic. It would be lovely to get
back to their friendly relationship of the past and hopefully
put the strain of recent times behind them.

*

Bella was thrilled at the thought of seeing her sister. It
felt like ages since the two had shared time alone and she
congratulated herself again at the brilliant idea of having a
girly weekend. She had booked them both into the day-spa
for a double massage on the Saturday afternoon. Once
she would have gone for a facial acid peel but lately she'd
realised her ageing face wasn't improving much under such
extreme treatment. Maybe if the stress was eased away from
her shoulders and back muscles then her face would relax
and hopefully result in a more youthful appearance anyway.

She knew Sera needed some physical therapy too,
judging by how tightly wound she'd sounded on the phone.
She could always change it to Botox if she wanted to.

As always, Bella worried about her little sister. The
beauty challenge seemed to be taking its toll on her. No
matter how grounded or real a woman is, Bella thought,
life in Sydney or Melbourne or LA or New York virtually
guaranteed it wouldn't take long for hair or eyelash
extensions, breast enhancements or fake tans to assume
the status of normality.

But she knew that Sera's desperate struggle for beauty
stemmed from somewhere so much deeper than merely
living in a glam town. She knew it was the scar – the one
thing the sisters couldn't talk about.

Bella had tried to bring it up once, asking Sera if it was
still bothering her. Sera had pretended that Bella had asked
a different question and had rambled on down another path
entirely.

Sera blamed her, Bella knew. Of course she did, she had
every right to. Bella had been the one in charge and she
hadn't done her job properly. Their own mother had often
been absent and, sure, she had been fairly pathetic, really.
But she had done her best, given the poverty, their useless
father, the five kids under six. Bella had always known it
wasn't her mother's neglect that had forced her into the
role of Sera's carer, but her own guilt.

But that was then and this is now, she thought with a
surge of positive energy, as she stepped out of the taxi and
smiled at the uniformed doorman as he smiled at her long
tanned legs.

Now was all about two sisters reconnecting. The first
thing she had to do, though, she thought as the upholstered
lift whisked her up to their suite, was change out of this
mini-skirt. She never wore short skirts around Sera.

*

Sera pulled into the sweeping drive of the hotel. The doorman
grinned at her cleavage as he helped her out of the car.
'Valet, madam?' he enquired.

'Yes, thank you,' she said and pulled the neckline of her
top together.

She'd stopped on the way at Signature and bought
Bella a little gift to thank her for the mini-holiday. The
crisp white parcel with its perky raspberry bow balanced
in her hand as she caught the lift up to their floor.

*

'Darling!' Bella said as she pulled the door of the suite
open.

'Darling!' Sera replied and they embraced in a linen-crumpling
hug. Two wide cupid bows of lipstick remained
on each woman's cheek as neither had bothered with the
fake air-kiss of their peers. They laughed and spent the next
fifteen seconds thumb-wiping off their marks of genuine
affection from the other's cheek. But the warmth of the
kisses remained. On the surface it seemed as if any unresolved
tension had long passed.

'Come in, sit down,' Bella said and swept her arm
around the enormous room, which was decorated in the
neutral colour palette of the truly wealthy. The white
chandelier was a great cluster of resin antlers. The cushions
were plentiful and luxurious in their range of metallics
and had been perched daintily on the caramel and cream
upholstered couch.

'This . . . is . . . awesome!' Sera gasped and spun around
in the centre of the room. 'Honestly, I'm so excited I could
jump on the bed,' she squealed.

'Be my guest,' Bella said and opened the double doors
that led off each end of the sitting room to show two
emperor-sized beds swathed in crisp white linen and faux
fur chocolate throws.

'Seriously?' Sera looked to her sister like a child asking
permission from her mother.

In answer, Bella kicked off her shoes and leapt onto one
of the beds, springing away madly and laughing at Sera's
surprised look.

Sera leapt up too and the women held hands and
jumped up and down like a couple of kids. Bella reached
over and hit the remote and soon MTV in quadraphonic
sound was bathing the girls with bubblegum pop that only
accelerated the silliness.

Eventually, when a truly stupid song came on, they fell
in a heap. Sera's head rested on Bella's stomach.

'Do you remember Bananarama's "Venus"?' Sera asked.

'How could I forget?' Bella replied and smiled. 'How
many times did the DJ play it for us during that summer?'

'I had the best summer of my life that year,' Sera said.
'Remember that fake ID you made me?'

'It was either fake your ID so you could come to the
pub with me, or I'd have had to stay home and babysit you.
How bad was it the night we turned up and Mum was at
the bar?'

'Yeah, that was bad,' Sera said quietly.

'But she didn't even notice you, you got away with it!'

'Yeah, that was the bad bit.' Sera got up. The fun and
games were over. Time to change the subject. 'So how was
the flight today?'

'Oh, the usual. I won't put you to sleep with the details.
Here, look, I got us a bottle of Cristal duty-free.' Bella
went back into the living room and popped the cork with
a 'woo hoo' as it went pinging off the chandelier.

'You never do,' Sera said and she sat cross-legged on the
couch waiting for her drink.

'What?' Bella passed over her sister's drink and sat
down on the armchair opposite, curling her feet under her
bottom.

'You never talk about your flights, or your day, or your
life at all.'

'Sure I do, I just don't want to bore you.'

'No, I've been thinking about us a lot lately. All you do
is listen to me bang on about my petty worries,' Sera said
and sipped her drink, keeping her eyes on Bella's reaction.

'It's my job,' Bella said with a smile. She didn't like
where this was going.

'It's not.'

'Sure it is: you whinge, I listen, we drink. Fantastic.
Cheers.'

'Isn't there anything
you
want to talk about?' Sera
asked.

'Well, there is actually.' Bella's glass clinked as she put it
down onto the granite-topped coffee table. 'I'd like to talk
about Mum. You really need to go and see her. She misses
you, and she misses the kids.'

'Oh, she misses the kids, my arse – she wouldn't even
know their names.'

'Sera, don't be like that, she really wants to see you. She
can't understand why you're not talking to her.'

'I talk to her. I told you I rang her, when? Last week?'

'Last month. And the time before that was two months.'

'Yeah, well, whatever. It just ends in such an awful,
nasty way. I hate it. But I'm not
not
talking to her. It's just
that I don't need the past constantly poking its nicotine-stained
fingers into my life.'

'Sera, she's your mother. She wishes she could just
phone for a chat from time to time.'

'Chat – ha. More like whinge.'

Bella was getting annoyed now. 'Funny, that's what she
said about you.' As soon as the words were out she wished
she could shove them back in.

'What?' Sera was on her feet now, her arms folded.
'See, that's exactly the kind of stupid, antagonistic thing
she would say. Why should I bother with her when she
never bothered with me? She did notice me in the pub
that night, you know. I saw her watching me dance. But
she didn't even care that her fourteen-year-old was out
drinking in a hotel. What kind of mother do you call
that?'

'I know she noticed, Sera,' said Bella. 'I got into so
much trouble the next day, but I never told you because I
didn't want you to think it was your fault.'

Sera's mouth dropped open.

'As punishment she burned all my magazines.' Bella's
voice was quiet, barely a whisper. 'That's when I left.'

The realisation that Sera herself had inadvertently caused
her greatest fear to happen took seconds to sink in. It was her
fault. She'd caused her sister to leave for the mainland. To
leave her alone in that cesspit. She became even angrier.

'If I don't see Mum anymore, Bella, it's because it's
your fault. You shouldn't have left me there. You didn't
see how rotten my life became after you went. I had no
one. No one.'

'Oh, it's
my
fault you were a teenager and couldn't do
the bloody laundry and look after yourself? Fine, blame
me. Blame me for everything.' Bella's voice dripped with
sarcasm.

'I may as well blame you. I wouldn't have this fucking
scar destroying my body if it wasn't for you.'

It was out. The scar. Sera's words floated in the air
in front of the two women in their ugly glory. For all of
Bella's guilt about Sera's disfigurement in the past, she was
now confronted with it like an open-palmed slap. The time
had come to make a choice. So she chose. Then and there,
after years of self-recrimination, should-haves and if-onlys,
Bella decided it hadn't been her fault. Shit happens. Kids
have accidents. Life goes on.

'That was not my fault, Sera,' she told her sister quietly.
'You shouldn't have been climbing.' The freedom of finally
uttering the words sent chills down Bella's arms.

An explosion of disbelief hurtled from Sera's mouth.
She stood and picked up her handbag. She was leaving.
This was crap.

But there were things that needed to be said. Bella followed
her sister to the door.

'Kids get injured every day from stupid household
accidents,' she said. 'I'm sorry it happened to you. So very
sorry. But I was working hard looking after the four of you.
You might remember what it was like, Sera, but you don't
know the physical hard labour of it all. I would go to bed
at night exhausted. I had school all day, then home to a
pigsty, to get dinner on the table and then clean up. Then
you'd be thrashing and crying in your sleep so I'd comfort
you, but I didn't get a good sleep. It was neverending. I
couldn't wait to get out of there, to be free of the family.
To be free of you.'

Sera stared in amazement at her big sister, her lifelong
protector, her guardian angel. It was all a sham. 'How
fucking dare you?' Sera shouted. 'You self-centred cow!'

With that she flung her Versace handbag across the
room. It thudded against the wall before landing in a
heap on the marble floor with little regard for its minute
Italian stitches and softly buffed cowhide. Sera stood with
her hands on her hips. There was no way she was leaving
now.

'How dare
I
?' responded Bella, furious now. 'You
cheeky little shit!
You
are the self-centred one.
You
are the
one the world revolves around;
you
are the one who took
my childhood from me, gatecrashed my twenties, and
still
moan about how I don't give you enough attention.'

'But you wanted me, you said you liked to look after
me! You said I could hang with you in Sydney.' Even Sera
could hear her whiny little-girl tone.

'Don't you understand, Sera? That was out of guilt. I
couldn't not look after you. I blamed myself for that scar
for years. I took jobs from Mum so that I could be your
special guardian. I told her I'd watch you in the school play,
so that she didn't have to. I made your lunch even when
Mum was making the boys' lunches. Every time I saw your
leg, it pushed me further into that role. Mum wasn't as bad
as you think, Sera. I stole you from her.'

Sera leaned against the wall. Her knees shook and she
allowed her body to slip to the floor. She hunched up, her
arms hugging her knees. She was so confused.

'So all this time . . . ?' She looked up at Bella with mascara-
rimmed eyes.

'All this time I've been trying to make amends for that
hideous scar on your leg.'