Summer With My Sister Read online

  She’d giggled. She couldn’t resist. ‘Go on, then. But we’ve got to be quick,’ she muttered.

  And so, fumbling and fondling, they’d removed one another’s clothes and Polly had lain back on the burgundy faux-leather sofa, the vinyl cushions cold under her bare bum. Jay had wrestled with the condom and just then, over the sound of his rubbery manoeuvring and Shaun Ryder’s drawl, she’d heard a cry. ‘Polly? Polly!’

  She froze. ‘That’s Michael,’ she said, feeling very exposed and less sure about this whole idea all of a sudden. If her brother came downstairs now and saw her like this, oh my God, she’d absolutely die. He’d never let her forget it!

  Jay grinned, condom-clad cock bobbing as he straddled her. ‘Don’t think about him,’ he whispered. ‘Think about this.’

  Then he was kissing her, and Michael drifted clean out of her mind. And at some moment during Jay’s thrusts and her muffled gasps, her brother died in a small bedroom upstairs, all on his own, just like that.

  She didn’t find out until it was too late. Once she and Jay had cleaned themselves up, faces flushed, hair dishevelled, beaming at one another; once the soggy tissues had been plunged well into the kitchen bin so that her parents would be none the wiser; once the sofa had been given a quick wipe-over and the cushions plumped up again, only then had she remembered her brother calling out to her.

  ‘I suppose I’d better go and see what Sickboy wanted,’ she said, her eyes lingering on Jay’s face. ‘Back in a minute.’

  And then nothing was ever the same again.

  Polly gripped the edge of the bench, trying to push away the images of that awful night, but they kept hurtling into her mind as if it had only been last week.

  It had been a cerebral aneurysm, the rupture of a bulging blood vessel in his brain, causing a massive haemorrhage. ‘A time-bomb waiting to go off they’d said at the hospital. ‘Incredibly rare. There was nothing anyone could have done.’

  But Polly disagreed. If she’d got to her brother in time, if she’d run to him when he’d called out her name instead of prostrating herself for Jay, she might have been able to save him. She could have made everything different. It was all her fault.

  Blindly she got up from the bench. Her breath felt shallow and difficult, and she put a hand to her chest as she walked. She had to get back to her parents’ house, had to get away from this garden. The scent of the flowers seemed intoxicating now, overpowering. They made her feel queasy and faint.

  Her mind still bursting with unasked-for memories, she stumbled through the gate and along the churchyard path to find Sissy. Sweat trickled down her spine and her tongue felt thick and uncomfortable in her parched, dry mouth.

  Coming back had been a mistake, a terrible mistake. She grabbed Sissy’s lead and all but ran to the bungalow.

  Chapter Eleven

  On Friday evening Karen knocked on Clare’s back door and let herself in. ‘Yoohoo, babysitter entering premises,’ she yodelled.

  Clare was up in her bedroom, trying to decide what to wear. ‘Down in a minute,’ she yelled, hearing the children’s cries of ‘Grandma!’ and Fred’s welcoming woof, then turned back to the mirror.

  The jeans were giving her a bit of a muffin-top – she’d put on a few pounds lately. It was typical that she should be feeling blobby just when her sister had rocked up looking like a size zero. Mind you, Polly’s gaunt, haggard appearance wasn’t exactly scoring highly on the foxy stakes, either. Clare had found herself wondering if this ‘research’ that her sister had come to do was actually code for some horrible terminal illness. Polly’s hair, which had always been enviably glossy and bouncy, was now dull and straggly, just hanging from her scalp. Her brown eyes looked like holes in her head, ringed with the dark circles of a poor sleeper, although they glittered with defiance, as if daring Clare to say a single word about her appearance.

  It was only when Polly started speaking in that insufferably patronizing way of hers that Clare realized she was fighting fit after all, rather than on her deathbed. ‘Fighting’ being the operative word.

  Oh, skirt it was, she decided, snatching it off the hanger. She was heading into Amberley for Roxie’s birthday drinks and there would probably be hordes of Roxie’s skinny young twenty-something friends there too. Next to them, she’d feel like a fat slab of mutton dressed as lamb in her jeans. Her legs were her best feature, even if they were still slightly streaky from a self-tanning disaster; she might as well show them off in a skirt rather than cover them up.

  She dressed quickly, slapped on some mascara and lipstick and dabbed her wrists and neck with perfume. A few weeks ago she’d seen an article in one of the magazines at the surgery about making your own scent and she’d tried some of the recipes printed there. This fragrance was called ‘Arabian Queen’ and was a heady mix of orange, juniper, coriander and frankincense oils. It smelled fresh and exotic on her skin, and she was complimented on the scent every time she wore it. She’d already wrapped up a bottle of it for Roxie, along with a home-made bath-bomb, as her present. One day she’d be able to afford flash gifts for her friends, like Polly could, but right now everyone would just have to make do with cheap and cheerful.

  One last look in the mirror. She fluffed up her shoulder-length brown hair, peered in at her eyes to check for stray blobs of mascara and bared her teeth to inspect them for lipstick. She wished she didn’t look quite so nervous. Then she flicked off the bedroom light and ran downstairs to the kitchen, where she could hear Leila and Alex chattering away to Grandma, talking over one another in their eagerness to tell her all their news.

  Karen looked up as Clare came in. She was sitting at the table with Fred’s daft head on her knee and a grandchild on either side. ‘Hi, love,’ she said. ‘You look nice. Ooh, lovely perfume too,’ she added, sniffing the air.

  ‘Thanks, Mum,’ Clare said. ‘It’s one I made – I’ve got lots spare, if you want a bottle of your own.’

  ‘Yes, please,’ her mum replied. She winked at the children. ‘That’ll give Grandad a shock, won’t it, when I come in smelling all posh.’

  Clare smiled. ‘Kids, get your pyjamas on, I’ll be up in five minutes to do your teeth.’ She set the kettle to boil as they thundered upstairs. ‘How’s it going, then, with your new house-guest?’ she asked, frowning as she noticed how weary her mum looked. She hoped Polly hadn’t run her ragged.

  ‘Well, it’s taking a bit of getting used to,’ Karen replied delicately, stroking Fred’s silky ears, ‘but it’s lovely to have her. She’s working ever so hard, though. I haven’t dared hoover or sit down and watch any of my programmes because she’s sat there at the desk all day.’ She shook her head, a web of fine lines creasing the sides of her mouth as she clicked her tongue. ‘I wish she’d relax a bit, but she’s … Well, she seems very tense. Me and your dad have been tiptoeing around her. Your dad didn’t even watch Countdown this afternoon. Went out and mowed the lawn instead, even though it didn’t really need doing. And then Polly got all tetchy about the noise, so he shouldn’t have bothered.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ Clare said. It irked her, her parents having to pussyfoot around Polly in their own home. ‘Can’t she work in her room? I mean, why does she have to hog the living room? Surely Dad should be able to watch Countdown when he wants to.’

  ‘That’s what he says,’ Karen replied, scratching Fred under the chin. ‘We’ve had a few barneys about it already. You know what he’s like, the stubborn old mule. But we’ll all get used to each other soon, I’m sure,’ she added loyally. ‘It’s just … different.’

  Clare busied herself making the tea and didn’t reply immediately. She knew her mum was so happy to have Polly back that she wasn’t about to rock the boat in any way. That was understandable, given that Polly had all but estranged herself for so many years, but at the same time Clare didn’t want her sister to take advantage. ‘Well, don’t let her push you around, all right?’ she said in the end. ‘Tell her you’ll stop her allowance if she doesn’t behave. Or
ground her!’

  ‘Chance would be a fine thing,’ Karen sighed. ‘She’s grounded herself. Not interested in coming out and meeting our friends. Not bothered about seeing Jacky Garland, even though Jacky invited her over, said she’d organize a little coffee morning with some of Polly’s other friends from school so that they could all catch up.’

  ‘What, and she said no?’

  Karen nodded. ‘Didn’t even think about it before she refused flat out. What am I going to tell Jean now? It’s very rude, especially when Jacky’s going out of her way.’ She shrugged. ‘Probably seems a bit quiet here after London, though. She must miss all her mates. I’ve been trying to get out of her whether or not there’s a fella on the scene back there, but if there is, she’s not letting on.’ She mimed zipping her lips. ‘You know Polly, though. Always been the secretive type.’

  ‘Mmmm,’ Clare said. It was weird, she mused, how none of them had any idea what was happening in Polly’s private life. Clare knew nothing whatsoever about her sister’s relationships or friendships, hadn’t a clue what she did in her spare time. She could have been married several times over, for all that the rest of the family knew. Her mum was right – Polly had always been secretive; a closed book, whereas Clare was completely the opposite. She had the worst face ever for playing poker, you could read every emotion she was experiencing from the expression she wore. It was kind of annoying sometimes, being so transparent, but at least she felt honest. What must it be like being Polly, so repressed and shut-off from the world? How could anyone bear to live that way?

  ‘Edith Lindley said she’d seen her dashing into the churchyard earlier,’ Karen said, raising her eyebrows meaningfully. ‘I couldn’t believe it, but she said it was definitely Polly. Well, it was definitely Sissy anyway, and I’m pretty sure nobody else was walking her into the village.’

  ‘Wow,’ Clare said, taken aback. ‘She hasn’t been there for—’

  ‘Since the funeral,’ Karen said quietly. They locked eyes. ‘I’ve not had the chance to ask her about it yet. I hope she’s all right.’

  It was a twenty-minute drive to Amberley at this time of the evening, and Clare found a parking space in the Somerfield car park for her little battered Fiat. Driving there and back wasn’t ideal, but she couldn’t afford the cab fare, and it was too far to walk. It meant she couldn’t drink either, which was a pain. On this sort of occasion where you were thrust into somebody else’s circle of friends, not knowing any of them, a bit of Dutch courage really helped. Still, she was so skint she couldn’t afford Dutch courage anyway. She’d have to dredge up some of her own instead.

  Roxanne was having her birthday drinks in The Fox and Goose, a smart, upmarket bar on Amberley’s main street. It had been styled with mellow lighting, ironic flock wallpaper and elegant, chintzy sofas set around solid wooden tables. Some of the walls were rough stone, while others were hung with vibrant paintings, wrought-iron sconces bearing thick white candles and, bizarrely, a black-and-white cowhide.

  There was already a crowd when Clare walked in, and a buzzy Friday-night atmosphere. She scanned the place for her friend and began to make her way through the tables of shiny-haired women and smart-casual men, trying not to feel intimidated. It was certainly a far cry from the King’s Arms in Elderchurch, the sole pub in the village, a cosy, comforting place of worn velvet banquettes and dark wood, where Stu and Erica, the landlord and landlady, presided over the beer pumps like everyone’s favourite aunt and uncle.

  She craned her neck, trying to catch a glimpse of the birthday girl. Where was she?

  ‘Clare, is that you?’

  A deep voice just behind her left ear made her jump, and Clare swung around. Then she blushed. Luke Brightside was standing right there, inches away, smiling down at her. He was tall with rather rumpled dark hair and grey eyes and … and he was far too young and handsome for the likes of Clare, she reminded herself firmly.

  ‘Oh good,’ he said. ‘It is you. I hate walking into places like this on my own. Where do you suppose Birthday Princess is then?’

  Clare smiled, grateful to have been spotted. He smelled nice: fresh, woody and masculine. Then she realized he was waiting for her to speak. ‘Um … I don’t know,’ she gabbled stupidly. Heat rushed into her face. God, she was so obvious. Middle-aged single mother hitting on the young handsome doctor. How sad could you get?

  ‘Let’s brave the meat-market together, shall we?’ he joked.

  ‘Let’s,’ Clare said. ‘Eyes peeled for the Birthday Princess.’ And to cover her awkwardness at being in such close proximity to Luke, she promptly strode away from him into the crowd.

  After a near miss with a gin-and-tonic spill, then almost treading on someone’s dainty Grecian-sandalled foot with her own great clodhoppers, Clare spotted Roxie holding court in a corner at the back. She was wearing a satsuma-coloured, tight, ruched dress complete with matching feathery hairband perched in her curled blonde hair, high pink heels and about a gallon of mascara. On Clare, the outfit would have looked monstrous, but Roxie was so supremely confident in herself that the whole look screamed fabulous.

  ‘Clare! Luke! Ooh, hello,’ she squealed. She was sitting against the wall, surrounded by a gaggle of women drinking lurid cocktails, but crawled inelegantly under the table to get out and greet the new arrivals.

  Clare laughed as Roxie emerged, brushed herself down and flung her arms around each of them in turn. ‘Thank you so much for coming,’ she said, beaming. ‘Did you arrive … together?’ She raised an eyebrow as if scenting gossip, and Clare shook her head.

  ‘Just met at the door,’ she said, pressing the gift bag of presents into Roxie’s hand. ‘Here. Happy birthday, lovely.’

  Luke handed over a card. ‘Happy birthday, Roxie,’ he said. ‘Sorry, I’m hopeless with presents, but let me buy you a drink at least.’

  ‘Oh, you don’t have to, Luke,’ Roxie demurred, batting her eyelashes. ‘But go on then, it is my birthday, so I’ll have a Kinky Pink please, thank you very much.’

  Luke laughed at her breathless delivery. ‘A Kinky … Pink. Okay. I can do that,’ he said. ‘Clare, how about you, what would you like?’

  Satin sheets, fresh strawberries and your naked body was on the tip of her tongue. ‘A lime and soda,’ was all she said, though. ‘Please.’

  He walked away and she had to stop herself from sighing with out-and-out lust. Get a grip, Clare. She was glad that she wasn’t having an alcoholic drink now; she’d only get overexcited and make a tit of herself. That was one thing she did not want to do in front of Dr Brightside.

  ‘Ah, when you two arrived together like that, I thought something exciting might have happened,’ Roxie teased.

  ‘As if,’ Clare replied, pulling a face. ‘Are you having a good time then?’

  ‘I certainly am,’ Roxie replied. ‘See that guy over there – don’t stare! – in the lavender shirt with the cropped hair? I’ve got my eye on him. Planning to kidnap him and take him back to mine later, see if he’ll give me a birthday treat.’

  Clare slid her gaze along to where a good-looking man in his early twenties sat with a couple of mates. He wore a garish shirt (Clare would have said purple, but she supposed ‘lavender’ sounded more tasteful) and had unusual green eyes (colour contacts?) and a swarthy, unshaven jaw. Just looking at it made Clare imagine how prickly it would be to be kissed by him when that jaw was sandpapering against your face, but she decided it was better not to say so. ‘Nice,’ she commented. ‘So, are you going to introduce me to your friends then, or what?’

  Roxie introduced her to Davina, Maz, Coco, Jodie, Amelie, Izzy and … oh, Clare had lost track by Izzy. She smiled, feeling dazed, as one by one these gorgeous young creatures stopped nattering and turned to say hi to her. ‘Hi, everyone,’ she said with a silly little wave. ‘Um … mind if I sit next to you, Coco?’

  ‘It’s Jodie, but sure, go ahead,’ Jodie replied, tossing her sleek chestnut mane over one shoulder.

  Clare was save
d from having to initiate an awkward conversation by Luke reappearing and plonking a large pink cocktail in front of her. ‘Sorry,’ he said cheerfully, ‘I completely forgot what you said you wanted, so I bought you a Kinky Pink as well. Roxie! Here’s your drink.’ He sat next to Clare and raised a pint of lager in her direction. ‘Cheers,’ he said. ‘Nice to be out with you for a change. We never get the chance to speak much at the surgery, do we?’

  ‘No,’ Clare said, eyeing her cocktail warily. It looked dangerously alcoholic. ‘Um … What’s in this, do you know?’ she asked. ‘Only I’ve got the car; I’m going to drive back tonight.’

  ‘Oh God, sorry,’ he said. ‘My memory’s so crap. People tell me things and seconds later it’s vanished from my head. What was it you wanted? I’ll go back to the bar.’

  Clare hesitated. She had twenty-five quid in her purse, which was meant to last the weekend. She really didn’t want to dip into that for a taxi, which would probably cost fifteen pounds. And while she mustn’t get over the limit, at the same time she didn’t want to have to explain all this to Luke, as she was worried that she’d come across as a total wet or, even worse, a skinflint. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘One drink will be fine. And thank you.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ he asked. ‘I don’t mind. We can always give it to Roxie, she’ll be happy to neck them both, I bet.’

  Clare made some rapid calculations. She wanted to get Roxie a drink, and would like to buy Luke one too, now that he’d got the first round. That would probably come to the best part of a tenner. If she dragged this Kinky Pink out and then just drank tap water, she’d be all right. ‘No, it’s fine,’ she said. Decision made, she sipped it. ‘It’s lovely, thanks.’

  There was a small silence as they looked around. Then they both started talking at once.

  ‘So, do you know … ?’

  ‘So, whereabouts do you … ?’

  He laughed. ‘Go on, you first,’ he said.