Summer With My Sister Read online

  ‘How’s work?’ Clare asked when it became obvious that Polly wasn’t about to offer up any conversational openings herself.

  Polly looked down at her plate. ‘Not bad,’ she muttered, sawing at a piece of chicken breast. ‘You?’

  God, was that all she was going to give? Clare bristled, not wanting to let her sister off the hook that easily. Couldn’t she see how rude she was being? ‘Have you got much done since you came here?’ she persisted. ‘I guess you must be at the preliminary stages, right?’

  ‘Mmm,’ Polly said, not looking at her.

  There was an uneasy silence. ‘She’s been working ever so hard,’ Karen put in brightly, pouring gravy. ‘Hours and hours she’s sat there.’

  ‘Even yesterday, when I was trying to watch the cricket,’ Graham said. He rolled his eyes in an aiming-to-be-affectionate manner, but his annoyance came across loud and clear. ‘Not that it was any great loss,’ he mumbled as an afterthought. ‘England were woeful.’

  ‘Wow, working on a Saturday,’ Clare said, watching Polly closely. ‘That is dedicated.’ She raised an eyebrow at her dad. ‘Must be where we’ve gone wrong all these years. Monday to Friday just doesn’t cut it, if you want to get to the top.’

  Polly’s face tightened, but she said nothing. Somehow this annoyed Clare even more than if she’d retaliated to the goading. She was just about to push further, get some kind of rise out of her sister, when her mum changed the subject.

  ‘Remind me, Leila, what day is your assembly next week?’

  ‘Thursday,’ Leila said through a mouthful of potato. ‘It’s going to be so cool – we’re doing it on the Tudors, and we’ve found out all these gross things about Tudor punishments.’

  Clare tuned out as her daughter went into grisly detail about thumbscrews and ducking stools. She kept an eye on Polly, though, who was still eating with her head down, as if anticipating a session with some thumbscrews herself. I’m watching you, Clare thought, her eyes narrowing. I don’t know what you’re up to, but I’m watching you.

  Princess Polly sat there on her skinny, lazy arse while Clare and her mum cleared the plates and dishes away, and she went on sitting there while the crumble was served, eaten and cleared away too. ‘Doesn’t she do anything to help?’ Clare fumed as she stacked the dishwasher later on. ‘Honestly, Mum, you’ve got to tell her. She can’t treat this place – your home! – as some kind of hotel. I mean, is she even paying her way? Has she offered you any money towards food and everything?’

  ‘No, and I wouldn’t take it from her even if she did,’ her mum replied stoutly. ‘She’s my daughter, Clare, I can’t begrudge her a few meals and a bed, not when she’s asked so little from us for all these years. I’m her mother. I want to look after her.’

  Clare nodded, her lips pursed. Fair enough. She could understand her mum’s point of view. What she didn’t understand was how Polly could think it was in any way okay to let her parents wait on her hand and foot. ‘Leave those,’ she told her mum, who was filling the sink with hot water to clean the roasting tins. ‘Me and Polly will do them. POLLY!’ she yelled before Karen could argue. ‘Give us a hand with the washing up, will you?’

  ‘I’ll make some coffee then,’ Karen suggested, as Polly shuffled into the kitchen, a sulky look on her face.

  ‘No, you won’t,’ Clare told her. ‘You’ve been slaving away all morning making lunch for everyone. Go and put your feet up and read the newspaper. We’ll do the coffee once the washing up’s done.’

  Karen hesitated. ‘Go on,’ Clare ordered. ‘Shoo. And shut the door after you, too.’ Polly and I are going to have a little chat, she thought grimly, squirting washing-up liquid into the bowl.

  Polly, meanwhile, looked coldly furious about being bossed around. You could tell she wasn’t used to it.

  ‘Look,’ Clare said shortly, dumping the saucepans into the foamy water. ‘I think you’re out of order, doing your Lady Muck thing here. Mum and Dad aren’t loaded, you know. Has it even crossed your mind that they might not be able to afford an extra person in the house? Have you offered them any money, some kind of contribution towards your three-month stay?’ She scrubbed at the metal steamer furiously. ‘Let me guess … No.’

  ‘It’s none of your business,’ Polly said, glaring.

  ‘Oh yes, it is,’ Clare replied. ‘It is my business when I see my own parents being pushed out of their home by you. They’re tiptoeing around you, trying not to disturb you … Why do you think they’re never in? Poor Dad has missed all his favourite programmes, according to Mum. Well, it’s not on. It’s their home.’

  ‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ Polly exploded. ‘Don’t fucking remind me!’

  ‘I still can’t work out what you’re actually doing here,’ Clare retorted, slamming the steamer on the drainer in a splatter of suds. ‘Why on earth aren’t you doing your poxy research in your own flat?’

  ‘Because I can’t concentrate there,’ Polly said. ‘I needed to get out of London, to … to …’ She was floundering, waving the tea towel in agitation. ‘To clear my head.’

  There was an edge in her voice, an anxiety that gave Clare pause. ‘Well, why didn’t you just book yourself into a luxury hotel then?’ she replied after a moment. ‘Seems to me that you’d have been much happier with room service and a pool and whatnot. Why come back here?’

  ‘Because … Look, what difference does it make to you anyway?’ Polly was crumbling. Clare felt a mixture of curiosity and horror at the sight of her perfect, polished sister looking so disconcerted for once.

  ‘What difference does it make? Every difference, when it affects the lives of – ’ Clare broke off as Alex trailed into the kitchen. ‘Not now, love,’ she told him. ‘I’m just talking to Aunty Polly.’

  ‘No, you’re not, you’re shouting,’ he said, his eyes darting between them with interest. ‘Can I have a chocolate biscuit?’

  ‘No! For heaven’s sake, Alex, you’ve just eaten a massive lunch,’ Clare snapped, more impatiently than she normally would have done. ‘Can you give us a minute, please,’ she said, in a softer voice. ‘We’re … in the middle of something.’ And it’s just getting interesting, she thought. ‘Close the door after you, good boy.’

  There was a strained silence once the door had clicked shut. Clare’s heart was beating quickly as she sluiced out the potato pan. ‘Look, I get the feeling there’s something you’re not telling us,’ she said evenly. ‘You might as well come out with it.’

  Polly rubbed hard at the steamer with a tea towel, even though it was already quite dry. She remained mutinously silent.

  ‘Have you split up with someone – is that why you’ve run away from London?’ Clare guessed. It would explain a lot about her sister’s gaunt appearance and stand-offishness, she thought, if she was secretly nursing a broken heart.

  ‘No,’ Polly said, unable to help a sigh escaping with the word.

  ‘Well, what then? What in God’s name is it? Are you ill?’

  The door opened before Polly could reply and their dad stuck his head round. ‘Everything all right in here, girls?’

  ‘Fine,’ they chorused untruthfully, neither of them looking at him.

  He shut the door again. The atmosphere between them was now so tense that Clare’s head was starting to ache.

  ‘I’m not ill,’ Polly muttered. ‘I …’

  She paused and an awkward silence thickened. Clare pressed her lips together, scrubbing at the roasting tin, while the clock ticked loudly on the wall behind them. I’m going to find out the truth if I have to shake it out of her, she thought ferociously. I knew there was something going on. I knew it.

  ‘If I tell you,’ Polly said in a low voice, uncharacteristically nervous. ‘If I tell you, you’ve got to promise not to tell Mum and Dad. I mean it. You’ve got to swear on your life.’

  Clare stared at her in alarm. Wow, this sounded more serious than a broken heart. Was Polly in trouble? Was she on the run from some heinous crime, o
r allegation? She blinked and then nodded. ‘Go on, then. I promise,’ she said.

  Polly’s mouth buckled as if she were on the verge of tears. She swallowed hard then held her head up and looked Clare in the eye. ‘I’ve lost my job, Clare,’ she said. ‘I’ve lost everything.’

  Clare stared at her in astonishment. ‘You’ve … lost your job?’ she repeated dumbly.

  ‘Yes,’ Polly said.

  Clare was still staring. ‘But, this work you’re doing …’ She frowned, her brain not computing.

  Polly shrugged. ‘Is a big fat lie,’ she said. ‘I’m just trying to get another job. Didn’t want to tell Mum and Dad.’ She glared. ‘And you mustn’t tell them either. You did promise!’

  ‘Yes, of course. I mean, no, I won’t tell them. Shit, Polly.’ Clare bit her lip. She still couldn’t take it in. Of all the things for her sister to say, she hadn’t been expecting this one. ‘Shit, I’m sorry, I had no idea. I thought—’

  ‘Yeah, I know what you thought,’ Polly said. ‘I know exactly what you thought.’

  ‘But … Oh God. So you’ve lost your flat too?’

  Polly’s dark eyes glittered and for an awful moment Clare thought she was about to cry. For the first time in years Clare was struck with the impulse to put an arm around her sister. It felt … weird.

  Polly swung her head away haughtily as if she’d rather die than have anyone’s sympathetic arm around her. ‘Yep. I’ve had to put it on the market,’ she said, her tone brittle.

  ‘Fuck. I’m really sorry to hear that.’

  ‘Are you?’ Polly’s voice was a disbelieving sneer.

  ‘Of course I am!’ Clare cried. ‘I know we haven’t exactly got on very well, but I’m not made of stone.’

  There was a pause that stretched between them like a crevasse. Feeling awkward at her sister’s palpable vulnerability, Clare turned back to the roasting tin. ‘What are you going to do?’ she asked after a moment.

  ‘Find something else,’ Polly mumbled. ‘What choice have I got?’

  ‘What, and stay here indefinitely?’ Clare asked.

  Polly gritted her teeth. ‘Clare, I’ve got nowhere else to go,’ she said, losing her patience. ‘I’ve got no money left. And I’m trying to find another job, but it’s not fucking easy, you know?’

  ‘What about friends – couldn’t you stay with one of your friends in London? Or … ?’ Clare floundered under her sister’s ferocious scowl. ‘I guess not,’ she muttered.

  Polly was drying a saucepan, but it somehow slipped from her fingers, clattering to the floor. As she bent to pick it up, Clare noticed the thinness of her shoulders, the misery on her face. She looked broken; a far cry from the strutting show-off she’d been for so many years.

  I’m not made of stone, she’d said just two minutes earlier. But the truth was, she’d hardened herself to Polly over the years. Who wouldn’t? What with her disastrous hen night when Polly had turned her nose up at Clare’s friends and slunk away early from the nightclub, then Clare’s wedding to which Polly had arrived rudely late and sat there at the back of the chapel with her shades on looking bored the whole time, and, then worst of all, the births of her children, about whom Polly had shown a hurtful lack of interest. It was enough to turn anyone against their own flesh and blood.

  But all the same, Polly was her sister. The only sibling she had left.

  Clare put the last tin in the drainer and tipped the water away. They both watched as it swirled around the sink and gurgled down the plughole, then Clare took a deep breath. ‘Look,’ she said awkwardly. ‘I think Mum and Dad are finding it hard having you staying.’

  ‘They’re finding it hard? It’s not exactly a picnic for me either, you know!’

  Clare gritted her teeth. Even when she was being offered refuge, Polly still had to be such a snob. She was on the verge of changing her mind, retracting the offer before it had even been made, until she saw the wobble of Polly’s lip. One tiny movement that belied her superiority.

  Oh, just say it, Clare. She’ll probably say no, and then at least you can go home with a clean conscience. She owed it to Michael, at least, to try and patch things up. She’d let him down, to her everlasting regret; she couldn’t leave Polly stranded in her hour of need too, however hateful she was being right now.

  She swallowed, trying to put a pleasant expression on her face. ‘So … why don’t you stay with me and the kids instead?’ she said.

  Polly stared. ‘I …’

  ‘I mean, you’d have to pull your weight obviously; it wouldn’t be like staying here, where Mum’s done everything for you,’ Clare put in quickly. There was no way she was going to cut Polly the same amount of slack her parents had. ‘You’d have to muck in, help out around the place.’ Then, seeing how stunned Polly was looking (God, she was actually speechless with gratitude), she softened. ‘But, yeah. You can stay. The kids won’t mind bunking in together for a while, just until you’re straight again.’

  ‘But …’ Polly was still staring. ‘Is this some kind of trick?’

  Clare blinked. That hadn’t been the response she’d been expecting. Thanks, Clare, I really appreciate this. Thanks, Clare, that’s so kind of you. Ha. To think she’d actually believed there had been gratitude on her sister’s face. Disdain, more like. Suspicion. Well, sod her then.

  She folded her arms across her chest, feeling defensive. How dare Polly be so sniffy about her extremely generous offer? ‘Well, it’s up to you anyway,’ she said coldly. Polly’s lip curled. Rude bitch, thought Clare with increasing fury.

  ‘I … I’ll think about it,’ Polly muttered.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Yeah, right, Polly had thought. Stay at Clare’s and have her little sister patronize and pity her? Not in a million years. Clare had always envied Polly’s success – it was obvious she couldn’t wait to gloat endlessly about her downfall. Dream on, Clare. I’ll think about it, she’d said, just to shut her up, although she didn’t intend to give it another second’s thought. But then, the very next day something awful happened.

  She was working in the living room – well, all right, clicking furtively onto the estate agent’s website to look longingly at the photos of her flat, in between cruising the recruitment websites for the zillionth time – when she heard a strange sound. A faint, muffled sound of distress. She stiffened, straining to hear. Was it the stupid dog, trapped in a cupboard somewhere? A bird that had fallen down the chimney?

  Frozen in silence, ear cocked, she listened hard. There it went again.

  She was the only person in the house; her parents had been in a slightly subdued mood that morning and hadn’t talked much about their plans for the day. Grateful for the silence, Polly hadn’t bothered asking what they were up to, but had heard the front door shut behind them and her dad’s car drive away an hour or so ago. So who was making that noise?

  She slipped off her chair and padded across the room, dread thickening inside her. Oh God, what if a bird had flown in somewhere and was beating around the room, frantic to get out? She had a thing about birds – their weird beady eyes, their clawed feet, those prehistoric beaks. There would be feathers and crap everywhere; she’d have to go out and pretend she hadn’t heard anything, to avoid having to clear up the mess herself.

  The sound was louder now, and Polly’s heart lurched. It wasn’t a bird. It was somebody crying. Somebody who sounded very much like her mum. Oh shit. Now what was she supposed to do?

  She hesitated helplessly, knowing that Clare, of course, would have rushed in, arms outstretched, the angel of comfort. But Polly was no angel of comfort. She was a shamble of awkwardness and stood paralysed for a few moments, without a bloody clue what to do next.

  She walked slowly to the doorway, hoping the crying would subside. To her dismay, the volume increased. Actual sobs were coming from her parents’ bedroom now. Oh, help. If only she’d gone out to work in the garden, or taken the wretched dog for another walk. She couldn’t do this, she couldn’t com
fort her own weeping mother, she didn’t know where to start.

  She had to do something, though.

  She knocked tentatively at the closed bedroom door. ‘Can I come in?’

  There was no answer. That probably meant ‘No’, didn’t it? Her mum wouldn’t want to be disturbed if she was having a moment. Polly was about to creep away in relief when she heard a quiet, tearful ‘Yes’.

  Damn.

  Karen Johnson was always upbeat and cheerful, always smiling and warm. That was who she was; that was her way. Today, though, she was crumpled on the bed, her face blotchy, her eyes streaming with tears.

  Polly sat beside her and gingerly put a hand on her mother’s heaving back. ‘Mum, what’s up?’

  To her astonishment, Karen seemed angry to be asked. ‘What’s up?’ she mimicked, her voice shrill. ‘What’s up? Do you really not know? It’s the thirteenth of June, Polly. Don’t tell me you’d actually forgotten?’

  All the breath seemed trapped in her body for a moment. Of course she knew. Of course she hadn’t forgotten. The thirteenth of June was Michael’s birthday. She’d lost track of the days since she’d been here. ‘Oh God,’ she said, choking on the words. ‘I didn’t realize.’

  ‘He would have been thirty-five,’ Karen sobbed. ‘Thirty-five years old. Married with kids, maybe. But we’ll never know.’

  She covered her eyes as she wept, and Polly felt dumbfounded with guilt and uselessness all over again. This was horrendous. She wanted her mum to stop crying – now, please – or if not that, for them to be able to cry together, to share the grief. But neither option seemed possible.

  She patted her mum’s arm. ‘It’s all right,’ she tried saying feebly. ‘It’s all right, Mum.’