Summer With My Sister Read online

  Now it was as if those numbers were springing off the page, materializing into human form one by one, person by person. Her. She envisaged the seventh floor exchanging the same nervous banter in the wake of her departure – the rather-her-than-me expressions, the there-but-for-the-grace-of-Mr-Warrington reflections. They wouldn’t care for long, just as she hadn’t. She would be forgotten by the afternoon, with all the excitement of Marcus moving into her office. Bloody Marcus Handbury. She felt like making a break for it past the security guard and rugby-tackling him in the corridor, pelting him with her fists.

  ‘Miss Johnson?’ the guard prompted, and she jerked back to the here and now.

  ‘Right,’ she said. ‘So … that’s it? No exit interview or anything?’

  He shook his head. ‘The HR team will contact you with the official redundancy package, plus information about claiming benefits or …’

  Polly glared at him and he ground to a halt. Claiming benefits? What was the man talking about? ‘Very well,’ she said curtly. ‘Perhaps you could call me a cab home.’ Her voice brooked no argument; it was the least the stinking company could do, now they’d stolen everything else from her.

  ‘Of course,’ he said, dialling a number and speaking a few words into the phone. He turned back to her. ‘Your postcode?’

  ‘SE1,’ she replied, trying to load it with as much haughtiness as she could muster. Her apartment on the embankment seemed like a glittering refuge all of a sudden. She would barricade herself in there, get into bed and pull the duvet over her head; block out the rest of the world for as long as possible.

  Maybe she would wake up and this entire morning would have been a bad dream. She hoped.

  She barely noticed the London streets flashing by as the cab took her back over the Thames to her flat. She kept glancing at the contents of her box – the tights, the sweets, the smart clothes – still unable to believe what was happening. As the driver pulled up outside her building, she wondered for a moment if she would have to pay for the journey (surely Waterman’s had stumped up for the cab fare, hadn’t they?), but thankfully the driver merely produced a chit for her to sign and didn’t charge her.

  She remembered to thank him – Jake’s words ringing dreadfully in her ears – then let herself into the apartment block and took the lift to her floor. Bloody hell. Her legs were shaking, her head was spinning, her eyes were filling with tears. She blinked fiercely. Don’t cry, she ordered herself. Stuff them. If they didn’t appreciate her, there would be plenty of other people who did. Henry Curtis, for one, the guy who’d been pestering her to meet him for dinner. He’d be first on her list of contacts to call. He’d snap her up in an instant.

  She fumbled with her key in the apartment door, the box of stuff balanced awkwardly on her hip. She’d held herself together remarkably well, given the circumstances. Not a sniffle, not a tear, not even an argument. Such dignity, such control. But then her self-congratulation gave way to doubt. Why hadn’t she put up a fight? Why hadn’t she made a defence case more forcefully to Warrington, told him the company couldn’t afford to lose her? Instead she’d been so numb with the shock that she’d taken everything they’d thrown at her without a murmur. What an idiot she’d been.

  Well, the first thing she was going to do when she got in, she thought, finally managing to shove open her door and walk through, was—

  Someone screamed. Polly screamed too, dropping the box so that it thumped down onto the carpet. There was a strange woman brandishing a Hoover nozzle at her, with a ferocious look on her face. Then the woman clapped a hand to her chest and laughed in relief. ‘Ah! You are she? You are lady, Miss Johnson?’

  Polly gathered herself. Oh, Christ. The cleaner. Exactly what she didn’t need right now, some strange woman in her flat, who couldn’t even speak proper English. ‘Yes, I am Miss Johnson,’ she said in her talking-to-foreigners voice, loud and over-enunciated. She bent down and picked up the box. ‘Look,’ she said wearily, ‘just go, will you? I want to be on my own.’

  ‘I am Magda,’ the cleaner said, without being asked. She was in her twenties at a guess, slim and slight in tight grey jeans and purple Crocs. She had bobbed dark hair with a bright-red streak in one side, lots of earrings and an attitude. ‘Soon finish.’

  ‘No, finish now,’ Polly ordered, irritation spiking through her. Stupid woman. Today of all days was not the right time for the cleaner to start arguing with her.

  Magda shrugged. ‘I no mop floor yet,’ she said. ‘And why you here, Miss Johnson? You have holiday?’

  ‘No, I don’t have … Look, just push off, all right? Leave! I don’t care about the mopping. Just leave me in peace.’

  Magda stared coolly at this blotchy-faced, high-pitched, shrill woman standing there in her suit and heels. So she thought she could look down on Magda, did she, just because Magda was the unlucky one who had to clean her toilet and scrub her shower? How dare she start playing the big lady to Magda, who sweated, who slaved, who slogged, and all for a miserable pittance? Ha!

  Magda folded her arms mutinously across her chest. ‘I am here for three hours,’ she said. ‘I stay for three hours.’

  ‘Oh for crying out loud,’ Polly yelled. ‘Is this about your poxy pay? Fine, I’ll pay you for three hours then. Do I look like I care about an extra half an hour, or whatever it is? Well, I don’t. So …’

  But Magda didn’t appear to be listening. She’d dumped the Hoover nozzle right there on the floor and was shrugging on a denim jacket that she’d left on the hall table, along with a tiny khaki shoulder-bag.

  ‘Okay, I go,’ she said, pausing a moment to check her hair in Polly’s large hall mirror. ‘No need to shout at me, Miss Johnson. I only want to do my job.’

  Cool as anything, she walked past Polly, nose in the air, and out the front door. Polly shut it thankfully after her, only realizing then that she had no idea where she should put the Hoover away.

  She leaned against the front door and closed her eyes for a moment. Now what?

  It was weird being at home on a Tuesday. It was still only eleven-thirty and the rest of the day stretched blankly before her. Twitchy and restless, Polly wandered through the empty rooms of her flat, seeing it all through new eyes. Her enormous black leather sofas and the flat-screen plasma TV … she’d hardly used them, now that she thought about it. She wasn’t the sort of saddo who sat and watched TV on her own every night, after all; she was always out with the gang in the Red House, or at a function or launch or evening drinks, mingling her butt off, toasting the latest success. Even at weekends she tended not to slob out in here; she’d often end up in the office, promising herself that she’d catch up for a few hours there, only to blink and realize that it was somehow seven in the evening and she’d spent the whole day at work again.

  And now every day was going to be shockingly empty, just like that. A two-minute conversation with Drongo Warrington and her life had imploded. What was left for her to do?

  She sat experimentally on one of the sofas. Quite comfortable really. She kicked off her heels and tucked her feet up underneath herself. Even better. She stared around the room wonderingly. What did people do with themselves all day, when they didn’t have a high-powered job in the City? Clare, for example, her sister. She only worked a few measly hours a day and spent the rest of the time mooning about at home. Doing what, exactly? Cleaning? Washing? Ironing the kids’ school uniforms?

  Polly shuddered. Poor thing; she couldn’t imagine anything worse. She stood up, about to check her emails, before remembering that she no longer had a BlackBerry. Or the company laptop. Christ. She sat down again, putting her head in her hands. Talk about a blow, losing all those contacts in one swoop. Why had she never thought to back them up? She had to get hold of some new kit immediately.

  But first … Hell, this was the first actual day off she’d had in months. How did she work the TV again?

  Chapter Four

  ‘Happy birthday to you,

  Happy birthda
y to you,

  Happy birthday dear Leila

  Happy birthday to you.’

  ‘Make a wish,’ Clare urged as she, Alex and her parents finished singing. Leila leaned forward, her face softly lit by the ten flickering candles, then blew out all the flames in one breath.

  Leila shut her eyes, and Clare saw her lips twitch as she murmured something to herself. What was she wishing for? World peace, the biggest slice of cake, or something even more important, like those trainers she’d been eyeing up in JJB Sports?

  Clare sniffled, softening with love for her beautiful ten-year-old daughter, who’d been born in this very room in the birthing pool they’d hired for the occasion. Steve had really wanted her to give birth in the cottage hospital twelve miles away – he didn’t want to see all that blood and gore in his own house, he said – but Clare had put her foot down. She hated hospitals, after what had happened with Michael. She wasn’t going anywhere.

  And so Leila Grace Berry had made her way into the world in their warm, candlelit kitchen, the heart of the home. When she’d finally slipped between Clare’s legs into the pool, Clare had pulled her up through the water to take her first breaths. ‘Hello,’ she’d said, half-laughing, half-crying as she clasped her baby’s soft, wet head against her body. ‘It’s me, it’s Mummy. Hello.’

  Tears appeared in Clare’s eyes at the memory and she smiled across at her girl, that baby who’d grown up into this bewitching creature with such a cloud of blonde dandelion-fluff hair, cat-like green eyes and freckles like fairy kisses all across her nose. Her girl, who’d been with her in the world for ten years now. She hugged her with a sudden fierceness. ‘Happy birthday, darling,’ she said.

  ‘Uh-oh,’ Alex warned. ‘Mum’s getting all soppy. Here we go: boo-hoo, wah-wah.’ He scrunched his hands into fists and pretended to rub his eyes like a toddler. Everyone laughed, and Clare ruffled his hair.

  ‘Thank goodness we’ve got this cake to stop me blubbing,’ she joked. ‘Who wants a slice, then?’

  ‘Me!’ chorused the children with such gusto that Clare’s dad, Graham, pretended he’d gone deaf in one ear.

  ‘Flipping ’eck,’ he grumbled. ‘That was almost as loud as Grandma’s snores. Better make it a big slice for me, I need something sweet for the shock.’

  Karen, Clare’s long-suffering mum, rolled her eyes. ‘Ignore grumpy Grandad,’ she told everyone. ‘He’s telling porkies again; I think he’s losing his marbles in his old age. I’d love a slice, please, Clare. It’s not every day your eldest granddaughter hits double figures now, is it?’

  ‘It’s not,’ Clare agreed. She was planning to have a massive wedge of cake herself; Debbie was brilliant at baking. Sod the image of denim shorts flashing past her eyes. Sod her bumpy, cellulite-pocked thighs and her soft, squidgy belly that would never be bared in a bikini again. It was a special day, and special days required cake. And so far, today had gone remarkably well. Somehow or other (via Debbie, probably) Jay Holmes, the village wide-boy, had heard that Clare was after a bike for Leila’s birthday and had turned up last night with a rather knackered-looking girl’s chopper.

  ‘I know it’s not much to look at right now,’ he’d said apologetically as Clare’s eyes flickered doubtfully over the tatty blue paintwork, spattered with mud, and the worryingly balding front tyre. ‘But I reckon we could do it up between us, don’t you?’

  ‘What – now?’ Clare had asked, unconvinced.

  He’d shrugged. ‘Why not? We can scrub her up, and I’ve got some old bits of paint we could use: lilac, rose, turquoise …’ He pulled them out of a carrier bag like a conjuror producing rabbits. ‘Worth a go, isn’t it?’

  ‘And how much is this going to cost me?’ Clare asked, folding her arms across her chest, leaning against the doorjamb. Knowing Jay, he wasn’t doing this out of the goodness of his heart.

  He shrugged. ‘Fifty quid? Forty-five, if you help clean it up.’

  Clare hesitated. Forty-five pounds was going to be a stretch. ‘Forty?’ she tried.

  He thrust his hand towards her all too keenly; she immediately wished she’d started the bargaining at ten pounds lower. ‘Done,’ he said, pumping her hand up and down. The porch light was reflected in his dark eyes, like sparkles. He was good-looking, Jay, if you liked that sort of thing. Clare didn’t. He was too rough and ready for her, too unshaven and scruffy, with black wavy hair that was well overdue a cut, and a hole in his jeans. ‘Are you going to let me in then, or are you going to leave me standing out here all night?’

  She laughed. Four years older than her, Jay was a charmer, and she didn’t trust him as far as she could throw him, but you couldn’t help liking him all the same. ‘Go round the back,’ she said. ‘I’m not having this muddy thing wheeled through the house.’

  ‘Got it,’ he said, vanishing into the shadows.

  She let him in through the back door, and they propped the bike against the kitchen table while they scrubbed the frame and Jay pumped up the tyres.

  ‘How’s your sister?’ he asked after a few minutes of companionable silence. Hilarious as it might seem now, back in the sixth form Polly and Jay had been boyfriend and girlfriend, for almost a year. A more incongruous pairing you couldn’t imagine these days, of course. She could just picture the look of disdain on Polly’s face if she clapped eyes on Jay now – hilarious.

  ‘She’s all right,’ Clare said dismissively. ‘Making squillions of pounds in the Big Smoke. Haven’t seen her for months; last time was Christmas, when she just bored on about her job and annoyed Mum by making so-called important calls all the way through Gavin & Stacey.’

  Jay shook his head, looking amused. ‘True Londoner now, isn’t she?’

  ‘You can say that again,’ Clare replied. ‘Turns her nose up at us bumpkins big-time.’

  The bike was cleaning up nicely. The grips on the handlebars had been grimy and greying, but were becoming brighter and whiter as she set about them with a scrubbing brush. The wheels spun easily, once Jay had oiled them. The leather saddle, however, was cracked and old, and looked beyond repair. ‘Hmmm, I wonder …’ Clare murmured, rocking back on her heels and thinking. She had an ancient lilac fake-fur bag upstairs that she’d been meaning to customize for Leila. If she cut it up instead, the fabric would make a perfect seat-cover for the bike. ‘Back in a sec,’ she said, hurrying out of the room.

  It was gone ten o’clock by the time they’d finished painting and primping the bike. Its frame now gleamed metallic lilac, the tyres were pumped up, and Clare had made a furry cover for the old saddle. ‘It’ll need new tyres before too long,’ Jay said, peering at them closely. ‘This front one is pretty shot, but it’ll do for a while. I’ll keep an eye out for you.’

  ‘Cheers,’ Clare replied. She could have hugged him. Instead she took two twenty-pound notes from her purse and handed them over. ‘You saved the day,’ she said.

  By morning the paint was dry, and Leila’s scream of excitement echoed around the house when she saw it there in the kitchen. ‘Oh, wow! What a cool bike,’ she said. ‘What a cool … um … weird sort of bike,’ she added as she drew nearer it, her eye taking in the distinctive chopper frame and the furry saddle. ‘Thanks, Mum.’

  So yes, Clare thought, passing her daughter a slice of birthday cake, it had turned out all right in the end. She’d pulled off another budget birthday somehow, without anyone feeling hard done by, even if some of the ‘presents’ Leila had unwrapped had been promises Clare had written out and wrapped in sparkly paper and tinsel.

  I promise … to take you for the longest bike ride ever, with a huuuge picnic at the end of it! I promise … you can invite THREE friends round for a sleepover next weekend. Pizza and DVD included!

  She’d found a couple of pony books in mint condition in the charity shop in Amberley, and a pretty charm bracelet for only two pounds from the same place. She’d spun out the presents by making them part of a treasure hunt around the house, and Leila had loved solving the clues and rushing t
o the next hiding place, still in pyjamas and dressing gown. You didn’t have to spend a fortune to make things feel special.

  The phone rang just as she was about to bite into her cake. ‘Do you want to get that, birthday girl?’ Clare asked.

  Leila jumped up. ‘I bet it’s Dad,’ she said. ‘Or Aunty Polly.’

  Clare and her mum exchanged glances. ‘Don’t hold your breath,’ Clare muttered as Leila ran to grab the phone. Polly had come up trumps this time on the present front, with a Roberto Cavalli pink silk dress complete with ruffles, an enormous sash and a fake-fur hem. Leila had burst out laughing when she’d opened it this morning; it was about as far removed from her tomboyish style as it was possible to get. Polly might well splash the cash – Clare had once looked up the price of another outfit she’d sent, to see that the dress alone had cost over three hundred pounds (think what you could buy with that in Primark!), but she wasn’t so good on the actual aunty stuff. There would be no phone call from her, no actual personal contact involved, you could bet the matching Cavalli beaded pumps on it.

  ‘Hi, Dad,’ she heard Leila say and looked over to see her daughter’s face wreathed in smiles. ‘Thanks. We’re just having the cake.’

  Clare felt a bitter-sweet ache inside. She still missed having her husband around, however much she tried to tough it out alone. On days like this, especially, she would have loved him to be there too, to share his daughter’s special celebration. It broke her heart that he could have rejected all of this to go off with bloody Denise. She picked up her cake and then put it down again. Suddenly she’d lost her appetite.