Letters From My Sister (10 page)

Why didn’t I tell Sam about her? I suppose the reason is simple. We tell friends about the things we feel comfortable with, proud of. I like to share the good times with Sam, I like the glossy world we have created together. Sam the hotshot guy in the City; Katie who runs her own business. There is little room for imperfection in that scenario. Why would I tell him about Bells when I feel so guilty that I ignore her letters, that I am a useless sister, that I resented her so much as a child for taking all the attention away from me? That I did stupid unoriginal things to turn the attention back on me? Talking about Bells brings back a lot of memories I’d rather erase. It feeds the corrosive guilt inside me. But I realize none of this makes it forgivable. Sam was right.

‘Bells, about what you heard earlier …’

‘You ashamed.’

‘I am sorry, Bells, so sorry. Can we make a fresh start? You have one more week with me in London and I’d really like to make it up to you.’ I realize I can’t say I’m not embarrassed when Bells says hello to everything that moves; when she asks people why they have no hair, or why they have ‘only the one leg’. Most people would be embarrassed, wouldn’t they? ‘Bells, it was wrong of me not to tell Sam about you, I don’t know why I didn’t. It was one of those things you do and then wish you could rewind time.’

Bells doesn’t say anything.

‘Where’s the thingy that vibrates?’ I laugh nervously as I take her hand. ‘Friends,’ I tell her, but still do not feel I have said sorry properly.

I have an uneasy feeling lingering in the pit of my stomach. I start to think of all the times when people asked me at parties, ‘Do you have brothers or sisters?’ and I replied that I was an only child because I couldn’t face the follow-on questions: Where does she live? What does she do? In the evening, when I am getting ready for bed, I say a quiet prayer to God, asking his forgiveness for denying her. That makes me feel better, that I won’t go straight down to hell.

I look at Bells, who is drinking her Coke so quickly that she starts to make loud slurping noises through her straw. I am not going to look around to see if anyone is staring. But then she makes one final slurping noise which sounds as if it will blow the place down. Without thinking I do glance around, but in fact no one is looking at us. They are too interested in their own drinks and food. I order her another Coke. ‘Bells, the thing Sam said about being ashamed of you …’

‘It’s all right, Katie,’ she interrupts, looking at the framed poster on the wall.

‘No, it’s not all right. I am
not
ashamed of you, I promise you. The only person I am ashamed of is myself.’

‘Why?’

‘Sometimes I find it hard …’ I don’t know how to end my sentence so I start again. ‘To be honest, I was dreading you coming to stay.’ I don’t look at her because I am scared of hurting her. ‘You remind me of everything I don’t have.’

‘Don’t understand,’ she says.

‘I don’t feel part of our family, I’m an outsider. Look at your photo album. Pictures of everyone, Mum, Dad … not one of me. It’s my fault, I’m the one who distances myself. I’m not blaming you, but you, Mum and Dad are so close. When you were young I was palmed off to Aunt Agnes, or stayed with Granny Norfolk, or some horrible babysitter looked after me. You needed their help, Mum and Dad had no choice, I know that, but I didn’t cope with it very well.’ My thoughts are scrambled. ‘Do you understand what I’m trying to say?’

‘Sort of. Difficult for Katie too.’

‘Yes, in a totally different way from what you had to go through. I feel so guilty for feeling like this, I don’t want to feel the way I do.’

‘That’s right. You jealous?’

‘Yes,’ I reply simply, realizing how perceptive she is. ‘I was really jealous of you for having all the attention. I have to get over it, though, I know it’s not your fault.’

‘You blame Mum?’ Bells asks.

‘I guess I do. Mum’s always taken on the brunt of it. With Dad it’s different somehow, we’ve always been closer. Shall we make a pact?’

‘Yes, pact.’

‘That we make a fresh start?’

‘Friends.’ She holds out her hand, with her short little fingers and bitten nails.

‘Yes, friends,’ I tell her, clutching that tiny hand.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

It’s nearly six o’clock and I’m making price tags with black velvet ribbon. Eve has left, picked up by Hector, who was not at all what I’d expected: short and oily like a sardine.

Eve bought a baby chandelier for the shop today, with shimmering cut-glass drops. She also found some ivory silk cushions trimmed with black lace to decorate the cream chaise longue in the corner of the shop. Very
Moulin Rouge
. We work well together because she has a real flair for design and enjoys making the shop look lavishly aesthetic. We have similar taste, which is fortunate.

‘Where’s Mark?’ Bells mentions again.

‘Since five minutes ago, I still don’t know,’ I reply, watching Bells pacing the shop floor, making fists with her hands. ‘Bored,’ she says again.

‘We’ll be going home soon, I promise. Draw me something,’ I suggest, handing her my notepad.

‘Mark married?’ she asks.

‘I don’t think so. Why?’

‘Girlfriend?’

‘No idea.’

‘Pets? He have a dog?’

‘Doubt it. You should have asked him.’

I wonder if Bells misses ‘going out’ with men. Does it even occur to her? This is when I feel guilty about envying her. There is so much she cannot have which I take for granted. I wonder what she thinks about Sam and me. She probably isn’t envious when all we do is argue. She still says she doesn’t like him.

‘Mark nice man.’

I can see she’s not going to let him slip from her mind. ‘Draw me a picture of him,’ I say, pleased that she grabs a pencil from the papier-mâché pot on my desk.

I continue looping ribbon through the tags. ‘We going to see Mark again?’ she asks as she sits down on the wooden stair and begins to draw earnestly.

‘Maybe.’

Mark scribbled down his telephone number just before he left. The piece of paper is still in my handbag. He told me he was around if I needed him as it was the school summer holiday. I could call him. We could go out. Sam doesn’t need to know. Mark is Bells’s friend after all.

*

I have thought a lot about Mark and our evening together. It has been a ray of light in the last few days. ‘I have a friend who has a brother,’ he told me, after the tears and after I had explained how foolish I felt for not confiding in Sam about Bells. ‘I had never met the brother until I went to their sister’s wedding. I was the very informal photographer,’ he added with a modest cough. ‘I was in the kitchen with the brother, whose name was Ben, and he seemed pretty normal to me, sitting there in his jacket and tie, until he asked his father if he could have a Scotch egg.’ Mark smiled. ‘I thought it was strange,’ he furrowed his eyebrows, ‘a man of thirty-something asking his father if he could have a Scotch egg, but then I thought nothing more of it until he turned to me, quite randomly, and said that their dog should be put down.’

I laugh out loud, remembering. ‘What so funny?’ Bells asks as she walks over to my desk clutching the pad.

‘Something Mark told me.’

‘Mark nice man, isn’t he?’ She is doing that excited thing with her hands again, as if they’re dancing together.

‘He
is
a very nice man. But back to your portrait.’ And I’m surprised when she sits down obediently and carries on drawing.

‘I was amazed my friend had never told me much about him,’ Mark continued. ‘Baffling, really. I had known him for six years.’

I smile, thinking about that word ‘baffling’.

Then came the awful question that all of us ask though we wish we didn’t. ‘And what do you do?’ I was focusing on the large hole Mark had in the elbow of his navy jumper. It looked like an ancient Marks & Spencer one that needed either replacing or a good darning.

‘I’m a teacher.’

‘Oh yes, you said. What do you teach?’

English and drama.’

There is something romantic about being a drama teacher, I think now, tapping my red biro against the desk.

‘Really?’ I asked. Why do we say, ‘Really?’ Did I expect Mark to stick his tongue out and say, ‘No, only joking’? ‘What age?’ I continued.

‘Teenagers. I like a challenge.’

With his tousled light brown hair which has no parting whatsoever, the small mole on the right side of his face, even the nerdy round glasses he wears, I reckon a lot of the girls would have a crush on Mark.

‘I enjoy the summer holidays too,’ Mark had said. ‘Gives me time to do my own stuff.’

‘Your own stuff?’

‘I’m trying to write a book,’ he confessed. ‘I find it difficult working from home, too many distractions like daytime television. “At nine-ten we can show you how to make yourself look like a Hollywood actor in less time than it takes to boil an egg,”’ he said, imitating Lorraine Kelly. ‘There’s Wimbledon too. If Henman’s playing I have to leave the house, my nerves can’t cope.’

He asked me about my shop. I told him about my time at art college and working for a West End theatre, designing and making costumes, followed by working for a fashion designer for three years. She went bust eventually but taught me a lot about the business. Bells had come downstairs by then in her pyjamas, clutching her photograph album. He turned his attention to her as I made a salad. They talked about the tennis, Mark said he had the hots for Sue Barker. He asked her about football. I couldn’t help noticing the ease between them. Bells was laughing with him and at one point she stroked his arm affectionately.

Mark looked at all her pictures slowly. ‘Who are they?’ he asked.

‘Mary Veronica, Ted, in Paris,’ Bells said proudly. I went over to have a look. Mary Veronica and Bells were standing outside a café with their thumbs up. Ted was in the middle with his arms crossed. ‘We climbed Eiffel Tower,’ she told us.

‘I would love to do that. Now, who is this? She’s very beautiful.’

‘My mum,’ Bells said. ‘That’s my dad. That’s Budge, he plays for my football team.’

‘Katie, how come there are no pictures of you?’ Mark asked, sounding surprised.

*

I clear my desk. It’s late and I want to go home. Today I popped out of the shop to post some letters and found myself hoping I might bump into Mark.

Well, he knows where I am and where the shop is too. ‘Let’s go, Bells. What do you fancy doing tonight?’

‘Sainsbury’s? Cook tonight, organic night.’

I pull a face. ‘Let’s grab a takeaway.’

‘Mark likes Sainsbury’s.’

Good point. ‘What do you fancy cooking?’

*

Bells and I are sitting like plum puddings on the sofa, sharing a tub of toffee ice cream with a slice of chocolate biscuit cake and watching the old black-and-white film
Titanic
. Earlier Bells cooked us a wild mushroom and aubergine risotto. She showed me how to prepare the aubergines, slicing them and sprinkling them with salt, while telling me that we had to leave them for half an hour before cooking them.

There was no sign of Mark at Sainsbury’s, just the same old man with his trolley of oranges, wishing everyone the ‘best of luck’. Bells tells me she has watched this movie at least one hundred times.

‘About to hit iceberg.’ She claps as she leans forward and laughs outrageously.

‘The wallies! Bells, it’s coming, it’s coming!’ I sit forward too.

‘Rewind,’ she says. I pick up the controls and rewind. I hear the front door shut and Sam coming upstairs. For a second I’m actually disappointed he’s back.

‘SMACK!’ Bells cries out. Sam stands at the door, shakes his head and walks out. I follow him downstairs to the kitchen. He sits down at the table, which is covered with a baking tray, a greasy butter wrapper, tin of cocoa, digestive biscuits and a bag of sultanas.

‘Sorry,’ I say, quickly beginning to clear the mess. ‘We made a chocolate biscuit cake.’ I walk past him and put the dirty bowl, licked wooden spoon and tray in the sink.

‘Katie, I’m sorry. I’m behaving like an idiot.’

I turn around and lean against the oven. ‘Yes, you are. We
both
are. I’m sorry too. I was scared. I feel responsible for her, but I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. Everything you said, me not telling you about her,’ I scratch my forehead, ‘you were right.’

‘Take a long hard look at yourself, Katie,’ he imitates himself.

I sit down next to him and Sam slides his fingers in between mine. ‘We are OK, aren’t we?’ I ask.

‘I think so. ’Course we are. Come here.’

‘Katie!’ I hear Bells shouting.

I pull away from him. ‘Coming?’

‘No,’ he says awkwardly. ‘I’ll clear up this mess.’

‘Sam, Bells won’t bite.’

‘I’ve seen
Titanic
.’

‘So have I. Bells has seen it a thousand times!’ I laugh, wanting him to change his mind. ‘We’ll clear up later, Bells loves washing up.’

‘Hot soapy water,’ she says as her hands plunge into the foamy basin, a look of extraordinary delight on her face. However much mess Bells creates, she always tidies up after herself, preferring not to use the dishwasher. She makes her own bed because that’s what they do at home. She cooks her own meals. And even though her room is full of posters and music and looks like a car boot sale, it’s an organized chaos. She knows exactly where everything is and gets cross if I move anything.

‘Go,’ he says, acting like a boy who doesn’t get the attention he deserves.

All the tension between us returns, but I don’t want another argument. I leave him in the kitchen.

‘Katie,’ he calls after me.

‘About to hit iceberg, Katie,’ Bells tells me again. ‘Katie, watch.’

I sit down with her. ‘The wallies! What do you call them, Bells?’

‘Wallies.’ I watch her face light up as she stares at the screen, her laugh infectious.

‘SMACK!’ We laugh together, before Bells presses rewind.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

I flick the kettle on. Sam has already escaped from the house. His alarm clock went off so early that I thought it was still the middle of the night.

‘Morning, how are you, Bells?’ I yawn. ‘Sleep well?’

‘Bored.’

‘You’re bored? What do you expect to be doing at seven thirty in the morning?’

She shrugs. She is wearing her grey baggy tracksuit with her red Oxford University T-shirt which now has chocolate stains down the front. ‘I need to put some washing on,’ I say flatly, still trying to wake up.

I open the blind and squeeze my eyes shut. The sun streams through the window. I stretch my arms out above my head and let out a great big sigh. Bells continues to eat her chopped apricots and figs quietly, occasionally prodding the milk-bottle sculpture. Stevie Wonder plays in the background. Poor old Stevie never has a holiday. I want to turn him off, it’s too early for ‘I Just Called to Say I Love You’. Déjà vu screams at me. We get ourselves so tied up in a routine that we spin round and round like an old pair of socks in a washing-machine cycle. Wake up, go for a run, eat breakfast, go to work, come home, go out, go to bed. I’m not complaining, I like my life, but sometimes I don’t stop to think, I’m like a robot.

I’m going to skip my run this morning and instead make myself a bacon sandwich for breakfast with lots of tomato ketchup. Go on Katie, be wild! I make an even bolder step by deciding I will take two days off in a row. I’ll see if Eve minds being on her own. I think she likes being in charge. ‘You and me are going out today,’ I tell Bells.

‘Where? The shop?’

‘No, it’s a surprise, you’ll see,’ I say, trying to hide my own excitement. ‘Get dressed quickly. Look at the sun, Bells. It’s a beautiful day.’

She fidgets with her hands, as if she is conducting her muddled thoughts. ‘Upstairs!’ I tell her again. ‘Your dungarees are in the airing cupboard, I washed them for you, and it’s hot today so wear something cool. Don’t wear five vests!’

‘Where we going?’

‘It’s a surprise.’

‘Can Mark come?’

I dig into my handbag and give her the piece of paper, now crumpled, with his number on it. ‘Let’s ring him,’ I say.

*

I feel a tiny twinge of guilt for not being at work again, but it disappears when I see Bells. She rocks forward, tapping her hands together. After queuing for an hour and a half we are finally standing in our glass capsule, propelled one hundred feet into the air and surrounded by tourists. Mark wasn’t at home. I was ridiculously excited by the thought of seeing him again but also a little relieved there was no answer. It’s nice to spend time with Bells, just the two of us.

‘Not moving?’ Bells jitters. ‘Broken down, broken down!’

‘We are moving, I promise. Apparently we’re moving about one quarter of a metre per second,’ I tell her, putting Sam’s binoculars around her neck. ‘Take a look.’ I stand close behind her. She smells of Persil and lime. ‘You can see all of London from here, Bells,’ I say, pointing to different landmarks. ‘Doesn’t that make you feel tiny? Like an ant.’ She’s breathing deeply. ‘There’s Big Ben … the Houses of Parliament … look, you can see Buckingham Palace where the Queen lives. Isn’t it incredible?’

‘Yes, Katie, yes.’

Bells stops looking through the binoculars and puts her hands behind her head, rocking forward again then turning to face the other way. I sit down on the bench in the middle of our pod and stretch out my legs, the sun beating down on my face. I’m wearing my black and white spotted sundress with flat-heeled white leather sandals, and my hair is scooped up into a loose ponytail. The freckles across my nose have come out in their full glory.

‘Mira! Mira!’ shout the Spanish group sharing our capsule, running over to where Bells is standing. She flaps her hands, getting caught up in their excitement. ‘Mira!’ They point into the distance. Bells looks in their direction and then looks at me and then turns to them again. They run to the other side in a stampede frenzy and she follows them.

A Japanese couple ask me if I’ll take a picture of them both and they link arms as the flash goes off. Bells rushes over to me and they offer to take a picture of us. Bells is clapping her hands against her thighs now, then she runs to the side of the capsule and calls to me, ‘Look, Katie, look! London. Where Sam’s house?’

‘Turn round for a second,’ I say, asking the Japanese man to take our picture quickly before she runs off again.

*

Bells and I are lying on a pale yellow checked rug in St James’s Park, looking up into the clear blue sky. We have finished eating our picnic: vegetable samosas and a Diet Coke for Bells, a Pimm’s and a packet of Marks & Spencer sushi for me, and two large chunks of chocolate biscuit cake.

‘There are no clouds, Bells. Just clear blue sky like the sea.’

‘No fluffy clouds,’ she echoes. ‘In Wales we have sea.’

‘Do you miss Wales?’

‘Yes.’ She tilts her head. ‘No. A bit.’

‘What do you miss?’

‘Miss Ted.’

‘Who’s Ted?’

‘My friend.’ She laughs mischievously, restlessly kicking her legs and knocking over the cups.

I lean on my elbow and look at her. ‘Really? So Ted’s the lucky man. You’ve kept that very quiet. You’re a dark horse, Bells.’

‘A dark horse,’ she laughs back at me. ‘Ted my friend. Ted has parrot like Grandpa.’

‘Are you happy there?’

‘Yes, Katie, yes. Sometimes sad.’

‘Why sad?’

‘Miss home, miss Mum, Dad.’

I bite my lip, surprised by how much I want to be added on to the list now. ‘I’m sure they miss you too,’ I tell her. ‘Let’s give them a call, tell them we’ve been up in the sky.’

I take the mobile out of my bag and punch in the numbers. Their phone is switched off. I knew this would happen. They’re hopeless. I should have insisted Dad or Mum give me the Walters’ number. Why wouldn’t they? ‘Not there,’ I tell Bells. ‘How often do they call you in Wales?’

‘One time a week.’

They’ve called twice since she has been staying with me, yet each time have sounded oddly distanced. Why won’t this nagging feeling that something is wrong go away?’ ‘Tell me more about Wales. What do you do all day?’

‘Go to college Monday.’

‘What do you do there?’

‘Learn respect.’

‘Respect?’

‘Towards other people,’ she tells me. ‘Learn health and safety too.’

‘What’s all that about?’

‘In kitchen. Fire rules and safety.’

‘Oh, right. That’s important when you’re the Queen of the Kitchen, isn’t it?’

‘That’s right. Me the Queen.’

‘Do you enjoy college?’

‘Yes, love college.’

‘What else do you do?’

‘I go to football club each week, watch my team play. Watch Budge play. Budge very handsome. I cook. Ted and I make stuff, weave and paint, we watch football videos. Clean room, make beds.’

‘Are you on a rota system? You clean and make the beds one week, Ted the next?’

‘Yes, that’s right, Katie, that’s right. Rota.’

‘Do you want to clean my room and make my bed?’ I ask her with a smile.

‘Very funny, Katie!’

I realize how little I know about Bells’s life. I know a tiny fragment from her childhood and that’s about it. I’ve never wanted to be involved, but now … ‘I can see why you get bored with me.’

‘Sometimes bored, that’s right, Katie. You marry Sam?’

I look away. ‘How did you learn to cook so well, Bells?’

‘You marry Sam?’ she asks again, quite insistently.

‘I can’t see myself marrying anyone, not yet anyway. Bells, you’re not burning, are you? We’d better put some cream on, just in case.’ I dig into my basket for a tube of sunblock. ‘Sit still.’ I apply it gently to her forehead and cheeks. She doesn’t flinch. Her skin is as pale as a china doll’s and soft as cashmere. As I look at her, it’s hard to believe she’s twenty-two, only seven years younger than me.

‘What you looking at?’

‘You,’ I say, wiping the chocolate crusts from the corners of her mouth before dabbing a large blob of cream on her nose.

‘Not funny, Katie,’ she laughs with me.

‘Ha ha, Bells. I think it’s
very
funny.’

*

Bells and I sit on the bus and it’s rush hour, the traffic is as slow as a slug. After our picnic we went shopping. In a charity shop we found Bells a pair of red shoes with clover-shaped patterns embroidered on to them. In other stores, if there was no one helpful, we walked away. Why should they get my money? In the end, with the help of a lovely shop assistant, we found a dark red and gold Chinese dress with a jacket for Bells. ‘You like it?’ she asked the girl.

‘I love it.’ The girl beamed at her, kneeling down and adjusting the hem. ‘I think it’s dead stylish, you are going to be the belle of the ball.’ I thought my heart might burst as I watched Bells looking proudly at herself in the mirror, her outfit finished off with the shoes she’d bought. I found myself wishing Mum could see her looking so pretty. When Bells was out of earshot I thanked the girl. ‘For what?’ She looked almost put out. ‘It’s my job.’

‘You know what I mean,’ I said.

She nodded. ‘I’ve had more fun today than during my whole time here. And I’ve been working here for over a year!’

I bet you that nice shop assistant goes home tonight and tells her flatmate/boyfriend/whatever that she managed to find a really great outfit for a slightly unusual customer.

‘Pull my finger,’ Bells says. I turn and look at her dubiously. The moment I pull it she sticks out her tongue and bursts into laughter. The grey-haired woman sitting opposite stares at us strangely and then returns to her paperback.

‘Pull mine.’

Bells leans forward to touch my finger.

‘Bad luck, missed,’ I exclaim, withdrawing my hand.

She laughs and the woman opposite stares directly at Bells with cold blue eyes. I want to tell her to stop staring. When I was much younger, I hated people staring at Bells in the supermarket or on the street or at the bus stop. I know I’m guilty of wanting to hide my sister, yet am surprised by how much it still angers me when people are rude or stare. Who are they to judge anyone? I shift in my seat. She is still looking at us. It makes me feel uncomfortable but at least Bells doesn’t appear to notice, or does she? Mum and Dad used to tell strangers what was wrong with her. Dad always explained to me, ‘It puts them at their ease. It’s normally fear or ignorance that makes people stare. You have to work hard to reassure them. It shouldn’t be like that, but that’s the way it is.’

‘Oh, dear.’ I shake my head solemnly at Bells. ‘Too slow, miss a go.’

‘Not funny, Katie!’

‘Pull my finger, come on.’ She misses again. ‘Sorry, if you snooze, you lose.’ That’s an expression of Sam’s. I doubt he meant it to be used in exactly the same context, however. ‘Shit, this is our stop!’ I grab our bags and Bells follows. ‘Mind the step.’

I wish I’d said something, I think to myself, as the sour-faced woman bristles and looks down at her book.

*

Bells points animatedly to each tray behind the counter – couscous with pine nuts and peppers, carrot cake with a whipped orange and butter icing, warm ciabatta bread with olives or spinach, rice cakes with garlic. We buy some ginger to make a sticky ginger pudding ‘like the one Mum makes’, she tells me. I buy some pistachio nuts, fresh bread and olives. Emma’s coming over tonight especially to see Bells.

‘You think Mum eats nice food in France?’ Bells asks me.

‘I reckon she’s eating like a queen and she doesn’t even have to do the washing-up.’

Bells rocks forward. ‘No hot soapy water?’

‘I’m not going anywhere near those chillies,’ I tell her when she asks Eddie for three red ones. ‘The last time I chopped them I forgot to wash my hands, picked my nose, and boy, did it kill!’ I laugh. ‘Sam almost had to ring for a doctor.’

‘Not funny, Katie.’ She comes forward and touches me briefly on the shoulder.

‘No, it wasn’t!’ I carry on, still glowing from her touch. It’s the first time she has initiated affection, and it makes me feel as if someone has wrapped a warm soft towel around me.

‘It was supposed to be a romantic evening and I had to spend the entire night with my head in a bowl of cold water.’

‘That’s disgusting, Katie,’ says Eddie. ‘Is that all, girls?’ I had forgotten he was there. He’s wearing a short blue apron that shows off his hairy legs, finished off with brown sandals and socks.

‘You wearing anything under that?’ Bells asks him.

‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’ he replies, winking at her.

*

‘No, I’d prefer the table in the corner, please … um, say about seven-thirty … yep, thanks,’ I hear Sam muttering as Bells and I come into the kitchen. He puts the phone down. ‘I’m taking you and Isabel out tomorrow evening, for her last night in London,’ he announces proudly.

‘Are you?’ I look at him strangely, wondering what has suddenly brought all of this on.

‘I am,’ he declares, and looks at Bells for a response.

‘Where are you taking us, then? Bells, did you hear that? Sam’s taking you and me …’ I am tempted to add ‘the two bad smells’, ‘. . . out on the town.’

She nods.

Sam looks disappointed. ‘We’re going to my favourite restaurant. They have the best wine list in town.’ He clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth. ‘And the best steak.’

‘Bells doesn’t drink,’ I can’t help saying.

‘Don’t eat meat,’ she adds.

I feel bad for sounding ungrateful. ‘Sam, that’s a lovely idea, thanks.’

‘Thank you,’ Bells murmurs, turning Stevie Wonder on.

Sam and I go upstairs. ‘I have had such a lovely day,’ I tell him, sitting down on our bed and kicking my shoes off.

‘Really? At work?’ He lies down next to me.

‘No, with Bells. We went on the London Eye, had a picnic, went shopping and Bells bought an outfit for Emma’s wedding. I really feel like I’m getting to know her.’

‘What d’you mean, getting to know her? She’s your sister.’

‘Yeah, but what I mean is …’

‘I’m going to the gym tonight, want to come?’

‘No.’ I shake my head. ‘You go.’

‘I need to buy some more trainers,’ he’s muttering. ‘Remember, we’re going away for the weekend when Bells leaves.’ There’s a book on hip hotels on his side of the bed which he now picks up, turning to the marked page. ‘I booked the Moroccan Suite, Katie. Look at it, it’s beautiful and we need to get away.
Look
at this place, honey.’ He points at the picture again.