Letters From My Sister (7 page)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The following morning Bells is in the kitchen listening to one of her Beatles CDs, wearing her embroidered hat and dungarees again. They must be glued to her body. I have to take her shopping for Emma’s wedding. I don’t think I have ever seen my sister wear a skirt.

‘How did you sleep?’ I ask, opening the cupboard that houses the mugs and cereal bowls.

‘Bored,’ she says. ‘You know John Lennon lived with Aunt Mimi?’

‘No.’ I shake my head, flicking the kettle switch on. It’s a large silver kettle with a black handle, which matches the toaster.

‘They were Nurk Twins before the Beatles.’

‘Really?’ I nod again. If Bells was in the black chair on
Mastermind
her specialist subject would be the Beatles. ‘If you want to go back home, you would say, wouldn’t you?’ I ask her, feeling ashamed that if she said she wanted to go, I’d be relieved. I can’t explain it, but ever since Bells arrived I have had this sinking uneasy feeling hanging over me like an ominous cloud. I can sense something is about to go horribly wrong again, even more so than last night. I wonder if Mum felt like this most of the time when she was bringing Bells and me up.

‘If you want to go home, if you’re unsettled …’ I stop. Why am I such a bad sister? I haven’t seen Bells for months. Shouldn’t I want to spend some time with her?

She nods half-heartedly, chopping dried apricots and figs on the table. ‘Bells, use a proper chopping board,’ I tell her. ‘You’re marking the table.’ I find her a small board. Sam bought a set of five different-sized chopping boards. ‘And remember to say sorry to Sam when he comes downstairs.’

‘Why?’ She bangs the knife into the board.

‘You know why, Bells.’

Sam comes into the kitchen and heads straight for the coffee machine. His hair is dark and damp after his shower. ‘I’ll make you one,’ I say. ‘Sit down.’ I stare at Bells, willing her to apologize.

‘It’s all right,’ he says. Clearly his bad mood hasn’t left him.

‘Hello, Sam,’ she says, looking up at him.

‘Hi,’ he manages, briefly looking sideways at her.

There is a long awkward silence. ‘Wasn’t there something you wanted to say, Bells?’ I look at her and then at Sam. Still she says nothing. ‘You wanted to say something to Sam?’

‘Sorry, Sam.’

‘No problem,’ he says. ‘Just don’t do it again, OK?’

That was simple enough, I think with relief.

*

‘That was the worst night of my life!’ he’d shouted at me last night after the boys had gone. Bells hadn’t got far. I’d found her outside our local Italian restaurant with one of the waiters. He was wearing a striped navy and white apron and smoking a cigarette in his break. We went inside for a hot chocolate. I wanted to give Sam enough time to get rid of the boys before we returned. ‘I told you it was a bad idea,’ he continued, banging one hand against the other, ‘but what do you go and do, huh? You had to wreck it by being there.’

‘Sam, I’m sorry, but it’s quite funny when you think about it.’ He threw me another warning look. I was racking my brains trying to think of something that might ease the situation. Isn’t it always a good idea to tell someone an even worse story so that they realize they got off lightly? That their ordeal was, in fact, not quite so bad? Great idea, I told myself. ‘My parents once gave a dinner party for these clients who had come from America to look at her sculptures,’ I said. ‘It was a really big deal. I mean, Mum even turned the napkins into the shape of lilies, for God’s sake.’ I chortled but Sam stared at me. ‘So, anyway, it was a really important business dinner.’ I stopped again as Sam looked bored. He might as well have had ‘So what?’ stamped on his forehead. Quickly I got to the main part. ‘Anyway, we sat down to find Bells had swapped the lily napkins for sanitary towels.’ I laughed out loud but Sam looked at me with disdain.

‘That’s revolting, Katie. Disgusting.’ He gave a short derisive laugh. ‘I’m never going to live last night down. The boys will be dining out on this story for the next year. The whole City will know about it.’

‘Don’t exaggerate.’

‘Katie, all you had to do was keep quiet. You promised.’ He looked intensely hurt. ‘Worst night of my life,’ he repeated.

‘If that was the worst night of your life, then you’ve led a pretty charmed existence,’ I couldn’t help saying.

He turned his face away from me then. ‘Ebony and
fucking
Ivory.’

‘Sam, don’t swear! Bells will …’

‘Hang on. Let me get this straight.
I’m
not allowed to swear in front of her, but
she’s
allowed to do muck up my CDs and make me look like an idiot. Right, Katie, that makes sense. Why do you let her get away with it?’

‘She wasn’t doing it maliciously, it was only a bit of a game. She was bored, that’s all.’

‘I think she knows exactly what she’s doing. She pretends to be all innocent.’

Sam is, to an extent, right. But … ‘Perhaps if you made a little more of an effort with her,’ I suggested, my patience beginning to wear thin. ‘She thinks you don’t like her. That’s why she doesn’t like you – yet,’ I added, seeing his face. He’s not used to being told he’s unpopular. ‘She will like you, it takes time, that’s all.’

*

This morning I watch him making his coffee in the shiny silver machine. Am I imagining it or has Sam hardly touched me since Bells arrived? We have gone from nine months of barely being able to keep our hands off each other almost to taking a vow of chastity.

Bells eats her homemade muesli, and drinks her sage tea. She starts to cough. Great. It sounds as if she might be coming down with a cold.

‘What are you up to today?’ Sam asks her, his head still down.

‘Don’t know,’ she replies.

‘Well, you’re staying here while I go to my yoga,’ I tell her. I can’t quite face Bells coming with me. One woman in the class does have unfortunate body odour and Bells would no doubt tell her she smelled. ‘And then we’re going to my shop.’

‘Great,’ Sam says, but he’s not listening. I can tell his mind is still firmly focused on his disastrous poker evening. ‘Well, it’s a nice day out there,’ he carries on painfully. I look outside and it’s drizzling. In fact, the weather forecast has predicted a thunderstorm later this afternoon. Sam is trying but I notice he can’t look at Bells. It’s as if he’s scared to make eye contact.

The telephone rings and Sam sees this as the perfect opportunity to go. ‘I’ll see you this evening.’ He takes his car keys off the breakfast counter and is away before I even have time to say goodbye.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

After my yoga class, Bells and I catch the bus to the shop. The one good thing that came out of Mum rarely taking Bells and me shopping is that I learned to sew.

‘Where did you get that material from?’ she asked me suspiciously. It was one morning in the school holidays and I was sitting on the sofa hacking up a red curtain which I’d found at the bottom of a musty old drawer. I had made myself a pattern out of school tracing paper and found Mum’s black Singer sewing machine with the foot pedal.

‘I’m making a skirt,’ I announced proudly.

She peered at it, did her famous disparaging sniff and then turned away, muttering, ‘Well, that’s very good, darling. Always good to have a hobby. I’ll get you some more material.’ I think she was in fact delighted that I had found something to do in the school holidays that would keep me quiet and away from the shops, and meant she could carry on working undisturbed in her studio.

Needlework and textiles were the only subjects for which I received glowing praise in my school reports. None of the other girls in my class were interested and the others would tease our needlework teacher, Mrs Hook, to the point where she would tremble with fear when we entered the classroom. She had a stammer and could never say the word ‘bobbin’ properly. I was her gold-star pupil. I was the one who was asked to show her work to the headmistress. Mrs Davies sat in her office with a cigarette dangling from her mouth and a necklace that looked like a golden ball on a chain hanging over her black polo neck. She was usually balancing a book in one nicotine-stained hand and stroking her pug, Bertie, with the other. She would duly tell me in her coarse gravelly voice that my kimono-dressing gown or whatever else it might be was indeed a triumph, and as a treat I was allowed to take Bertie for a walk.

I started to make all my own clothes as my interest in fashion grew. I began browsing in all kinds of material and haberdashery shops. I couldn’t afford the silks and furs at the upmarket shops but I liked touching all the different fabrics and imagining what I could transform them into. Emma used to come with me, pretending she was interested, but very quickly her eyes would develop that glazed expression while I pored excitedly over exquisite rolls of coloured silks. My pocket money took me to the local markets where I searched for leathers to make jackets and skirts with slits in them. I became good at bargaining, negotiating prices for beads, zips, feathers and fabric offcuts.

The cheapest and quickest things to make were beaded chokers and belts out of sparkling black and gold beads which I sold to school friends. I created a small factory in my bedroom, the sewing machine kept permanently in the corner by the window, and all the money I made went into an old Nescafe tin which I kept hidden under the bed. All I ever wanted to do was own a clothes shop. I dreamed about leaving home and starting up my own business. I felt imprisoned by my family and longed to be in control of my own life, because isn’t that what makes you happy, being in control?

I did not want to be financially dependent on my parents any longer than I had to be, so I left home when I was eighteen to live with my electrician boyfriend to whom Mum had taken an immediate dislike because his arms were covered in tattoos. I was longing to be independent and to step out into the wider world. There was going to be no more fear of what people thought of my family, of Bells, of our cut-off existence. I longed to start my own life and make a success of it, with or without my parents.

*

‘No touching the clothes,’ I tell Bells as I hand her a blueberry muffin wrapped in a white napkin. I’d popped into Eddie’s deli to grab us some breakfast. My plan from now on is to stay out of Sam’s way. I figure if I can get through the rest of this holiday with no further hiccups then we have done pretty well. Only one poker night ruined, and Sam will get over it. Eventually.

‘No touching clothes.’ She coughs again.

‘Good.’ I sit down behind my large wooden desk, which is angled diagonally across one corner of the shop. The desktop has a panel of glass covering black-and-white photographs of our latest fashion show. I remind Bells not to play with the credit card machine. ‘And no asking customers how rich or how old they are, OK?’

‘Yes, Katie, that’s right.’ Bells nods to me.

I carry on: ‘And no coffee near the clothes.’

‘No coffee.’

‘No commenting on what people are wearing or what they look like. That poor man who had no hair, he was probably very sensitive about it. Or saying hello to customers three times. Fine to say it once,’ I allow, ‘but that’s enough.’

She rocks forward on her feet, something she does when she’s nervous or overexcited.

‘What did I just say?’ I test her, to make sure she was listening rather than merely repeating. Things do not necessarily compute with her, or if they do, she forgets them immediately.

‘No saying hello, Katie, answering phone not to. Leave to you.’ She looks over my shoulder, waves her hands.

I turn around, only to see Mr Vickers outside the shop window, peering through the glass. He’s carrying an umbrella with a duck-shaped handle.

‘Hello, Mr Vickers,’ Bells calls. He waves tentatively.

I grab her arm in an attempt to stop her from opening the door. ‘Bells, I don’t want him hanging around the shop.’

She pulls away from me. ‘Like Mr Vickers.’

‘Bells,’ I raise my voice now, ‘please don’t make me cross.’

She watches him walk away.

‘Poor Mr Vickers. Mr Vickers nice man.’

‘I know, but I have a business to run.’ I can see Henrietta and her mother through the window approaching and quickly turn to Bells. ‘Why don’t you go upstairs and start unpacking the delivery boxes? That would be so helpful,’ I tell her, pushing her upstairs as if she were a puppet. ‘Clean your hands first,’ I say, leading her to the sink. ‘The boxes are here. These are black T-shirts.’ I point to four brown boxes stacked in the corner. ‘Scissors are in the drawer. If you could unpack them all before you come back down … Thank you.’ I don’t even wait for an answer.

The simple truth is I don’t want Bells saying hello to them at all. I don’t want her putting off my customers.

*

Customers come and go. I have made two good sales this morning. Henrietta bought two dresses and three tops while her mother sat on the chaise longue drinking cups of coffee, spiked with a small bottle of Baileys that she produced from her bag.

Bells has been extraordinarily quiet, I think happily to myself. Perhaps I will treat her to a quick lunch … I find her sitting on the floor, the T-shirts heaped around her in a muddle.

‘Bells, what have you done?’ I cry out, kneeling down next to her and picking up one of the black shirts with a small red heart printed on the breast line. I’d thought I could trust her with cotton T-shirts. I mean, how wrong can you go?

‘Unpacking shirts,’ she says with surprisingly little interest, followed by a cough. Isn’t it obvious how angry I am? I open my mouth to speak but nothing comes out. Finally, ‘How many have you done?’ I whisper in despair, picking up the labels she’s cut out that look more like silk raffle tickets strewn haphazardly over the floor. ‘People buy these shirts
because
of the labels. They’re French designer labels.’ I can’t look at her otherwise I might hit her. ‘What were you thinking of, cutting them all out?’

Bells stands up.

‘Don’t touch anything else, you hear me? Leave everything alone.’

‘Help Katie. You said unpack everything?’

‘No! Leave everything alone. If you touch one more I will be really angry. Why did you cut them out? Did I tell you to cut out the labels? You stupid, stupid girl!’ I scream at her, almost in tears. I can’t cope any more. Please come back, Mum and Dad. I can’t do this. You’re right, I am a terrible sister.

‘Not stupid, Katie. Not stupid.’ Bells rushes out of the room.

I stand looking at the muddle of T-shirts, too paralysed to do anything constructive. All I can do is will the labels magically to return to where they belong. I hear a door shut downstairs so try to compose myself for the next customer.

‘Hello,’ I say, walking towards a tall slim man.

‘Hi, I’m looking for a present, I wonder if you can help me?’

‘Where’s Bells?’ I say out loud.

‘Sorry?’ he says, looking puzzled. ‘Who’s Bells?’

‘My sister. Did you see someone running out of the shop?’ I can hear the tone of my voice rising in fear.

‘No, no one.’ He shakes his head.

‘Can you come back later?’ I push him towards the door.

‘Hey!’ he protests, hanging back. ‘I came here especially to buy my cousin a birthday present,’ he explains. ‘Hang on, haven’t we met before? In Sainsbury’s?’

‘Have we?’ I say agitatedly. ‘Look, my sister …’

‘The one who kept on asking me my age? I remember her.’

‘Yes, she’s run off.’ I shut the door behind me and then realize I need the keys to lock up. ‘Oh God, oh God,’ I say, going back inside and grabbing my handbag from behind my desk. I plunge into it as if it were a lucky dip, hoping to pick out the right keys. Instead I can feel Bells’s inhaler, which I throw on to the shop floor. My powder compact is chucked after it in frustration. Why do I always pick out everything from my bag except my shop keys?

‘Look, let me help,’ the man is saying. ‘Where do you think she might be?’

I let out a frustrated yelp. ‘I don’t know, she could be anywhere. If I knew … Oh, where
are
they?’

‘Keep calm,’ he says.

If my stare was venomous I would kill him on the spot. Finally I find the right keys. Where is Eve when I need her? Why did she have to be sick today of all days? I scribble on a piece of paper ‘Back in half an hour’ and pin it haphazardly to the door.

‘OK, here’s what we do,’ the man says authoritatively. ‘You go across the park, I’ll go on the main road, and we both head for the tube station and the shops. If you find her, whistle like this.’ He puts his hand to his mouth and belts out a loud whistle. ‘It works in the classroom,’ he adds.

I breathe deeply. ‘I can’t do that, I’ve always wanted to.’

‘Well, use a real whistle then. I’m a teacher,’ he quickly explains. ‘Always keep one on me for emergencies.’ He digs into his black rucksack and pulls out a red plastic whistle attached to a piece of string, which he places around my neck. ‘She ran off … what? … five, ten minutes ago? She can’t be far away.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Mark.’

‘Thanks, Mark,’ I call after him as we turn in different directions.

*

It’s damp and overcast. The park is almost deserted. ‘Bells,’ I shout, and keep on running. ‘Bells, where are you?’ I walk past a man wearing headphones. He won’t know where she is, will he? He might. I’d better ask. I tap him hard on the shoulder. He pulls the plugs out of his ears.

‘Excuse me, I’ve lost my sister. She’s short, about four foot something, really short hair too.’ I stare into his vacant expression, urging him to show some sign of recognition. ‘And she kind of rocks rather than walks,’ I persist. Still no reaction.

‘Nope, haven’t seen her,’ he mumbles finally as he puts his music back on. I see a couple ahead of me. The girl has her hand tucked into the back pocket of her boyfriend’s jeans. ‘Um, hello … hey, you!’ I run after them. They turn around in surprise. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve lost my sister. She’s short, have you seen her?’ I ask with pleading eyes. Please say you have.

‘What’s she wearing?’ the girl asks.

What’s she wearing? Good question. ‘A little embroidered hat and dungarees,’ I describe breathlessly. When I get no response, I add, ‘And some sort of football shirt with stickers on.’

‘You’re having me on.’ The boy smiles at me. ‘Is this some kind of joke? We’re on some funny game show, right?
Graham Norton
?’ He starts darting his head around looking for the hidden cameras.

I stare at him hard and pin my hopes on the girl. She chews gum thoughtfully and then shrugs her shoulders. ‘We’ve only just got here. Good luck finding her, though.’ As I watch them walk on, her hand back in his pocket, I realize this is one of those moments, you know, when you see someone break down and feel so lucky that it’s not you. You drive on. Now I feel like the girl who’s broken down in her battered old car and no one is offering to help. No rescue team, no phone, no one’s that interested. I fumble in my handbag for my mobile and then realize I don’t have a clue who to ring. Sam? I wait for him to answer.

‘I’m in a meeting. I’ll call later. Remember, I’m out tonight,’ Sam finishes helpfully.

‘She’s run away,’ I say, my eyes staring ahead. ‘What am I going to do?’

‘Katie, I’m sorry, but what can I do stuck behind my frigging desk? Do you want me to come and help you look for her?’ he says, as if the idea is absurd.

‘No, Sam. That would make you a nice person.’ I hang up abruptly. I don’t even know why I called him. If Bells comes back I’ll tell her that it doesn’t matter. What are a few labels? I can sew them back on, no one will know. Come back, Bells. Please come back. There is no one else I can call. It’s like living in our own little world again, shut away from what’s normal.

‘’Scuse me … she’s twenty-two, four foot ten …’ I describe her to the next person I meet. I can’t see what other people look like any more. I just want to see Bells.

‘No, I haven’t seen her,’ he says.

WHY NOT? I want to scream at him. WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH YOU?

‘I’m sure a twenty-two-year-old can look after themselves,’ he mutters as he slopes off.

I call Dad though I know it’s crazy. What can he do when he’s not even in the country? I listen to the ringing tone but there’s no answer. He promised me he would have his mobile switched on in case of an emergency. I put a hand to my mouth and let out a long desperate wailing noise, I don’t know what to do, who to ask, where to look …

‘I’ve lost my sister. Have you seen my little sister?’ I ask a lady sitting on a bench reading a newspaper. The familiar sound of the train rattles in the background. What if Bells is on it?

‘What does she look like, darling?’ She’s American.

I’m about to repeat everything I have said before but find myself crying. It’s awful but I can’t stop. I put my head in my hands. What have I done? Bells, I’m so sorry, please forgive me for shouting at you. Bells could be run over and dead by now and it’s all my fault. I look up and the stranger hands me a tissue from her handbag.