The Sisters (21 page)

Mum comes back with a chunky beige cardigan that she wraps around my shoulders. ‘The spare room is made up, if you want to stay the night, love?’ she says as she perches next to my dad.

‘What’s going on, Abi?’ says Dad. They both wait and I open my mouth to tell them everything: how I’ve fallen in love with Ben, how I felt safe in his arms at night, that he kept the nightmares, the guilt, at bay, how he made me feel worthy again, but after several weeks of great sex he’s suddenly decided it’s against his possessive sister’s house rules to continue sleeping with me; about Beatrice and how she reminds me of Lucy in so many ways, except she has a controlling side to her nature, a side that Lucy never had, and that she’s angry, perhaps jealous of my relationship with Ben; that she’s leaving nasty things in my room to scare me into moving out, and that she’s succeeding, that I’m constantly terrified of what else she will do or say, that she’s already turned the rest of the house against me and now I’m worried that slowly, insidiously, she will turn Ben against me too – after all, there is only room for one woman in his life and surely that has to be his twin sister? Because, as you know, Mum and Dad, there is no greater bond than that of a twin.

But how can I say any of this? Especially to them? So I close my mouth and sip my tea and tell them what they want to hear, that I’ve had a bad day, that I’ve been working too hard and that I’m tired. ‘Honestly, it’s nothing to worry about,’ I say. And if it wasn’t for the quick look they exchange when they think I’m unaware, I would have thought I had convinced them.

I’m drifting off to sleep in the spare room under the eaves, in the double bed, snuggled under a Cath Kidston duvet cover, when my mobile vibrates on the pine bedside table next to me.

It’s gone midnight but I lean on my elbow to see who’s calling. Ben’s name flashes up. I answer it.

‘Abi? Where are you? I’ve been so worried.’ Even though his voice is urgent, panicked, I can’t help but think he hasn’t been
that
worried, considering this is the first time he’s tried to ring me.

‘I’m at my parents’ house.’

‘Aren’t you coming home?’

I lay back on the pillows, watching the light from the moon dance on the ceiling. ‘Not tonight, no.’

He falls silent. In the background I can hear the Rolling Stones’ ‘Paint It Black’, the familiar cacophony of voices, the clinking of glasses that tell me a party is in full swing. ‘Beatrice thought it would be nice to hold a small soiree.’ He says this last word with a self-conscious laugh. ‘I hoped you would be here.’

‘I didn’t know about it.’

‘Well, it was sort of impromptu.’ He sounds tipsy.

‘I needed to get away for a bit.’

‘Away from me?’ His voice is unusually thin and reedy.

‘Not from you.’ I close my eyes, imagining the party that’s going on without me, imagining who she invited.

‘Abi …’ he says, I can hear him breathing through the phone. ‘I know you and Beatrice haven’t been getting on that well. But she’s sorry, I know she is. She should be more understanding.’

More understanding of the mentally unstable, paranoid girlfriend, you mean, Ben?
But I don’t say it. I haven’t got the energy for an argument.

‘I will be back tomorrow.’

His voice brightens. ‘That’s great, because we need to talk about what we’re going to do for your birthday next Saturday. We can do anything you want. It’s a big one.’

My birthday. My head pounds at the thought of spending another birthday without Lucy. ‘To be honest, Ben, I’d love it if the two of us could spend it together. Maybe go somewhere on our own?’

‘You don’t want a party? You’re going to be thirty. Beatrice thought—’

‘No,’ I say sharply. ‘I definitely don’t want a party.’

‘Whatever you want. I’ll organize something special, just the two of us. My birthday treat to you. We could go to London?’

‘No, not London.’ I can’t possibly face London at the moment.

‘What about somewhere on the coast then? Lyme Regis or Weymouth?’

I agree that Lyme Regis would be nice and he assures me that he will sort it out, that he knows exactly the place, that it will be a surprise. As I hang up I’m more optimistic than I’ve been all day, and I fall asleep to the thought of spending the weekend with Ben, cuddled up in our hotel room, walks along the front, acting as a normal couple in love with nothing to worry about; no sex bans, no house rules. And best of all, no Beatrice.

Chapter Twenty

It never crossed my mind that I would reach thirty and Lucy would not. But when I wake up in the room that I still think of as Jodie’s I’m painfully aware that I’m doing this without her, that regardless of my dread, August third has come around, and I’m turning thirty alone. Will it ever get any better, or am I destined to spend every birthday buckling under the weight of her absence?

Our parents always spoilt us on our birthdays, making sure to throw us a party no matter how tight things were financially. Mum, who was born in the depths of winter, continually informed us how lucky we were to celebrate our birthday in the summer, even though most years the sun was an elusive guest while overcast skies and thundery rain gatecrashed our parties. Not that this put her off. If the rain was particularly bad, she would retrieve the awning from the garage and get Dad to erect it over the patio, insisting that we sit outside to make the most of the summer irrespective of the droplets of rain that ran off the awning and down our necks. She would invite the whole estate as well as our classmates. And Lucy and I would giggle at the sheer silliness of it all, as Mum bustled around us, making sure everyone had jelly and ice cream along with waterproofs and wellies. ‘You’ll be thankful for these memories one day,’ she would happily chide us when she noticed our conspiratorial giggles, carrying out cheese-and-pineapple sticks protruding painfully from a foil-wrapped orange. But she was right. I look back on each and every one of the birthdays that we shared as children with such nostalgia, such longing, that it becomes an intense, gut-wrenching pain.

I suppose it isn’t so strange that, as the years inevitably roll on without her, I will become more absorbed in my childhood, in the past, in a time when we were happy.

The doorbell rings and I spring out of bed, wrapping my dressing gown around myself, and hurry down the stairs. But before I can get to the front door Beatrice is closing it, a huge bouquet of white lilies and roses in her arms. Lilies are my favourite flower. Roses were Lucy’s.

‘Happy birthday.’ Beatrice smiles at me. ‘These have just arrived for you.’ She hands them to me and I almost drop them, they are so heavy. I press my nose against the petals of a velvety rose. Who would have splashed out on such an opulent bouquet? ‘Come with me, I’m sure I’ve got the perfect vase in the kitchen.’ I follow as she pads off down the hallway, her pink silk dressing gown billowing out behind her.

Since returning from my parents’ house I’ve noticed that Beatrice has gone out of her way to be nice, including me in an excursion to an art gallery, which I politely declined, and a party at Niall’s house, which I readily accepted, and as the week has progressed it’s almost as it used to be between us, and I suspect Ben had a word with her after I left. Whatever he said seems to have worked. We’ve reached some kind of impasse. Neither of us have mentioned the letters, the photograph or the bracelet. And even though I toss and turn at night at the thought of those lost letters, of the eerie photo of me with no face, nervous of what might come next, I have no choice but to bide my time, for now.

Everyone is in the kitchen when we come down, and as I round the last step they all start singing Happy Birthday energetically. Ben stands at the Aga, poised over a frying pan that sizzles and crackles. After the singing he bounds over to me, wrapping his arms around me, almost crushing the flowers as he plants a big kiss on my forehead. ‘Happy birthday,’ he says. ‘Who are the flowers from?’

‘I’m not sure yet, I haven’t read the card,’ I say, slightly overwhelmed. It’s as though I’ve spent the last few weeks in the servant quarters, only now being allowed to mix with the gentry. Pam shoves a card and a bottle of expensive champagne at me, while Cass hovers by my side with a cup of tea.

‘Here, let me have those,’ says Beatrice, noticing I’ve got no spare hands with which to take the tea. She lifts the flowers from my arms and lays them on the worktop as she bends down to search in the cupboard underneath the sink for a vase.

Ben steers me to the table, tells me he’s cooking breakfast, bacon sandwiches as a special treat. His enthusiasm is so endearing that I can’t bring myself to tell him I’m not a fan of bacon. Pam and Cass take a seat opposite me while Pam chatters away about when she was thirty ‘many moons ago’, as if it isn’t obvious, by her many lines and grey parting, that it was nearly two decades ago when she was my age.

Cass shyly pushes a wrapped gift across the table. ‘It’s not much,’ she blushes. I thank her and open it, unable to hide my surprise when I see it’s a large black-and-white print. It’s of me – but it could be Lucy, or Beatrice – a close-up so that only my face and the top of my shoulders are showing in a white T-shirt. I’m deep in thought, the wind blowing some strands of hair across my cheek, the background out of focus so that I can’t tell where or when it was taken. Callum is a great photographer but this is in a different league entirely. ‘Cass, it’s amazing,’ I say, genuinely touched. The others crowd around me to see it, exclaiming at its loveliness. Suddenly my blood runs cold. There is something sickeningly familiar about this photograph – the pose, the blonde hair, the white T-shirt – and it slowly occurs to me where I’ve seen it before. The photograph is a larger version of the one I found in my bedroom, the one where my face had been scratched away, leaving a large white spooky void.

‘Can I have a copy?’ Ben grins as he returns to the Aga, spatula in hand, oblivious to my discomfort. My heart is racing, my head swims. Am I about to have a panic attack? I turn to look at Beatrice, to see how she’s reacting to all this, but she’s leaning against the worktop, a smile on her lips, the bouquet of flowers arranged beautifully in a vase behind her.

Ben serves up bacon sandwiches and as I look around the table, at Beatrice perched next to me happily recounting her and Ben’s thirtieth birthday a couple of years ago, at Cass smiling shyly at her over her coffee cup, at Pam gurning and flashing her gold tooth, it’s as if I’m in some surreal play. Did Cass leave that photograph in my bedroom? Was she acting on Beatrice’s behalf? Was it meant as a warning? A threat?

‘So,’ says Beatrice, turning to me. Her plate is empty. ‘What have you got planned for today?’

I open my mouth to say that Ben has promised to take me to Lyme Regis for the night when he interrupts me. ‘It’s a surprise, remember?’ he says. A look I can’t read passes between them and I take a bite of my bacon sandwich although it feels like cardboard in my mouth. All I can think about is that damn photograph.

‘Oh, I nearly forgot my gift,’ she says, handing me a small parcel prettily wrapped in embossed butterfly paper.

‘Oh, thanks,’ I mutter, aware that I must sound ungrateful, but I’m terrified of what I’m going to discover inside. I open it with trepidation. The box is small, navy blue, recognizable as the kind that Beatrice uses to package up her jewellery before selling it. My mouth goes dry. I lift the lid and gasp. Sitting between the crevices of dark velvet is a bracelet. At first I think it’s the bracelet that has allegedly gone missing. It’s very similar, sparkly silver, but instead of being inset with sapphires this one shimmers with small round yellow stones.

‘Peridot,’ she says watching my reaction. ‘The birthstone for a Leo.’

‘I always thought my birthstone was a ruby.’ I’m amazed at her thoughtfulness. I gently touch the bracelet, then slide it on my wrist. It’s a perfect fit.

‘Not for an August-born Leo. I’ve done my research. Do you like it?’ And by the childlike eagerness in her voice I realize that it’s important to her that I do and it confuses me. What’s going on? Is this another of her tricks to play with my mind?

‘I love it,’ I say, trying to sound normal. Deep down I am touched, but I don’t trust her motives. Not any more. She smiles in answer then gets up and empties her dirty plate.

‘Oh, don’t forget this—’ She hands me a tiny envelope that’s next to the vase. ‘It came with the flowers. Don’t you want to know who they’re from?’

I take it from her and slide the card from the envelope, frowning as I read the words. They’re so unexpected, so shocking, that the ink swims in front of my eyes. And I cry out, the card falling from my hand and on to the stone tiles, only semi-aware that Ben is picking it up, that the others are all watching my reaction as he reads out the card.

Happy Birthday, Abi. Have a great thirtieth. Wish I could be with you.

Love Lucy xx

There is a deathly silence as they all digest what’s been written, as the realization dawns on them that I’ve been sent flowers by my dead twin sister.

I can barely breathe. Beatrice breaks the silence first. ‘Could she … could she have ordered them before she died?’