It Would Be Wrong to Steal My Sister's Boyfriend (22 page)

Puzzled, I got up – I needed to clean my teeth and take my make-up off anyway, I told myself – and walked downstairs to the living room. Rose was on the sofa, her feet curled up underneath her. She was wearing one of the pretty lace camisole and knickers sets she sleeps in, and she was crying.

“Rose?” I said. “What’s the matter?”

“Oliver’s gone,” she said. “He didn’t want us to have sex and when I tried to talk about it he walked out.”

I sat down next to her, suddenly wanting to laugh. “You’re not going to believe
this,” I said. “Pete – Peter’s just stormed out into the night in a massive strop because I wouldn’t have sex with him.”

Rose looked at me and I looked back at her, and I put my arms around her and felt her delicate shoulder blades under my hands as I have done countless times over the years when I’ve hugged and comforted my sister while she’s cried, and her hair tickled my nose the way it always has, and a tear trickled down her cheek and into my ear, and I shook my head to get rid of it and met her eyes, and we both started to giggle helplessly. We ended up tangled together on the sofa, laughing so much we couldn’t stand up, until eventually I calmed down enough to make us a pot of tea and Rose found a box of chocolates one of her admirers had given her, and we had a bit of a midnight feast, and for a while it felt as if we didn’t need anyone else as long as we had each other.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Rose held her long hair in a bundle on top of her head while I pulled the zip up her back, and then let it fall. We stood next to each other in front of the mirror. She was wearing a metallic silver bandage dress, strappy at the top and coming about halfway down her thighs, and on just about anyone else it would have looked tarty and OTT, but Rose was so slim and delicate – even slimmer than usual, I noticed – and her makeup was so subtle, she looked elegant and perfect. I’d borrowed a plain black shift dress from her, and was feeling decidedly smug because I’d never been able to fit into any of Rose’s clothes before, but now I could, and I looked pretty good myself.

“Not bad,” I said.

“I think we’ll do,” said Rose, and we picked up our handbags and went downstairs to ring for a taxi.

I don’t know what I’d expected Oliver’s birthday dinner to be like – when Rose had explained that it was going to be champagne followed by dinner at an Italian restaurant I suppose part of me expected it to be a bunch of mates meeting at a bar somewhere before going on to Pizza Express for some food, like my friends’ birthday parties generally are. But then Rose had explained this was an Italian restaurant run by a celebrity chef, with a plate of risotto setting you back forty quid, because it came with shaved white truffles (I checked out the menu online), and all the women would be wearing designer frocks, and Rose had bought Oliver a painting (a painting! My mates were lucky if their girlfriends bought them a bottle of wine and a DVD), so I dashed out and bought him a present too, spending ages trying to choose between dozens of pairs of almost identical, equally expensive pairs of cufflinks. Rose and I had taken two hours to get ready, and she had that nervous, fluttery look about her that made me suspect she was hoping for great things to come of the evening. While we waited for our taxi she changed her shoes from black stilt heels (“I always think black makes you look like you’ve only got one pair of shoes in the world,” she said) to red stilettos, but then those got rejected also (“Too obvious,”) in favour of a pair of silver sandals, until she decided they didn’t work either (“Too matchy-matchy,”) and she went back to the black, which of course had been the right choice all along, and I sat and waited not very patiently while she faffed about. I’d texted Peter the day before, after three days’ silence from both of us following our row, and apologised for behaving weirdly, and checked that he was still coming. I was genuinely sorry we’d had a row and I felt bad about hurting him, but also part of me, the shallow, shameful part I’d rather forgetten existed, wanted Oliver to see me with a
good looking, suitably smitten boyfriend in tow. So I texted Peter again to make sure that he knew the address and tell him we were going to be late, and at last, when the cab had been waiting almost ten minutes and I was fretting that the driver would get fed up and leave, Rose was ready.

There was something about Rose that evening, I thought as we scrambled into the back of the taxi. She’d lost weight, as I’d noticed when I zipped her into her dress; her slenderness was bordering on fragility, I was worried that she hadn’t been eating properly. But she was sparkling with nervous excitement, almost manic with it, opening her bag and checking her face in her compact mirror, applying fresh lipgloss, fiddling with her hair. I wondered what Oliver had done to crack the veneer of indifference that Rose had so carefully preserved over the past few weeks.

“So who else is going to be there tonight?” I asked.

“Well, Ollie, obviously,” Rose said, “and us, and Peter, and Ollie’s friend Algy from work, and some other colleagues of his, and various art people. Simon and Khalid. Jamie Cunningham.”

“Who’s he?” I asked. The name was vaguely familiar.

“Honestly, Ellie, do keep up.” Rose smiled. “He’s an artist. Ollie bought a couple of his paintings recently, and we’ve got one in the flat – the little drawing on the landing?”

I’m not like Rose – I don’t mind art, but I don’t particularly notice it either, so I had to close my eyes and mentally transport myself back home so I could picture what she meant. It was a small charcoal sketch of a cat, and I liked it because it reminded me of Winston, Ben’s black and white moggie, and every time I looked at it I thought of Ben and that made me happy. I hadn’t been looking at it much recently, though.

“Cool,” I said. “Is he nice?”

“He’s all right,” Rose said with careful indifference. “A bit shy. He keeps saying he wants to paint me. I think he’ll be out of his depth with Oliver’s crowd.”

I thought, but didn’t say, that I was likely to be out of my depth with Oliver’s crowd too, and I was really glad that at least Peter would be there, and he’d talk to me even if none of the bankers and art people did. I thought fleetingly how nice it would be if, instead of being on my way to a smart restaurant where I’d have to be appear my sparkling best and talk to strangers without being gauche and shy, and not embarrass Rose, and impress Oliver, I was on my way to meet Ben or Claire for a pizza. But I swallowed the knot of trepidation in my throat, and said to Rose, “Are you sure I look okay?”

“You look amazing, Ellie,” she said. “You always do.” But she was anxiously inspecting her own face yet again, so I wasn’t sure I could believe her.

“Seymour Street, madam,” said the cab driver, and we paid and piled out.

The entrance to the restaurant was almost blocked by a crowd of about fifteen men in jeans and boots and padded jackets, and I thought how odd it was that a group of homeless people would congregate outside an expensive restaurant in Mayfair, and then I noticed that they were festooned with cameras, most bearing long lenses that would probably cost more than our entire dinner.

“Smile!” Rose hissed, as a fusillade of flashbulbs exploded in our faces.

I smiled determinedly, and fought the urge to hoik up my bra strap, which was slipping down my left shoulder, and we made our way to the entrance, looking a lot more poised than I felt.

“Christ,” I said to Rose while we waited to be shown to our table, “What was that about? Surely Oliver’s not that important?”

Rose laughed. “Not quite,” she said, “but Madonna comes here quite often. They
were probably hanging out in the hope that she’d appear, and we might do in a pinch.” Rose has had her photo on the diary page of
Hello
a few times, and she pretends it’s awkward and embarrassing, but I suspect she’s secretly terribly gratified by it. And once when she was in
Tatler
she really struggled to hide her delight, and I found the cutting in the kitchen drawer several months later when I was looking for the Royal Taj Mahal menu, although when I asked her if it was okay to throw it away she acted terribly casual and said yes, of course, she couldn’t think how it had got there.

Anyway we made our way to Oliver’s table, and there he was, wearing another of his impeccably cut suits, with a shirt in a sort of amethyst colour, open-necked with no tie, and there was a bit of designer stubble on his face, so I supposed he had dressed down for the occasion. I just stood there for a bit, rooted to the floor as they say, and not just by Rose’s patent McQueen heels, which were pinching my toes like mad. I was so transfixed by Oliver that I barely noticed Peter standing next to me, holding two glasses of wine.

“Hello, gorgeous,” he said. “You look fucking incredible. I incredibly much want to fuck you.”

“Shhh,” I hissed. “Hi. So glad you could come.” I kissed him, aiming for his cheek, but he turned his head strategically so I ended up kissing his mouth.

Comparisons are odious, everyone knows that, and I’m ashamed to say I was odious too, as I weighed Peter up against Oliver and found him wanting. Oliver was so polished, so at home in this environment, among these glossy, important, moneyed people. I tried to kindle the desire I knew I ought to feel for Peter, but it was like trying to light a fag with a lighter that’s flint has gone – just a dull scraping, and no spark at all. I couldn’t help contrasting his perfectly nice, ordinary suit with Oliver and his friends’ designer versions of the same thing; Peter’s totally normal short hair with their proper, styled cuts; Peter’s sweet,
inoffensive Home Counties accent with their cut-glass tones. And when we all sat down for dinner and I found myself sitting on Oliver’s left (Rose was on his right), I couldn’t stop looking at his hands as he turned the pages of the wine list, listening to his voice as he ordered things without stumbling and faltering over any of the words as I would have done, admiring the slight crookedness of his smile and the huskiness of his laugh, I barely said a word to Peter for about half an hour.

On Oliver’s other side, Rose seemed totally preoccupied too. She had her phone out on the table in front of her, and she was tapping it impatiently every now and then, and looking expectantly towards the door. I wondered if she was texting friends, speculating about whether Madonna was going to put in an appearance, but I didn’t care much. When I felt a warm hand on my thigh, I almost melted in a puddle of delight, before I realised it was the wrong leg, and the wrong hand.

“Ellie?” Peter said, “Are you okay?”

“What?” I said. “Yes, of course, fine.”

He lowered his voice. “I’m not sure I am,” he said.

I turned to look at him. His face was furrowed and unhappy, and he looked all stiff and uncomfortable, surrounded by Oliver’s laughing friends.

“What’s wrong?” I said.

“Ellie, I think you know,” he said. “I don’t want to cause a scene at your friend’s party, but maybe we should go outside and talk.”

I pushed back my chair and stood up, ignoring the plate of risotto that had just been put in front of me. “Right,” I said.

Outside, the night was warm and there was a thin drizzle falling. I thought how Rose would worry about her hair frizzing in it, and found myself worrying about mine.

“What is it?” I said to Peter.

“I think I may have got things wrong about us,” he said. He looked utterly miserable, and a bit angry. “It’s early days, but I really like you, and I thought you liked me. But I think there’s something going on with you and Oliver, and I’m not comfortable with it.”

I looked up at him and fixed a bright, sparkling smile on my face. “What do you mean?” I said. “Oliver’s just a friend. He’s my sister’s boyfriend. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

But just then Oliver and a couple of his friends – the one called Algy and I think the one called Fabrice – came outside and looked at us, and moved discreetly away before lighting cigarettes, and my eyes were drawn irresistibly to Oliver, so much so that I barely heard what Peter said next.

“Ellie, I’m going to go home. I don’t belong here, and you don’t want me here.”

“What are you talking about?” I said. “Of course I do.” I could see Oliver looking in my direction, and I pulled Peter towards me and tried to kiss him, but his body felt cold and stiff, and he moved away.

“Don’t patronise me,” he said. “I might not have been to university, I might not work for some swanky Square Mile investment bank, but I’m not stupid. You have a think about things. If you change your mind about our relationship, call me, but as far as I’m concerned it’s over.”

“Pete, I…” I wanted to say, how could it be over – whatever it was, it had surely not even begun. But all I could manage was, “I’m sorry.”

“Give this to Oliver,” Peter said, pressing something into my hand. And he turned and walked quietly away into the damp night. I watched him for a bit, then went over and chatted to Oliver and his friends, and said that Peter had some work emergency, and it was
only when we got back into the restaurant that I realised the warm wad of paper sticking to my palm was eight twenty pound notes, enough to pay for the wine we’d drunk and the food neither of us had eaten.

Raucously, the evening progressed. Oliver moved around the table talking to everyone, and Rose did too, although she seemed totally without sparkle. Algy and Fabrice ordered brandy and more champagne, and after a while Algy moved into Peter’s place, and I chatted to him a bit but I couldn’t summon up much enthusiasm for it, I couldn’t eat anything, and I couldn’t stop looking at Oliver on the other side of the table. Then Rose edged over into the empty chair on my right.

“Shall we go?” she said.

“No, no, it’s fine,” I said, “we can stay.” But I was feeling sad and hollow and a bit cold without the glowing flame of Oliver’s presence next to me.

“Let’s go,” said Rose. “You’re upset because you and Peter have had a row. Come.”

She put on her coat and picked up her bag, and both of us went round the table saying brittle goodbyes to people, and then we were outside again. The clouds had cleared now, and there was a bright new moon overhead. Rose, with the unerring skill she has in this regard, hailed a passing taxi, and held the door open for me.