Summer With My Sister (18 page)

If only they’d known. If only there had been an earlier appointment. It had been no good booking him in for Friday. He was already dead by then.

Polly remembered feeling rather disbelieving of her brother’s ailment at the time. She knew he had a ton of GCSE coursework he was meant to be doing and wondered if it was all an elaborate skive. She remembered (oh, the guilt) being dismissive of him when he could barely eat anything at teatime. ‘On a diet, are we?’ she’d mocked, raising her eyes to the ceiling as he miserably pushed his food around on the plate, one hand still clutching his forehead. ‘This in aid of Julie Miles, by any chance?’

‘Sod off,’ he’d growled, kicking her under the table.

That night Clare was swimming in a gala. Clare was fourteen at the time and showing real promise as a sprint swimmer. ‘We’ll have you in the next Olympics, you wait,’ her dad kept crowing as she won race after race. Clare’s half of the bedroom that she shared with seventeen-year-old Polly was rapidly becoming papered over with certificates, while the mantelpiece gleamed with medals and trophies.

It was the Hampshire County Championships this time, held in Waterlooville, and both proud parents were taking Clare. ‘Keep an eye on Michael,’ Karen had said, as they’d headed out to the car. ‘He can have two more paracetamol at ten o’clock, all right? See you later.’

‘Sure,’ Polly said blithely, then as soon as she heard their car pull out of the drive, immediately dialled her boyfriend’s number. ‘Jay? They’ve gone. Fancy coming over?’

Jay and Polly had been inseparable back then. They were going to spend the rest of their lives together. After their A-levels that summer they planned to work somewhere until Christmas – hopefully Jay’s dad would sort them out jobs at the brewery he worked for – and then intended to go inter-railing for six months, just set off with a backpack each and travel to Italy, Spain, Germany . . . Jay had ambitions for them to have sex in every European capital city. ‘We’ll tackle the rest of the world later,’ he vowed. The future stretched out like a ray of sunshine, bright and golden, full of promise and excitement and saucy contortions in foreign backpacker hostels. It was all going to be fantastic.

Jay duly arrived and the two of them had spent the evening on the sofa, indulging in what Amberley Leisure Centre called ‘heavy petting’ to the sound of
Pills ’n’ Thrills and Bellyaches
, which was ‘their’ album. They’d had sex before – sticky knee-tremblers around the back of the youth club, daring entanglements at Jay’s house when they were supposed to be at college, and once even in a bus shelter on the way back from a friend’s party – but never at Polly’s house. She felt weird about it, especially with Michael being there upstairs.

‘He won’t know,’ Jay kept whispering hotly into her ear, as his hand crept up her T-shirt. ‘If we’re really quiet, he’ll never know.’

She’d giggled. She couldn’t resist. ‘Go on, then. But we’ve got to be quick,’ she muttered.

And so, fumbling and fondling, they’d removed one another’s clothes and Polly had lain back on the burgundy faux-leather sofa, the vinyl cushions cold under her bare bum. Jay had wrestled with the condom and just then, over the sound of his rubbery manoeuvring and Shaun Ryder’s drawl, she’d heard a cry. ‘Polly? Polly!’

She froze. ‘That’s Michael,’ she said, feeling very exposed and less sure about this whole idea all of a sudden. If her brother came downstairs now and saw her like this, oh my God, she’d absolutely
die
. He’d never let her forget it!

Jay grinned, condom-clad cock bobbing as he straddled her. ‘Don’t think about him,’ he whispered. ‘Think about this.’

Then he was kissing her, and Michael drifted clean out of her mind. And at some moment during Jay’s thrusts and her muffled gasps, her brother died in a small bedroom upstairs, all on his own, just like that.

She didn’t find out until it was too late. Once she and Jay had cleaned themselves up, faces flushed, hair dishevelled, beaming at one another; once the soggy tissues had been plunged well into the kitchen bin so that her parents would be none the wiser; once the sofa had been given a quick wipe-over and the cushions plumped up again, only then had she remembered her brother calling out to her.

‘I suppose I’d better go and see what Sickboy wanted,’ she said, her eyes lingering on Jay’s face. ‘Back in a minute.’

And then nothing was ever the same again.

Polly gripped the edge of the bench, trying to push away the images of that awful night, but they kept hurtling into her mind as if it had only been last week.

It had been a cerebral aneurysm, the rupture of a bulging blood vessel in his brain, causing a massive haemorrhage. ‘A time-bomb waiting to go off they’d said at the hospital. ‘Incredibly rare. There was nothing anyone could have done.’

But Polly disagreed. If she’d got to her brother in time, if she’d run to him when he’d called out her name instead of prostrating herself for Jay, she might have been able to save him. She could have made everything different. It was all her fault.

Blindly she got up from the bench. Her breath felt shallow and difficult, and she put a hand to her chest as she walked. She had to get back to her parents’ house, had to get away from this garden. The scent of the flowers seemed intoxicating now, overpowering. They made her feel queasy and faint.

Her mind still bursting with unasked-for memories, she stumbled through the gate and along the churchyard path to find Sissy. Sweat trickled down her spine and her tongue felt thick and uncomfortable in her parched, dry mouth.

Coming back had been a mistake, a terrible mistake. She grabbed Sissy’s lead and all but ran to the bungalow.

Chapter Eleven

On Friday evening Karen knocked on Clare’s back door and let herself in. ‘Yoohoo, babysitter entering premises,’ she yodelled.

Clare was up in her bedroom, trying to decide what to wear. ‘Down in a minute,’ she yelled, hearing the children’s cries of ‘Grandma!’ and Fred’s welcoming woof, then turned back to the mirror.

The jeans were giving her a bit of a muffin-top – she’d put on a few pounds lately. It was typical that she should be feeling blobby just when her sister had rocked up looking like a size zero. Mind you, Polly’s gaunt, haggard appearance wasn’t exactly scoring highly on the foxy stakes, either. Clare had found herself wondering if this ‘research’ that her sister had come to do was actually code for some horrible terminal illness. Polly’s hair, which had always been enviably glossy and bouncy, was now dull and straggly, just hanging from her scalp. Her brown eyes looked like holes in her head, ringed with the dark circles of a poor sleeper, although they glittered with defiance, as if daring Clare to say a single word about her appearance.

It was only when Polly started speaking in that insufferably patronizing way of hers that Clare realized she was fighting fit after all, rather than on her deathbed. ‘Fighting’ being the operative word.

Oh, skirt it was, she decided, snatching it off the hanger. She was heading into Amberley for Roxie’s birthday drinks and there would probably be hordes of Roxie’s skinny young twenty-something friends there too. Next to them, she’d feel like a fat slab of mutton dressed as lamb in her jeans. Her legs were her best feature, even if they were still slightly streaky from a self-tanning disaster; she might as well show them off in a skirt rather than cover them up.

She dressed quickly, slapped on some mascara and lipstick and dabbed her wrists and neck with perfume. A few weeks ago she’d seen an article in one of the magazines at the surgery about making your own scent and she’d tried some of the recipes printed there. This fragrance was called ‘Arabian Queen’ and was a heady mix of orange, juniper, coriander and frankincense oils. It smelled fresh and exotic on her skin, and she was complimented on the scent every time she wore it. She’d already wrapped up a bottle of it for Roxie, along with a home-made bath-bomb, as her present. One day she’d be able to afford flash gifts for her friends, like Polly could, but right now everyone would just have to make do with cheap and cheerful.

One last look in the mirror. She fluffed up her shoulder-length brown hair, peered in at her eyes to check for stray blobs of mascara and bared her teeth to inspect them for lipstick. She wished she didn’t look quite so nervous. Then she flicked off the bedroom light and ran downstairs to the kitchen, where she could hear Leila and Alex chattering away to Grandma, talking over one another in their eagerness to tell her all their news.

Karen looked up as Clare came in. She was sitting at the table with Fred’s daft head on her knee and a grandchild on either side. ‘Hi, love,’ she said. ‘You look nice. Ooh, lovely perfume too,’ she added, sniffing the air.

‘Thanks, Mum,’ Clare said. ‘It’s one I made – I’ve got lots spare, if you want a bottle of your own.’

‘Yes, please,’ her mum replied. She winked at the children. ‘That’ll give Grandad a shock, won’t it, when I come in smelling all posh.’

Clare smiled. ‘Kids, get your pyjamas on, I’ll be up in five minutes to do your teeth.’ She set the kettle to boil as they thundered upstairs. ‘How’s it going, then, with your new house-guest?’ she asked, frowning as she noticed how weary her mum looked. She hoped Polly hadn’t run her ragged.

‘Well, it’s taking a bit of getting used to,’ Karen replied delicately, stroking Fred’s silky ears, ‘but it’s lovely to have her. She’s working ever so hard, though. I haven’t dared hoover or sit down and watch any of my programmes because she’s sat there at the desk all day.’ She shook her head, a web of fine lines creasing the sides of her mouth as she clicked her tongue. ‘I wish she’d relax a bit, but she’s . . . Well, she seems very tense. Me and your dad have been tiptoeing around her. Your dad didn’t even watch
Countdown
this afternoon. Went out and mowed the lawn instead, even though it didn’t really need doing. And then Polly got all tetchy about the noise, so he shouldn’t have bothered.’

‘Hmmm,’ Clare said. It irked her, her parents having to pussyfoot around Polly in their own home. ‘Can’t she work in her room? I mean, why does she have to hog the living room? Surely Dad should be able to watch
Countdown
when he wants to.’

‘That’s what he says,’ Karen replied, scratching Fred under the chin. ‘We’ve had a few barneys about it already. You know what he’s like, the stubborn old mule. But we’ll all get used to each other soon, I’m sure,’ she added loyally. ‘It’s just . . . different.’

Clare busied herself making the tea and didn’t reply immediately. She knew her mum was so happy to have Polly back that she wasn’t about to rock the boat in any way. That was understandable, given that Polly had all but estranged herself for so many years, but at the same time Clare didn’t want her sister to take advantage. ‘Well, don’t let her push you around, all right?’ she said in the end. ‘Tell her you’ll stop her allowance if she doesn’t behave. Or ground her!’

‘Chance would be a fine thing,’ Karen sighed. ‘She’s grounded herself. Not interested in coming out and meeting our friends. Not bothered about seeing Jacky Garland, even though Jacky invited her over, said she’d organize a little coffee morning with some of Polly’s other friends from school so that they could all catch up.’

‘What, and she said no?’

Karen nodded. ‘Didn’t even think about it before she refused flat out. What am I going to tell Jean now? It’s very rude, especially when Jacky’s going out of her way.’ She shrugged. ‘Probably seems a bit quiet here after London, though. She must miss all her mates. I’ve been trying to get out of her whether or not there’s a fella on the scene back there, but if there is, she’s not letting on.’ She mimed zipping her lips. ‘You know Polly, though. Always been the secretive type.’

‘Mmmm,’ Clare said. It was weird, she mused, how none of them had any idea what was happening in Polly’s private life. Clare knew nothing whatsoever about her sister’s relationships or friendships, hadn’t a clue what she did in her spare time. She could have been married several times over, for all that the rest of the family knew. Her mum was right – Polly had always been secretive; a closed book, whereas Clare was completely the opposite. She had the worst face ever for playing poker, you could read every emotion she was experiencing from the expression she wore. It was kind of annoying sometimes, being so transparent, but at least she felt honest. What must it be like being Polly, so repressed and shut-off from the world? How could anyone bear to live that way?