The One Before the One (2 page)

‘I’ll be okay,’ she says. ‘I just need some time out of Doncaster, to be honest, some time away.’

Then she leans her head back on the radiator and studies me, her dark eyes still glassy from crying.

‘And d’you know what?’ she says, absentmindedly stroking the fabric of my wedding dress. ‘It’s all right to get dumped. We all get dumped. Carly’s just been dumped, so it doesn’t make you a freak.’

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

* * *

It’s only when Lexi’s in bed that I do what I’ve been dying to do all day. I sit back on my pillows, take my notebook – all perfect in its lovely, stripy hardness – out of my bedside-table drawer and I begin, asterisking new items.

Was only joking about that last bit … Kind of.

I should say that when I say my ‘sister’ I actually mean half-sister. Lexi was born when I was fifteen – which makes her seventeen now – about seven months after Dad moved in with Cassandra, which means he must have got her up the duff whilst he was living with Mum. My mother never lets me forget
that.

I remember the day she was born – 12 September 1991. It was a Thursday morning, a school morning, and Mum was putting a load of washing on. Mum was forever putting a load of washing on, back then, especially after Dad left. It was ridiculous; she was either stuffing it into the machine or hanging it out, like some manic, nervous tick, which I now realize it was.

She had her bottom in the air, and was wearing the aqua elasticated trousers that couldn’t have helped in Dad’s final decision to walk, that’s for sure!

‘Well, your father’s had his second daughter,’ she announced. ‘God help her, Caroline, with two lunatics for parents! Alexis Simone, they’ve called her, poor little sod. Surely the work of the She Devil.’

The ‘She Devil’ was what Cassandra was known as in our
house, which, even at fifteen and abandoned by my dad, I felt was a little harsh, but what did I know? Mum’s a black and white kind of a woman. It’s love or hate with her.

I remember an immediate pang of envy that she’d got Alexis Simone, where as I got Caroline Marie, something you’d surely call a canal barge. But then there was another emotion that took me by surprise: excitement. Surging, dizzying excitement that made me unable to swallow my Weetabix. I had a sister! I’d always wanted a sister. Especially since I’d always felt short-changed by my brother, Chris, whom I strongly suspected was off the autism scale and whose one great love in life was his biscuit-infested Nintendo.

‘And is she okay? I mean, is she healthy?’ I asked. I liked to think I was a caring sort who rose above personal politics even then, mainly out of necessity, since if anyone had two lunatics as parents, it was me.

‘Oh yes, she’s fine …
physically,’
Mum said, ramming the soap-powder dispenser shut. ‘Only time will tell what they do to her head.’

I don’t know what I expected having a half-sister would be like. I guess I was thinking along the lines of swapping clothes, discussing boys, although since Alexis – Lexi, as she quickly came to be called – was a day old, I’d have to wait years to do all that.

I was travelling from Mum’s in Harrogate to Dad’s (well, Cassandra’s house) in Doncaster every other weekend back then. Cassandra was a flamboyant American who could talk a glass eye to sleep and had a good line in enormous dresses that looked like she’d had a run in with a box of water-colours. Dad had met her on a residential course called Heal Your Life at the height of his midlife crisis.

Anyway, I was desperate to get to Dad’s that weekend so I could meet this new, coolly named sister of mine. My little sister. My very own confidante! Someone to save me from
my mental family and, above all, myself and this altogether below-par existence I was leading.

As soon as I walked in, however, I realized the other thing I hadn’t thought through – as well as the fact that it would be approximately sixteen years before I could discuss my concerns about still being a virgin with my sister – (and at the rate things were going, I’d still be a virgin then) – was the fact that my father would be madly in love with this new bundle and that this would bring my already crumbling world crashing down.

Cassandra was breast-feeding when I arrived and Dad was sitting next to her on the sofa, stroking Lexi’s head. I stood in the doorway, my throat constricted with an all-consuming jealousy.

You’d have thought, what with Cassandra being a life coach and Dad now transformed into a yoga-loving, therapy addict who used terms like ‘closure’ in normal conversation, that they might have been more sensitive and given me time to adapt. But no. Cassandra simply lifted Lexi straight from her gigantic breast, which dangled out of a bra the size of a pillowcase.

‘Caroline, meet Alexis Simone, your new baby sister. Isn’t she adorable?’

She was so light, she almost fell through my fingers.

‘Yeah, she’s, um … nice,’ I said, holding her like you might hold a bundle of firewood, trying to keep all the tiny bones, the bits, together. I was appalled, shocked by how tiny she was. What use was this to me? How could this downy, squawking thing that bore more than a passing resemblance to a newborn ape save me from anything?

Cassandra was smiling at me, head cocked to the side. Then Dad started with the camera. This was so embarrassing.

‘Put her next to your breast, sweetie,’ urged Cassandra, massive knockers still dangling like water bombs. ‘Babies love skin-to-skin contact, it makes them feel safe.’

Yeah, well, it didn’t make
me
feel safe, it made me feel like a total moron. I touched the top of her head – just because I felt I ought to really – but it felt like an over-ripe peach and made my legs turn to jelly. Then the baby started head-butting me. This wasn’t panning out well at all.

‘Aaah, look, she’s rooting,’ gushed Cassandra.

‘What do you mean?’ This sounded like something a badger did.

‘She thinks you have milk, sweetie, she’s hungry. She thinks you’re her mommy, too.’

Dad was still snapping away: ‘My two little girls,’ he kept saying. ‘My two, gorgeous girls,’ which for reasons I am yet to fully understand made me suddenly so mad, and so sad, it was all I could do not to punch him.

We had tea, eventually, around 9 p.m., with Lexi being passed between Dad and Cassandra and the Moses basket. Nobody asked me a thing, except for Dad, who asked when I’d started to get psoriasis on my scalp. Then I went to bed, an hour earlier than normal, and balled my eyes out, all the time listening to Lexi do the same.

So Dad, as much as I loved him, was never a father to me or Chris, and yet, here he was being one to somebody else. And that hurt. That hurt like nothing else had ever hurt in my life, and if I’m honest, my realisation that day that Alexis Simone was not, as I’d hoped, my very own baby-sister-shaped saviour but a usurper, stayed with me. If I’m
really
honest, it’s probably still there.

The morning after Lexi arrives in London, I wake up to the sound of something throbbing. At first I assume it’s a hangover, but then decide I feel nowhere near rancid enough, since mine are largely of the vomit-on-waking variety. I remove my earplugs and fumble around on the floor for my glasses, morning being a gradual reintroduction of the sensory world to me, my myopia at a level where I have been known to say hello to my own reflection.

It doesn’t take me long to realize the thumping is music and it’s coming from downstairs.

It’s only then that I remember I have a guest.

‘Lexi?’ I’m banging on the bathroom door in my pyjamas now. ‘Lexi, are you in there?’

‘Yeah,’ comes a muffled voice from inside. ‘Come in if you want. I’m fully dressed.’

I push open the door. It’s steamy and warm. I just can make out Lexi hovering over the sink but not much else.

‘Er, music?’ I shout with what I hope is a vaguely humorous I-am-so-cool-with-your-rock-music-at-seven-in-the-morning but there’s an accusatory rise at the end of the sentence.

‘Gossip!’ she shouts back

‘I’m sorry?’

‘GOSSIP!’ She stands up from the sink. ‘The MUSIC. It’s GOSSIP. Why, do you like them?’

‘CAN’T SAY I’VE EVER HEARD OF THEM!’

‘WHAT?! BETH DITTO IS A FEMINIST ICON OF OUR TIMES!’

‘I THOUGHT YOU SAID IT WAS GOSSIP?’

‘IT
IS.
BETH DITTO IS THE LEAD SINGER OF THE GROUP, GOSSIP.’

‘OH …’

‘WHY ARE WE SHOUTING?’

‘I DON’T KNOW. I CAN’T HEAR BECAUSE I CAN’T SEE AND I CAN’T SEE BECAUSE I HAVEN’T GOT MY GLASSES ON. I THINK I LEFT THEM IN HERE!’

‘Oh my Lord,’ giggles Lexi as I edge right up to her face. ‘You really are blind, aren’t you?’

She fumbles around near the sink, hands me my glasses, and I put them on. Only then does everything become clear. Well, almost clear, there’s still something obstructing my vision. Lexi has her hair wrapped in a Tesco bag, dribbles of purple dye running down her forehead, around her ears. My sparkling white, Italian designer bathroom basin –
obscene
amounts of money from a place on Lavender Hill – is splattered with purple dye. As is the wall. As is the towel around Lexi’s neck. As are, I discover, my glasses. Hence the dark spots in front of my eyes.

‘Um, the sink,’ I squeak, thinking, keep a lid on it, Caroline. Keep things in perspective.

‘The sink?’ says Lexi.

‘It’s covered in
dye.’
I put a specific emphasis on the word ‘dye’.

‘Oh!’ She bites her nail. ‘Shit. But it’ll come off, right?’ She goes to rub at it with dye-covered fingers. ‘Er, Lex, don’t do that?’ I’m trying to sound calm, whilst suppressing the hysteria that’s bubbling within me.

‘If I just …’ She licks her fingers and goes at it again.

‘Stop!’ I mean it to come out normally but it shoots out of my mouth like a small, hard pellet. ‘NOW. Please. Lexi.’

‘All right, missus.’ She’s brightly rubbing at it with my flannel now. ‘Calm your boots. I’m just going to give it ever such a little …’

She wipes away a drip of dye that’s rolling down her forehead and then goes to pick up the flannel again, at which point I crack. I literally slide, cartoon style, across the bathroom floor in my towelling bedsocks, grabbing the side of the sink. ‘FOR GOD’S SAKE JUST LEAVE IT OKAY? JUST …’ I gather myself.
‘Leave
it.’

She stops rubbing.

‘Oh, okay. Sorry,’ she says. Does she actually flinch? Something tells me this little arrangement may not pan out that well. Something tells me I have lived alone for far too long.

My sister turning up for the summer aside, I do occasionally worry what it says about my life that I look forward to coming to work on a Monday. The hating weekends thing crept up on me, really. For the fourteen years that Martin and I were together, weekends were okay. Well, they were much the same as anyone else’s – any other couple’s, that is.

Endless rounds of barbecues and visits to the almost in-laws; Sunday afternoons spent at the Tate Modern, even though neither of us really liked anything in there so we’d end up in the shop where I’d buy another Dali postcard and Martin would buy his mum her birthday present in advance – usually another Liberty-print oven glove.

Post break up, there were about three months where I revelled in my new-found freedom. When the novelty was over, however, and my concerned friends, who had rallied round went back to their neglected boyfriends, I began to
dread weekends. Especially summer weekends. Bank holiday weekends are the work of the devil. The two in May, a torture device. Because what I envisaged about summer in London: Tooting Lido, picnics on Hampstead Heath, Shakespeare in Regent’s Park, didn’t hold that much appeal on my own and sometimes, although I hated to admit it, I would feel lonely. Panicky, even. And at times like that I’d start to think that maybe I’d made a huge mistake with Martin – well, actually, I still sometimes wonder if I’ve made a huge mistake with Martin. I kind of missed the ‘schedule’ after all. At least he was enthusiastic about doing stuff, even if it was Duxford Aerodrome. Also, Martin Squire is, quite simply, the nicest bloke in the world. Which is probably why he wasn’t the bloke for me.

I get out my mobile to call him. I miss ‘us’ most in the mornings, sitting here at Battersea Park station, the heady, oily smell of a London summer in the air, the sky already a brilliant blue. Maybe it’s because it reminds me of the summers we sat here together, Martin giving me one of his early morning pep talks: ‘Caro, nobody’s dying, you’ve still got me. What’s the worst than can happen?’ he’d say. ‘You lose a client. You fail.’

I’d go into voluntary spasm at the thought.

The phone rings and rings, which is strange, because Martin always picks up. I leave a message.

‘Hello you, it’s me. Why aren’t you answering your phone? Wanted to know if you fancied coming to see an exhibition with me on Saturday? Thought I’d get you early. It’s by a German artist, some sort of conceptual thing – I saw it in
Time Out.
Might be crap but it would just be nice to see you. As ever. Also, you’ll never believe this, but guess who just rocked up on my doorstop last night, announcing she’s staying for the whole summer? My bloody sister! As you can imagine, I’m freaking out. I need a Martin pep talk. Oh yeah, and the exhibition. You’ll probably want to know—’

‘Where it is,’ I’m about to say, but then a cargo train approaches and by the time it’s passed, the space on the answer machine has been used up and there’s just a flat tone ringing.

Shona’s the only person in the office when I arrive. She’s on the phone and I know exactly, by her straight, tense back and clipped voice, who to. She presses ‘hold', gives a little shudder and puts her fingers to her head, mimicking a trigger. Shona’s not one for hiding how she feels about people, especially how she feels about Darryl Schumacher.

‘It’s Darryl Bum Smacker,’ she hisses. ‘Wants to discuss a date for the pitch for Minty Me – and to take me to dinner, obviously.’

‘Tell him I’m not here yet. Tell him I’ll call him back, okay?’

‘She’ll call you back,’ says Shona.

Then, more irate: ‘I
said
she’ll call you back!’

Even more irate: ‘I don’t think what I’m doing at the weekend is really that relevant to the oral hygiene market, do you, Darryl?’

She slams the phone down.

‘Cock,’ I hear her mutter under her breath before taking another call. God, I love Shona. I wish I could be more like Shona. Doesn’t suffer fools. Never gets stressed.
Never
puts her job before her principles – which is maybe why she’s still the sales’ team’s admin exec after seven years at the company. If we let her loose on selling anything we’d be in liquidation by now.

Darryl Schumacher is head buyer for Langley’s supermarkets, notorious for making women physically sick but also for driving the hardest bargain in the oral hygiene market. For weeks now, I’ve been chipping away at him, toeing that fine balance between what our boss calls skilful sales and ‘the sledgehammer effect’
(i.e., all punch and no result). I sell oral hygiene products to supermarkets for a living. I know it’s not saving the world, but I love my job and seem to be quite good at it. But then I guess, without blowing my own trumpet, that I’m pretty good at most things if I put my mind to it. ‘Caroline is a very capable young lady,’ teachers would write on my report. You know the sort: three As at A Level, First Class degree, head-hunted on the university Milk Round to join Skidmore Colt Davis’s graduate scheme – a geek, basically.

This is a crucial time with Schumacher. If he catches me off guard, I could lose the sale, but if I play my cards right, we’ll have Mini Minty Me breath freshener on the shelves of all branches of Langley’s by next week, meaning profit for the company and a stab at being nominated as Sales Person of the Year in August’s Institute of Sales Annual Awards – not that that’s a highlight or anything.

So now, when I’ve just walked into the office and I’m not on my guard, is not the time to deal with Schumacher. I’m distracted by Lexi’s arrival and I want to mail Toby.

There’s a sudden pressure on my shoulders and then a familiar schoolboy giggle.

‘Writing love letters to me
again?
Give it a rest, will you? They’re clogging up my inbox.’

‘Jesus, Toby. You nearly gave me a heart attack.’

He laughs, chomping on a pastie. I’ve never known anyone eat as much as Toby Delaney, and still have a concave stomach.

‘I tend to have that effect on women,’ he says, sitting down at his desk.

There are bits of pastie all down his tie but even that, unfortunately, doesn’t seem to take away from his breathtaking attractiveness. In fact, it seems to add to it, which I find exhilarating and demoralising all at the same time. The less he tries, and he never does, the more delectable he seems to become.

I lean back on my chair, assuming an air of nonchalance. It’s something I’ve perfected after nearly a year of sitting opposite someone who it’s all I can do not to strip naked and eat.

‘So how was
your
weekend?’ I say.

‘Oh, you know …
missed
you,’ he mouths, chucking a pen in front of me.

‘Shut up, Delaney!’

‘I did!’ he says, clutching at his chest with mock hurt. ‘Anyway, pick up that pen, will you? I want to see your pants.’

I chuck the pen back at him

‘What about you?’ he says. ‘Good weekend Steeley? Or are you keeping it a secret?’

But then there’s the familiar ‘dong’ as his computer sparks into action. I wait for him to carry on the conversation but he’s too busy squinting at his screen.

‘Caroline still topping the sales targets,’ he reads, in a South African accent, mocking our boss’s email. ‘You bitch.’ He shakes his head. ‘You total spawny cow.’

I’m about to respond with some devastatingly witty comeback when a familiar figure looms over our desks.

‘What’s that I hear, Mr Delaney? Spawny cow?’

Janine Cross. Our boss. At least five foot ten of South African sinewy muscle and balls. I speak metaphorically, of course,
although it wouldn’t surprise me if, tucked into those skintight Joseph trousers, she does, actually, have a pair of iron balls.

‘Do I detect a smidgen of jealousy?’

‘Um …’ Toby can’t speak. More due to food bulging from his mouth than anything else.

‘Or just a healthy competitive streak?’

‘Oh, just the, er, streak,’ says Toby.

Janine shakes her head at him then smiles at me. ‘So, you got Morrisons? Well done. Very well done, in fact. Just Schumacher to get in the bag now, Caroline, but I have no doubt you’ll crack it. If you carry on like this you’ll definitely be in the running for Sales Person of the Year.’ She taps Toby on the shoulder. ‘Look and learn, Toby, and don’t think I’ve not noticed that you were late twice last week and haven’t reached your target for three weeks running.’ Then she strides off on her racehorse limbs towards a slightly scared-looking marketing team.

Toby’s shaking his head at me.

‘You’re such a lick-arse, Steele.’

I am about to reply when a high-pitched ‘Eeek! Eeek!', unmistakable as the sound from the shower scene in
Psycho,
interrupts us.

‘What the hell’s that?’ exclaims Toby.

‘What?’

‘That noise like the shower scene from
Psycho.’

‘I’ve no idea.’

Toby looks around him. ‘Well, it’s not coming from me.’ The noise continues, grows louder, more urgent.

‘I didn’t say it was coming from you.’

‘So where is it coming from, then?’

‘I don’t know!’

‘It’s coming from you, Steele!’ Toby slides back on his chair, pointing at my bag.

I pick up my bag and open it, look inside.

‘Have you got a rape alarm in there? That’d be typical of you.’

‘What the hell do you mean by that?’

‘A bomb, then?’

‘Don’t be bloody ridiculous.’

‘What is it, then?’

‘I don’t know!’ I hold up the bag a metre away from me. ‘But I’m not looking – you can.’ And I walk over and thrust it onto his desk.

‘Oh, nice. So I get the bomb-in-a-bag,’ says Toby, shaking it up to his ear. He opens it. ‘Jesus, there’s like a whole ecosystem in here.’

He rummages a little and then, a smirk spreading across his handsome face, lifts out my mobile phone, the ‘Eek! Eek!’ becoming ear-splitting as he does. He stands up and hands it to me. LEXI is flashing in silver.

‘Hello?’

‘Hiya!’ says the Yorkshire voice on the end of the line. ‘What d’ya reck to what I’ve done with your ringtone? It’s awesome, isn’t it?’

‘So how long is she staying?’

Toby is highly amused but trying not to show it. Shona is sitting on her desk, biting hard on her pencil, trying to come up with a solution, because this is what Shona does in every problematic situation.