You Must Be Sisters (34 page)

But they must. In the midst of all this awful muddle one thing was becoming clear. They must, or else she, Holly, wouldn’t be sitting here on her bed. Unless, of course, they’d found her in a phone box and adopted her when she was a tiny baby. She would like to think that was the answer but there was still the problem, she had to admit it, of how much she looked like Laura and Claire. ‘You must be sisters,’ people were always saying, and how much she looked like her mother, too. ‘Doesn’t she have Rosemary’s lovely eyes!’ people said, bending down and inspecting her. Anyway, for her parents to have the book downstairs was surely proof enough of their treachery: ‘Young Marrieds’, obvious as anything, right there in the shelf between ‘Roses for Everyone’ and ‘Rambles Through the Cotswolds’. Looking at her parents now made her blush.

The burning question at the moment was: should she or should she not bring it to school? There were many, many things she wanted to get clear; many, many bits she must read again, and Chapter 5, which on first glance looked the most peculiar of all, she hadn’t even read yet. Anyway, she could show it to Ann and perhaps Ann could explain the funniest bits – if she knew anything about it, that was. And if she didn’t – well, what a marvellous feeling of power to be able to tell her! She could read it out loud, and probably with her it wouldn’t seem so odd when she thought about her parents; she might even be able to laugh about it or wave it aside in a grown-up, knowing sort of way.

It would be simpler if Laura were here. She could ask her. She might tell her, Holly, a bit more about it. Funnily enough, though of course Laura had never done It, it was easier to imagine her doing It than her parents doing It. Claire, now she thought of it, must have done It else she wouldn’t be having a baby. Still, that didn’t seem too awful. It was just that her mind went blank and buzzing when she tried to picture her parents doing It. And now Laura was back in Bristol, and her room was painted white and looked so empty. Oh, but just now she needed a sister!

A creak on the landing. Holly froze. There was someone outside the door. A grunt and the door moved a fraction.

Seized with panic, she bundled the book under the pillow and wedged herself against it, knickers clenched in her hand. She stared at the door.

Another creak and it pushed open to reveal – Badger. He padded in, tail waving, courteous and kindly. He had come to pay her a visit; he liked to keep in touch with what everyone was doing.

Holly let out a deep breath and realized she was hot all over and damp under her arms. Her hands clutching the knickers were damp too. It was quite a new feeling, this. Never had she felt she’d had to hide something before. Of course, she’d had special secret treasures she’d kept in special secret places, like those holly trees beside the sand pit. But they’d been nice things. She hadn’t felt, well, guilty about them like she was feeling now. Come to think of it, she’d never felt guilty like this before at all. And now Badger was here, so trusting and such a friend, who’d done everything with her and who she’d shown all her secret places in the garden and in the Rec. Now Badge was here she felt worse because, with his wagging tail and bright eyes, he looked so straightforward, and for the first time she had something she would be ashamed of telling even him.

Holly went to the window. She could see them in the garden, her father beside the bonfire, her mother squatting in the middle of a flowerbed, tying those mauvey flowers to sticks so they didn’t wave about in the wind. She heard laughter. She’d always thought adults led complicated lives, but just at the moment she had never seen grown-ups look so carefree, and it was herself, Holly, who was weighed down. She gazed at the apple tree she’d climbed a thousand times. It had ferns, she noticed, sprouting out under a branch. Ugh! Like hairs in an armpit.

She avoided Badger’s eye and got up, took the book from its hiding-place and crept downstairs. The coast was clear and she slipped it back into the shelf. No doubt she’d go on reading it next holidays, but just at the moment it seemed too much of a burden to bring to school. Anyway, someone might notice it was gone.

She started to walk towards the garden, but as she was passing the mirror she caught sight of herself in it. She was fascinated by mirrors, not because of vanity – she never actually looked at her face at all – but because of Inguedoc. Inguedoc was the place, almost like home but not quite, that she could see in the mirror, and it was full of people who were just out of sight. When she passed a mirror, then, she had to give these people a wave because they
were
her subjects and they expected it of her. She knew, as certainly as she knew anything, that they were craning round the very edges of the mirror frame, pushing and shoving to get a glimpse of her, and so she must please them by a wave. Apart from mirrors, the only other place she got near to them was when she was in her bath and she knew without looking that they were all around the sides of the bath on the floor. When she was sure they were ready she’d flick out little sparkling drops of water, which was money of course in Inguedoc, over the edge of the bath and keep her eyes averted so she didn’t see them scuttling away across the floor, undignifiedly, with their treasures.

But today as she passed the mirror, for once she didn’t raise her hand. Instead she stopped, looked into the glass and, instead of studying that reassuring Inguedoc, she studied her face. It wasn’t half so reassuring. Her nose, her mouth, her eyes which, now she inspected them properly looked surely far too piggy – was this what she looked like to everybody else? That fat nose! This was the face, she knew it with a sinking heart, that was
her
, Holly, and she’d be stuck with it for the rest of her life. She’d never ever thought of her face like that before. Could anyone ever find it pretty? Or even not absolutely disgustingly ugly? Would anyone ever want to do It with someone with such a fat nose and piggy eyes and – she was sure she could see one – an actual beastly red spot in the middle of her chin?

More laughter outside. They’d been much more laughy this holiday. Holly turned and went towards the french windows, feeling older.

Read on for the first chapter of Deborah Moggach’s brilliant new novel
Something to Hide

I’ll tell you how the last one ended. I was watching the news and eating supper off a tray. There was an item about a methane explosion, somewhere in Lincolnshire. A barn full of cows had blown up, killing several animals and injuring a stockman. It’s the farting, apparently.

I missed someone with me to laugh at this. To laugh, and shake our heads about factory farming. To share the bottle of wine I was steadily emptying. I wondered if Alan would ever move in. This was hard to imagine. What did he feel about factory farming? I hadn’t a clue.

And then, there he was. On the TV screen. A reporter was standing outside the Eurostar terminal, something about an incident in the tunnel. Passengers were milling around behind him. Amongst them was Alan.

He was with a woman. Just a glimpse and he was gone.

I’m off to see me bruv down in Somerset. Look after yourself, love, see you Tuesday.

Just a glimpse but I checked later, on iPlayer. I reran the news and stopped it at that moment. Alan turning towards the woman and mouthing something at her. She was young, needless to say, much younger than me, and wearing a red padded jacket. Chavvy, his sort. Her stilled face, eyebrows raised. Then they were gone, swallowed up in the crowd.

See you Tuesday and I’ll get that plastering done by the end of the week.

Don’t fuck the help. For when it ends, and it will, you’ll find yourself staring at a half-plastered wall with wires dangling like entrails and a heap of rubble in the corner. And he nicked my power drill.

Before him, and the others, I was married. I have two grown-up children but they live in Melbourne and Seattle, as far away as they could go. Of course there’s scar tissue but I miss them with a physical pain of which they are hopefully unaware. Neediness is even more unattractive in the old than in the young. Their father has long since remarried. He has a corporate Japanese wife who thinks I’m a flake. Neurotic, needy, borderline alcoholic. I can see it in the swing of her shiny black hair. For obvious reasons, I keep my disastrous love-life to myself.

I’m thinking of buying a dog. It would gaze at me moistly, its eyes filled with unconditional love. This is what lonely women long for, as they turn sixty. I would die with my arms around a cocker spaniel, there are worse ways to go.

Three months have passed and Alan is a distant humiliation. I need to find another builder to finish off the work in the basement, then I can re-let it, but I’m seized with paralysis and can’t bring myself to go down the stairs. I lived in it when I was young, you see, and just arrived in London. Years later I bought the house, and tenants downstairs have come and gone, but now the flat has been stripped bare those early years are suddenly vivid. I can remember it like yesterday, the tights drying in front of the gas fire, the sex and smoking, the laughter. To descend now into that chilly tomb, with its dust and debris – I don’t have the energy.

Now I sound like a depressive but I’m not. I’m just a woman longing for love. I’m tired of being put in the back seat of the car when I go out with a couple. I’m tired of internet dates with balding men who talk about golf –
golf
. I’m tired of coming home to silent rooms, everything as I left it, the
Marie Celeste
of the solitary female. Was Alan the last man I shall ever lie with, naked in my arms?

This is how I am, at this moment. Darkness has fallen. In the windows of the flats opposite, faces are illuminated by their laptops. I have the feeling that we are all fixed here, at this point in time, as motionless as the Bonnard lady in the print on my wall. Something must jolt me out of this stupor, it’s too pathetic for words. In front of me is a bowl of Bombay mix; I’ve worked my way through it. Nothing’s left but the peanuts, my least favourite.

I want to stand in the street and howl at the moon.

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Epub ISBN 9781446496053
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Vintage, an imprint of Vintage Publishing,
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Copyright © Deborah Moggach 1982

Deborah Moggach has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

First published in Great Britain in 1978 by William Collins Sons Ltd
Published by Vintage in 2006

www.vintage-books.co.uk

A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library