You Must Be Sisters (4 page)

The woman went out. Despite the churning machines, the launderette was now empty. At 10 p.m. on a Saturday night, the Lavender Hill Swiftkleen was a bleak place, its garish strip-lighting and shadowless corners creating a solitude made greater by the noises outside where cars hooted and women shouted. From time to time people came in to take out their clothes, but always in a hurry.

She felt reluctant to go back to her flat because upstairs there was a party going on, and she neither wanted to sit in her room with all those jolly noises coming down through the ceiling, nor to be taken pity on and invited upstairs where she’d know no one.

There was always Harrow, of course. She could go back there for the evening. The dog would welcome her with a lick, her parents with a Martini. And the house would welcome her with its delicious central heating – her flat was freezing just now. But that would be feeble.

Well, what about her sister then? She could always go and visit Laura. That was a thought.

When Claire was entering the launderette, Laura was lighting
a
candle. Then she lit a joss stick. She put her Bach Violin Concertos on the record-player. Then she lay on the bed and tried to feel spiritual. Or, to be absolutely honest, to forget that it was Saturday night and nobody had asked her out.

After all, what was so special about Saturday night? She decided that the charm of lying here gazing at the wreathing, curling smoke was actually increased by Hall being empty and everybody being out. She was unique, wasn’t she? Yes, of course she was.

Her room helped to make her feel special. She liked doing things alone in it. Yesterday, realizing she’d be too late for Hall lunch, she’d bought brussels sprouts, spinach, salt and a saucepan. Alone at the gas-ring she’d cooked her first meal – amazingly enough, it was the first meal she’d ever made without witnesses or help. Its vegetarian quirkiness only made it more fascinatingly
hers
. She was beholden to no one, free to scrape it from the saucepan because there was nobody there to look pained. It was overcooked but lovely; a soggy green sacrament.

Half an hour passed … three-quarters … Bach finished and Segovia began. When he finished it would have to be Bach again; the only other records she possessed were Beatles and Rolling Stones, definitely unsuitable for this soulful sort of evening. She got down her book of Dürer etchings and thumbed through the pages. Peace settled upon her. She could even, for quite long spells, forget that business with John.

A knock on the door.

‘Hi!’ It was Mike, one of the jolly English gang. ‘I saw your light and I thought hey, poor Laura, she shouldn’t be in on a Saturday night. It’s immoral.’

‘Actually it’s rather nice.’

‘Well, nice or not, it’s not right and you’re coming to a party. I’ve heard of one and you’ve
got
to come. I insist.’

‘You needn’t feel sorry for me,’ she said with spirit. ‘I chose to stay in.’ She was enjoying her solitary evening so much that this was, she decided, only a half-lie.

They crammed into a crowded car; they drove down into Bristol.

Sights, sounds and smells were pretty standard. She was getting used to these sorts of festivities. There was a hallway blocked with bodies who pressed and shoved past her as she entered. She
immediately
lost sight of Mike.

‘You have
scrumptious
breasts,’ came a voice from the shadows; a cupped palm was stretched out. She lifted it off and pushed past to the kitchen where, behind the regiment of bottles, she could see the touching evidence of everyday masculine occupation – a greasy Formica shelf upon which stood a bottle of tomato sauce, a bottle of brown sauce and a packet of Alka-Seltzer. Nothing else.

In glimpses she could see the floor, puddled with crimson wine. The lavatory, with Jane Fonda peeling off the wall, smelt unmistakably of vomit. Up the stairs she squeezed, up past entwined bodies, female stares over male shoulders. There was no one she recognized. At the topmost stair a shape stood up shakily and asked: ‘Do you come here often?’ then leant against the wall and giggled.

Yet another figure confronted her. ‘Light of my life!’ it cried, and tried to disentangle itself from the other bodies. She ignored it and had a sudden vision of her charmed, candle-lit room, within which she felt so special. She didn’t feel at all special here. What a herd!

The next room was equally crammed. Seeking a familiar face, she caught sight of a bottle on the mantelpiece containing a sprig of holly. Christmas, unbelievably, was in a month’s time. Christmas and home. It would be quite different at home after all this.

She stepped over more bodies and looked out of the window. A dark tree faced her, its arms outstretched into the wild night sky. It was shockingly real, in contrast to what was going on behind her. The herd, the mass, roomfuls of students snogging like fifteen-year-olds … But oh dear, she would so like to know just one or two! Wasn’t it silly, to try so much to be separate and yet want so much to be part of it all, too. Silly and adolescent, to sneer at something just because one was left out!

Might as well go on looking at the tree. If she turned round someone might lurch towards her or, worse still, think she looked all wistful. Which she was, of course.

She looked at the branches; she felt expanded, soothed; just herself, alone with the tree. Much better than all those lurchers and gropers behind her. Since John, she was off that sort of business.

But she couldn’t look at it for ever. She turned round, avoiding eyes yet perversely wishing she’d be intercepted in her avoiding,
that
somebody would want her. She saw the holly again and felt a lurch of homesickness. Actually, it swamped her; that ache when one is in a strange room, perhaps trying to sleep, with alien voices along the corridor and shadows in the corners, hunched shadows with long noses. Nineteen, and she hadn’t grown out of it yet!

‘Do you want to leave too?’

It was Mike, lanky homely Mike; she could have hugged him.

They left, and together they walked up the street. After the party the air was silent, pressing in on their ears like the stillness after the telephone has been ringing and ringing and then has suddenly stopped.

‘Dreadful party,’ he said.

That solved that, then. How nice that it had been the party’s fault; she felt much better. Nice, too, to have the familiar, known old Mike. She could tell him things, bony, public-schooly Mike who came – wait for it – from Norbiton. He didn’t seem to mind that.

What happened next she could only blame, later, on the wine. Or perhaps on the need, at this particular homesick moment, for someone to lean against.

That was just what she was doing now, actually – leaning against him. They were back in his room at Hall and he’d just made some tea. Side by side they were sitting on his bed; he was rummaging through a book.

‘I’ll find it in a minute. It’s so gorgeous, you must hear it.’

As usual, books lay scattered all over the floor. Mike was often seized with the urge to read out poems that he liked; the books lay where he’d discarded them. In his messiness he was as bad as she was.

‘Don’t be bored. It’s here somewhere.’

She wasn’t bored, she was reassured. An hour ago she’d felt so vulnerable, so newly-peeled amongst all those loud unnoticing people. But now she was safe. She relaxed against his tweedy jacket. Warming to him, she felt quite bold. She took the sleeve of his jacket between her fingers.

‘You have hideous clothes,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Why can’t you get anything trendy?’ If only he weren’t so nice and Norbitonish he could really be quite fanciable.

‘Ah!’ he cried. ‘Got it. It’s Wyatt.’ His voice grew resonant; his poetry boom.

They flee from me, that sometime did me seek

With naked foot, stalking in my chamber
…

Leaning against that shabby tweed, she listened to his voice and felt more and more soothed. It was nice to have somebody to sit beside, to lean against. A body. In this mass of people, someone to cling to. I’ve been needing one, she thought. Not an original observation, but a true one.

…
When her loose gown from her shoulders did fall
,

And she me caught in her arms long and small
,

Therewith all sweetly did me kiss

And softly said, Dear heart, how like you this?

The boom changed to his ordinary voice. ‘What an image, isn’t it!
Her loose gown did from her shoulders fall
. So, well, erotic somehow. And yet so restrained.’

She stayed leaning against him. Feverishly, he thumbed through the pages. ‘There’s another lovely one I want to read to you …’ His hair fell over his eyes as he bent down close to the book, scrabbling through the pages. She kept herself against him.

‘It’s somewhere here,’ he muttered. ‘A super lyric, sort of sensual yet religious …’ He kept his head down. ‘Must find it.’

Then, abruptly, his hand took hers, but still he kept his head down, thumbing through the pages with his remaining hand. His hand kneaded hers. ‘You’ll like this one … find it in a moment. Must be in the “Songs” section …’

The book fell to the floor and he turned to her. She glimpsed his face blindly seeking hers, and then it was against her skin and he was kissing her ear, again and again. And then his face moved over and his mouth came down on hers and luxuriously, deliciously, she opened her lips and boldly but oh so slowly she slid her tongue into his mouth. She could feel his body starting to tremble. So bold, so suddenly oblivious, she felt.

Over on to the bed they keeled, locked together, his arms tremblingly round her. Her eyes closed, she lay pressed against him, arching her body into his and boldly, caressingly, drawing up her leg and wrapping it round his thigh. How he trembled!

Just for one moment she opened her eyes, stared into the brightly lit room, stared at the red, intent rim of ear that was all she could see of him – he was buried in her hair again – and wildly she thought What
am
I doing? Or rather, these legs and these arms, what are
they
doing? Then she closed her eyes and felt only his limbs against hers. His breath was hot in her ear but he said nothing, just intensely, tremblingly, gripped her. His jacket slipped off;
she
felt it; then suddenly his hand was under her skirt and struggling up her leg.

She stiffened. Oh no! With a jerk she unwrapped her leg and clenched it against her other one, trapping his hand mid-thigh. She opened her eyes and stared at that red rim of ear. No!

A silent struggle; heavy breathing. She stared fixedly at the bright, bookish room. But he was too strong, and suddenly his hand shot up to – she felt herself blushing – the hole at the top of her tights. Damn my tights! she thought.

‘No!’ she whispered.

‘Oh Laura, for God’s sake let me!’ His urgent voice was muffled by her hair. His other hand – thrilled and appalled, she felt it – started to unbutton his trousers. It was insane, it was dreadful, it was almost comic … but she couldn’t stop, not after that thing with John.

‘Turn off the light then,’ she whispered. ‘And lock the door.’

He took his hand out. She sat up and smoothed down her skirt. He struggled to the door, his trousers held up round his hips by one hand. With the other he switched off the light. In the darkness she heard the key turning in the lock. His footsteps returned.

She heard a rustling of his trousers falling to the floor and then a small, almost undistinguishable sound that must be his underpants following them. Then, workmanlike, he tugged off her tights and knickers. Silently she screamed Oh no! This isn’t what I wanted at all! I didn’t mean it, not really – well, not quite really, not like this, anyway. I came to you for something else.

I’m nineteen, though. High time, isn’t it?

The bed creaked as he got down beside her and pressed his hot legs against her bare ones. She clamped hers shut.

‘Er, you on the Pill?’ he hissed.

‘What?’

‘You on the Pill? You know …’

A silence.

‘I’d better use something then, hadn’t I.’ He disentangled himself and she could hear him rummaging about amongst his clothes.

Oh, it’s all wrong! she thought wildly. An hour ago he was my friend. It would have been easy then to have told him I was, well, virginal. Can’t now. Hope he doesn’t turn on the light; I feel so dreadfully silly dressed up on top and all bald on the bottom. It’d be better if we were at least naked. Hell!

She was more alone, terribly alone, than ever. Here she was, losing her best friend just when she needed him most. Hateful, hateful bodies!

Click. The light went on and she caught, transfixed, the sight of Mike, his hair sticking up, his socks on, his legs white as an old man’s, the other part she daren’t think about hidden under his awful nylon shirt … all lit up in a flash before she closed her eyes.

‘Ah!’ he mumbled. ‘Got it.’ Off went the light. He sat down on the bed with his back to her and she listened, appalled, to stealthy crackling sounds. She could hardly hear them.

‘God, bloody thing,’ he muttered. She gnawed her nails, her legs stiff as pokers in front of her. She felt she was laid out on an operating-table. ‘Can’t get the wretched thing on,’ he muttered, an abyss away.

Then it must have been fixed because he turned round and heaved himself on top of her. She froze, her poker-legs rigid. He lay on top of her, knee to knee, foot to foot. It was horribly uncomfortable, all bones digging into her; she could hardly breathe.

For a moment they lay there paralysed. Then, horrors, he took her hand and pushed it down.

‘Come on,’ he muttered. ‘Help me, can’t you?’

She snatched her hand away. ‘What have I got to do?’ It was a nightmare.

‘Help me get started again.’

There was a silence. Then she drew a deep breath.

‘But I’ve never done it before.’

Silence. He rolled off her and sat up. ‘What?’

‘I’ve never done it before.’

‘You mean you’re a
virgin
?’

‘Yes.’

A longer silence, a very long one. Then he said: ‘So am I.’