Sisters

by Prue Leith

  “Of course not! I don’t have to audition any more, thank God. But if I did I’d do my homework and walk in as neurotic housewife, power-mad boss, nympho or whatever.”

  Carrie looked unconvinced and Poppy went on, “If I go to a fancy movie premiere, I get out of the limo behaving like a star.” She put her chin up, and flashed an exaggerated eyes-and-teeth smile at the cameras. They both laughed and Poppy said, “Ditto if I’m speaking at Angelina’s speech day. And people duly ask for autographs. But I’m never recognized in Safeway’s or with Tom and Lorato in the park, because then I’m just me—the dumpy one.”

  “Christ, Poppy. Don’t say that!” cried Carrie. “You are not dumpy. You just have a few female curves, which is fashionable now anyway . . .”

  “OK OK. But anyway I don’t mind. For some reason, right now, I want to be me. Mummy Santolini, as Angelina said. She said, ‘Poppy Ferguson is just a pretend name.’ She’s right.”

  Carrie poured them both another glass, and said, “Anyway, you should look after your hands for Eduardo’s sake. Unless bricklayer’s hands turn him on.”

  “He wouldn’t notice. These days sex is a bit of a distant memory.” Poppy spoke matter-of-factly, easily.

  Carrie looked hard at her sister, but could not see her expression in the dark. She said: “But that’s terrible, Poppy. I’d die without sex. It’s as necessary as food.”

  “Hardly. As wine perhaps. But you can live without it.”

  “But are you sure Eduardo can live without it?”

  Poppy laughed. “Well, I certainly hope so! But he’s exhausted too. He’s got this Paddington thing, and the conference center outside Bilbao. The truth is, whoever’s head hits the pillow first is asleep by the time the other arrives.”

  Carrie could not imagine a relationship which did not center around a man wanting to make love to her. Sure, there were other things: mutual interests, sense of humor, and all that. But sex was the point. Poppy must have hit middle-age early, aged 34. All those kids, and an older husband. That her sister could accept life without sex baffled her. She, Carrie, had only just begun. 32 was the prime of life. She said,

  “Don’t tell me you never . . . Is that why you adopted Lorato?” “No, of course not.” Poppy smiled. “Absolutely not. We adopted Lorato because she needed adopting.” Carrie didn’t respond, and Poppy elaborated: “We wanted another child but we felt we’d had our ration with Angelina and Tom.”

  Carrie frowned in the dark. “But how can you bear it? Without sex I mean? And here was I thinking you and Eduardo had the perfect marriage.”

  “Oh Carrie, don’t sound so mournful.” Poppy poured the last of the wine into their glasses and said, “It is pretty perfect. I know I’ll never be unfaithful to Eduardo. And if it wasn’t tempting fate, I’d lay my life that he wouldn’t be unfaithful to me. And we do make love. Just not so often any more, that’s all.”

  When Eduardo came in that night, Poppy was not asleep. She listened to his familiar progress through the flat: the click of turned-off lights, the high-pitched whine as he set the burglar alarm, the door opening and closing as he went in to kiss Angelina.

  Then the baby alarm at her bedside amplified his goodnights to Tom and Lorato: Lorato’s heavy snuffling was overlaid by Eduardo’s murmured “Goodnight, son, sogni d’oro” and “Buona notte Bambina”. At last he came into his dressing room, and she listened to the thud of his shoes coming off, the laundry basket lid, the little squeak and click the trouser press gave as he shut it and switched it on.

  I wonder if other husbands have electric trouser presses? she thought. Or is it because he’s Italian? Or a design freak? Eduardo liked knife-edge creases.

  From the bathroom she heard in turn his electric toothbrush, the splutter and thrum of his shower, then the rattle of the aspirin bottle. He has too many headaches, she thought, then dismissed the thought as he climbed, naked, into bed.

  As he rolled toward her to kiss her, she reached up for a second and held on to him. He was still warm and damp from his shower.

  “Hey. Husband.” She looked into his face, her expression serious. “You do love me, I trust?”

  “Every bit of you.” He put his arm under her shoulder and hugged her to him. She thought how clean and comfortable, how familiar and safe he smelled.

  “You smell of Badedas,” she said.

  “I smell of whatever you hang in the shower.”

  It occurred to Poppy that this showering at night was a hangover from the time when they made love every night. Eduardo could not bear her to wear perfume, or to smell of scented soap. He wanted, he said, to breathe in the smell of her, not of some chemist shop. But he had to shower. Otherwise, he said, he’d smell like a navvy.

  “Can’t you sleep?” he asked. “Why are you still awake?”

  “Because Carrie has been preaching to me about the importance of sex. She says love isn’t love without at least a nightly bonk. Or something like that.” Poppy looked up at Eduardo, her eyes half troubled, half teasing.

  “Did she now?” He kissed her forehead, gentle, confident.

  “And she says I’ve got bricklayer’s hands.”

  “I love your hands.” He reached under the bedclothes and brought her hand up to his face. Turning it over, he kissed the palm. “And your sister, cara mia, knows absolutely nothing at all about love.”

  Poppy, held like a child against his chest, thought how right he was. Carrie had new lovers like other people have new jumpers, but had never really been in love.

  As Eduardo released her with another kiss, and burrowed down into the bedclothes, she repressed a sharp stab of disappointment. She’d thought they might make love. The conversation had been so loving, and could so easily have led to sex. But then she remembered the aspirins. And that he’d been up by six this morning. It was after midnight now, and he had to be at Heathrow in seven hours’ time.

  As his gentle breathing deepened into the steady rhythm of sleep, contentment replaced the momentary feeling of slight. My besetting sin is smugness, she thought. I have everything any woman could possibly desire: Eduardo’s strong Italian looks seemed to improve with the years; he was educated and confident; he was an international architect with interesting and civilized friends, he spoke three languages, was liberal and tolerant, he adored the children, he was fun to be with, he admired her work in the theater. And he loved her.

  And then they had plenty of money, the farmhouse in Oxfordshire, this wonderful penthouse, and his mother to help with the children. The only fly in the ointment, and it was a very little fly, was her beloved sister. Eduardo was dismissive of Carrie. And that hurt because Carrie was her best friend. Eduardo thought Carrie selfish and lightweight. But then Carrie was always at her worst when Eduardo was around. She liked to provoke him, but Eduardo always won.

  What Carrie needed, thought Poppy, as she drifted off to sleep, was a man like Eduardo. Pity he didn’t have a brother.

  Chapter 3

  Poppy woke as the door opened. “Happy Christmas, Mummy,” said Angelina.

  For a split second Poppy wasn’t sure if she was in London or Oxfordshire. But as she scrabbled for her glasses the realization of Christmas in the country settled round her. She pressed the light button on the alarm clock and hauled herself out of bed. She said, “Darling. Go back to bed. It’s two in the morning. Father Christmas hasn’t even been yet.”

  “He has, Mummy. He’s eaten half the mince-pie, and the stockings are full.”

  Poppy, half asleep as she shepherded her daughter out, didn’t have an answer to this. She said, “Sweetheart, it’s too early for presents. You have to go back to sleep.”

  Angelina craned over the balcony rail as they crossed the landing, waving her arm at the fireplace below. She said, “Look, Mummy, Father Christmas drank the wine. And he left a letter.”

  Poppy ignored this. “Shh. Shh, da
rling” she said as she tucked Angelina in. “You mustn’t come into Daddy and Mummy until you count seven dings of the clock. OK?”

  Angelina nodded, her eyes wide awake and serious. Then she said, “I know it’s you that fills the stockings. And Daddy drank Father Christmas’s wine and wrote his letter. I saw you.”

  Poppy felt a stab of dismay. She had checked the children were asleep before they’d started on Santa duty. Angelina must have been bluffing. She said: “Oh darling . . .” but Angelina interrupted.

  “Everyone in my class knows Father Christmas isn’t true.”

  “Oh dear.”

  “I’ve known for years and years.”

  Poppy brushed Angelina’s hair from her face, stroking her head. Angelina’s skinny arm reached out and her fingers gripped Poppy’s nightshirt.

  “It’s OK Mum. I won’t tell Tom and Lorato.”

  Poppy felt a flood of love for her solemn daughter. “You are a good girl. I suppose you are a bit old for Father Christmas. But we’ll all just pretend, shall we?”

  As Poppy climbed back into bed, Eduardo mumbled, “All OK?”

  “Yes. Fine. But she doesn’t believe in Father Christmas any more.”

  But he was asleep. Poppy lay on her back, thinking that her daughter had probably known the truth for years, but while she couldn’t be sure that the presents, the tree, the excitement, didn’t depend on her believing, she’d hedged her bets. Poppy rolled onto her side, suddenly sad. Why did children have to grow up? Why couldn’t they grow down?

  Poppy couldn’t get to sleep again, although she’d had an exhausting day. She loved Christmas: she’d loved it as a child in Africa when Christmas had seemed a wonderfully English thing: she’d imagined snowmen and robins in Hyde Park, reindeer and sleighbells among the red London buses. In the heat of the African summer they used to decorate the Mopane tree with balls of cotton wool for snow. And Dad had sweltered in a red woolen dressing gown and a sheepskin beard, handing out Christmas boxes to the servants, who always smiled shyly, hands together, not meeting his eye. And then they sat down to the full English Christmas dinner, turkey, plum pudding, trifle, nuts and all. What a distant life that seemed now, almost surreal.

  This year, as every year, she had made Christmas decorations out of last year’s cards with the children, insisted everyone had a stir of the pudding, boiled and polished 20p pieces to stick in it and taken Angelina and Guillia carol singing with the village. She’d also ignored Eduardo’s objections to tawdry commercialism and taken the children to see the Selfridges windows.

  But it was a tiring business. She missed the practical help of Guillia, who was spending Christmas with Eduardo’s sister in Milan. Her own mother, with them for three nights, was more trial than help. She needed more attention and patience than the children.

  Last night she’d insisted on laying the Christmas dinner table, which Poppy had had to redo once her mother was safely in bed. Lucille had rejected Poppy’s lace tablecloth in favor of a Teletubbies duvet cover and laid the table with a random collection of teacups, mugs and kitchen utensils, including the garlic press placed carefully on top of the bowl of nuts. When Angelina had tried to replace it with the nutcracker, Lucille had bitten her granddaughter’s head off,

  “Will you stop interfering! I am laying this table. If I want that nutcracker, I’ll have that nutcracker.” She’d sounded like a child spoiling for a fight.

  Angelina hesitated, dismayed. Then she held the garlic press out to Lucille. She said,

  “But Gran, it’s not a nutcracker. It’s a garlic press.”

  To Poppy’s relief her mother had taken the garlic press, examined it closely and then burst out laughing,

  “Oh dear!” she said, hugging Angelina. “I’m so sorry dear. I must be going doolally in my old age. I won’t know my own name next.”

  Replaying this scene in her head, Poppy thought the time was not long off. Since Dad’s death—how long ago now? Three years?—her mother’s mind had got a lot worse. Of course she’d been forgetful for years, maybe 15 or 20. When she and Carrie had been young teenagers, her mother’s vagueness had seemed like willful lack of concentration. Or indifference. It had driven them both mad. But maybe that was the start of Alzheimer’s?

  It was her mother’s illness that finally transplanted the family to England. Her father, with a British passport and the right to live here, had scorned to take advantage of it when they lost their Zimbabwe farm in the seventies Bush war—instead they’d moved over the border to South Africa, and started again—but in ’84 he’d done so to get medical help for his wife.

  Their dad had sold a third of Kaia Moya to Karl, who until then had been a salaried manager, and left him to turn it into a tourist game lodge.

  Lucille’s treatment hadn’t worked, of course. She had got steadily, if slowly, worse, and her Dad had hated managing a suburban golf club, his girls at a minor public school and getting more English by the minute.

  By the time Carrie had finished her catering course and Poppy was through RADA, Lucille would forget appointments, lose things, get lost on the Tube. Six years ago her dad gave up pretending Lucille was just a little dilly. He gave up his job and resigned himself to retirement in a tiny flat, six thousand miles from his beloved Kaia Moya.

  Poppy knew he longed to go back. But he thought it better for Lucille to be where her daughters were. Soon they’d be the only people she’d recognize. And Mpumalanga had no appeal for the girls. It could not provide a career on the stage for Poppy, nor bright lights and gourmet kitchens for Carrie.

  Now Lucille did not know her grandchildren’s names, and only intermittently remembered Eduardo’s. Only Carrie and Poppy were truly familiar to her, though she made a pretty good stab at pretending. She phrased her sentences carefully to avoid having to say a name: “How are you and yours?” or “What are you all up to?”

  Old age stinks, thought Poppy. There are no compensations. Widowhood, senility, frailty, death.

  Then she remembered Woody Allen’s phrase: “Age isn’t so terrible, particularly when you consider the alternative.”

  Smiling, she turned her head into the pillow and snuggled deeper under the duvet, resolving to enjoy God’s good gifts while she had them.

  She pushed Lucille out of her brain, and ran through the day ahead. Eduardo would, with luck, take her mother off her hands, keep her out of the kitchen. The children would be absorbed by their presents. Poppy counted up the jobs she still had to do: turkey in, pud on, spuds, sprouts, bread-sauce, cranberry jelly. Carrie would help. It would be a doddle.

  Poppy relaxed as the familiar rituals of Christmas Day scrolled over her mind. She lost the place and started again, until the blissful slide into sleep defeated her.

  *

  Carrie was sharing the spare room with her mother. She’d have preferred the little box room at the top of the house, or to bunk up with Angelina. At least she’d not have to bear her mother’s snoring, but Lucille could not be trusted on her own. She’d wander down in the middle of the night and set the burglar alarm off. Or leave the taps running.

  She should be in a home, that’s the truth, thought Carrie. But Poppy insisted the risk of her burning her house down or getting lost in the High Street was worth taking to allow her to stay in her own flat. She did have a rota of minders disguised as “the gardener,” “the district nurse,” “the cleaner,” “a neighbor” which Poppy orchestrated and paid for. A full-time, live-in minder was what she needed of course but Lucille would have none of it. Help had to be disguised as a professional service or neighborliness.

  Poppy didn’t say “minders,” of course. She said “carers” or “companions.” But Poppy’s a lot nicer than me, thought Carrie, as she clapped her hands—softly at first, but getting increasingly loud—to wake her mother. She’d got this clapping business down to a fine art. If she woke her mother by calling or shaking he
r, Lucille would be livid. But if she surfaced gradually, and did not know what had woken her, she’d turn over on her side and, with luck, stop snoring.

  Sure enough, Lucille gave a hiccupping garrumph, and half sat up. Carrie at once stopped clapping, arresting her hands in mid-air. Then she heard the creak of Lucille’s bed as she turned over, and, bliss oh bliss, no snoring. Now the tricky part, thought Carrie: the race to get to sleep myself before she starts again.

  *

  Carrie, pencil and pad in hand, was trying to keep track of who gave what to whom. Poppy insisted on it, because she made Angelina write thank-you letters, and did the babies’ and Lucille’s for them. Also, she said, it made Angelina read the cards and tags instead of just ripping into her parcels.

  My sister, thought Carrie, is trying to give conspicuous consumption an acceptable face. The Santolinis are hugely rich so of course there are all these expensive presents. But she doesn’t really like it. She’d prefer everyone to have made their offerings themselves and hand-painted the cards.

  Carrie called across the piles of discarded wrapping paper and presents “Angelina, Who’s that from?”

  Angelina looked briefly at the book she was holding and dropped it on a chair without opening it.

  “Gran,” she answered. “It’s a cookbook for kids. Thanks, Nonna.”

  Lucille looked puzzled. “Did I give you that, dear?” Poppy started to explain “wrong Granny” but Lucille had changed tack.

  “Yes, I remember, I bought it from my local bookshop.” Guillia, who’d bought it in Oxford, just smiled.

  When Lucille realized what Carrie was doing she was indignant.

  “I don’t know why my daughters are so bloody bossy! Do you think I’m incapable of remembering who gave me things!”

  Carrie, not without malice, said, “Who gave you that, Mum?” She pointed at the pink Pashmina in Lucille’s lap, a present from Poppy.

  “You did, of course.” Lucille stroked the fine wool, holding it to her cheek. Her irritation instantly forgotten, she stood up to kiss Carrie. “It’s lovely, darling. Thank you, thank you.”