Twin Pleasures

by Josephine Scott

  Adrienne was furious, blonde hair shaking with suppressed rage, eyes black with the effort of not throwing a scene right there and then. She contented herself with hissing to the speechless Martin.

  “Your damned mother!” rubbed Anastasia’s shoulder. “We’ll explain later,” said through clenched teeth.

  Annie grabbed Tammy’s hand squeezed it whispered, “I think I always knew,” Tammy nodded blindly, shocked to her core and sharp like her thoughts.

  Her parents were not her parents.

  These relatives were not her relatives.

  “Well, if that’s the photos -” the photographer tailed off, knowing the session was lost, began winding on the film, putting the lens cap back on unsnapping the camera from the tripod putting everything back in its bag, a backward run of everything he had done earlier, anxious to be gone before anything else exploded into the afternoon.

  They were left sitting alone, still the centre of all attention and eyes.

  “I’ll see to your bill -” Martin tried to speak but the sound was lost in the bubble of voices and over loud laughter trying to cover the embarrassment of a family skeleton suddenly tumbling from the closet into the centre of the party.

  Tammy heard her father trying to rescue the situation, turned and saw Granny Webster sitting gloating in her wheelchair.

  “Hey, kiddo, what do you think of the pressies?” Annie caught hold of Tammy’s arm. “Didn’t know you had such an eye for a good gift!” fingering her present from Tammy, a heavy celtic pendant, worn in place of the gold locket their parents had given to them, whispered, “we’ll get the truth later, won’t we?”

  Tammy avoided the subject, repeated her statement of the morning, shaking her wrist to make the bracelet jangle.

  “I like yours a lot.” She looked round the gathering, saw cousins and offspring running here and there, precariously balancing glasses of squash. Mother would be having heart attacks by the second.

  “It isn’t every day we get to be eighteen, and old enough to vote.” Annie grinned, smiled at Uncle Phil passing by. He stopped.

  “Along with everything else you can now do legally,” Uncle Phil, the one she had to watch. Smooth. Sharp. Barbed like the wire which separated their garden from the farm next door. Uncle Phil meant hands that wandered when near ladies. She had no intention of letting him anywhere near her, even if she had just discovered it wouldn’t be illegal.

  “Oh, thank you for the tokens.” Annie, rescuing Tammy from an embarrassing silence. Why couldn’t she recall what it was Uncle Phil had given them? She remember the moment Annie opened her mouth, œ20 each.

  “That’s alright. Say, you girls give me a ring some time, we could go out somewhere in the car.”

  “Good idea, Uncle Phil.” Annie grimaced at Tammy, silently telegraphing ‘remember it, we might -’

  Mark left a group of giggling gossiping friends, interrupted, pushing between them and their Uncle.

  “Sorry about last night, Tam, Annie,” embarrassed flushed, not realising he might be stirring up yet more problems for them. Annie flashed him a savage ‘shut up’ look.

  “That’s alright, it was O.K., the dress hides the marks,” sharp as barbed wire.

  “And what were you youngsters up to last night?” Uncle Phil still pushing in, reluctant to leave, openly eyeing nubile young ladies. Annie flaunted her small bust smiled provoctively, pushed her tongue between her teeth, tapped Mark’s arm possessively, noted how he picked up the conversation, wondered -

  “Enjoying ourselves, weren’t we, Mark?” She turned away whispered, “Go talk to Granny Webster,” pushing Tammy toward the garden. “Go!”

  Tammy moved, leaving Annie to small talk friends and relatives, to try and pick up the mood which had gone so dead with the sudden announcement, and her mother’s flash of temper that threatened to explode the party right off the face of the earth.

  Someone had pushed the wheel-chair out onto the patio. The afternoon sun was gentler now, the old lady’s hands lay still, wrinkled sketched with blue veins, almost transparent.

  “There you are, girl,” a cackle, a sharp look. “Nice dress, did you Mummy buy the matching outfits? Did Annie say, “go talk to Granny Webster, keep the old girl happy?”

  “Yes, Gran. That is, yes to Mother buying the dresses, no to Annie telling me to come and talk to you.”

  “Sit down here,” tapping a footstool someone had left. Tammy gathered up her skirts and sat, staring out across the soft green lawn, saw younger cousins running and rolling, felt it was inviting her to roll on its delicate softness as well, to breathe in the scent of growing things, of wildlife and nature, not musty old lady smell tinged with some flowery scent.

  “Don’t fool with me, girl, you’ve been jumping when Annie says jump since you were old enough to do it.”

  “Did you enjoy the party, Gran?” Change the subject, thought Tammy desperately. She knows too much, sees too much.

  “I see you use the past tense, because you know the party’s dead on its feet. And I don’t think you mind, either. But to answer your question, once I got everyone going I did.”

  “It shocked a few people.”

  The old lady cackled again, the folds of her face moving concertina around a mouth toothless and pink.

  “I meant to. God help us, girl, your father standing there with that insipid look, trying to pretend you were the fruits of his loins! He can’t father children.”

  Tammy said nothing, watched the swifts dart in great flocks, tea leaves thrown across the soft blue sky. September, they’d be leaving soon for far off places, where the leaves were green and the skies were a deeper blue and nothing would stop their endless flight.

  Like my thoughts.

  “Your mother was so upset about it, she couldn’t have the world thinking they weren’t a normal family - she wanted to be Mrs Superwoman, you know that, of course. Perfect decor for you home, perfect decor for herself, husband handpicked to fit the image and even the girls came hand picked to finish the picture. Well, it looks like that from my angle. The angle of years.”

  It was the longest speech Tammy could ever remember. Granny Webster was a feared visitor, Mum rushing around to ensure everything was perfect, that they were perfect, not a spot of dust or a hair out of place, they were told to be polite to Daddy’s mother. Tammy realised they had missed a lot over the years by not making friends with the old lady, to find out what lay behind the crust not looking for the soft interior.

  The voice cracked a little, Gran snagged a glass of champagne from a small silver tray Tammy only just recognised. Mother had pulled out all the best silver for this do. And now it had been spoiled.

  Or had it?

  “She was just lucky, your pompous stuck up snooty snobbish mother. There - I’ve said it, what I’ve been waiting to say these 25 years and more. When Martin brought her home I said to him. ‘Listen to me, boy, that woman will drain you dry to keep a picture of what she and her family should be’, and I were right. Damn it I were right.”

  Yes, thought Tammy, leaning her elbows on her knees, chin in her hands, staring across at the trees edging the land, shielding the home, The Laurels, for heaven’s sake! From unsightly cows doing unsightly things in the middle of the fields as they chewed and cropped and produced the milk which Mother said was so essential to our fair skin and strong bones. Yes, old lady, you are right. That’s just what she’s like.

  “So, I thought to myself, all those years ago, when she brought you twins home from the hospital, right out of the poor woman’s womb! I thought then I’d wait my chance and if God let me live, I’d tell the world when you were 18 years old. And I done it.”

  She leaned back in the chair, old frail, tired, hunched under the weight of sunlight.

  “You are right, Gran?” Tammy was genuinely concerned, for
the first time a flicker of feeling for the old lady, she didn’t want to lose her, not now!

  “I’m alright.” She sipped champagne, burped, ignored it, went on. “Damn it, girl, I never meant to spoil your day, I thought the foolish woman would have told you and your sister, but kept it from the family. I saw by your faces you didn’t know either.” A chuckle from somewhere deep and probably evil. “Well, it certainly shook them up, didn’t I?”

  “You won’t be invited again, Gran!” Tammy put a young healthy hand over the withered one, feeling the pulse race, blood moving sluggishly through veins. “Does that matter?”

  “Course not, I won’t be here much longer anyway, my duty’s done now, I’ll be with your grandfather soon enough.” She shifted impatiently in the chair. “Take me in, girl, get your mother or someone to help me to the lavatory, would you?”

  “Sure, Gran.”

  “Your mother preferably, she hates it! You’re an all right kid, to use an expression I’m sure I heard someone use the other day! Not like your sister. Let me tell you something, Tammy, don’t thrust Annie in everything, she don’t always know right.”

  Tammy got up, stretched, and took the handles of the chair.

  “I don’t have much choice, Gran.”

  “No. I rather guessed that.”

  Tammy pushed the chair in, found her mother told her what Gran wanted, saw her mother’s face cloud and then show disgust. Tammy smiled and went to find Annie. They had so much to talk about - perhaps Annie wouldn’t demand impossible things of her tonight.

  Would she?

  Chapter Five

  Q. You said before you were ordered to take the beatings, were you also ordered to take the sex?

  A. Oh yes, at first I was. I didn’t want to lose my virginity, I hadn’t touched the vibrator like Annie had, I didn’t want anything to do with it. But Annie said do it and I did.

  Q. Who was your first man?

  A. Mark. Wimpy Niall wouldn’t come near me, kept saying he was scared, but he got it up all right for Annie, but then, she dominated him, and he didn’t dare do otherwise. Two submissives together, no way. It was Mark, he got turned on by hurting me, and wouldn’t admit it, but boy could you see the bulge under the jockey shorts! In the end, well, I fancied him half to death anyway so we went into the back seat of his Escort and got on with it.

  Q. And you liked it?

  A. Sure did. And I got Niall to order me a vibrator of my own after that.

  Q. So, what you’re saying is - both you girls were sexually active before your 18th birthday?

  A. Yes.

  Q. Can you tell me what happened on your birthday?

  A. That was when it all began to change. It was a good party, we were enjoying it, or at least I was, Mark was around, he’d whipped me the night before, which had put his back up a bit, well, not his back, you know what I mean. See, he’d made up his mind he wanted Annie not me, and she refused, and worked herself off in front of him. That was the sort of thing she did, denied him her body left him with an erection and nowhere to go. So, he was pretty grumpy with her during the party but all right with me.

  And then Gran Webster dropped her bombshell, told the whole party we were adopted, not natural children of our parents. Whatever anyone might tell you, Annie near burned up with rage over that - because everyone got embarrassed and shocked and uncomfortable and the party broke up, Mark went home without saying goodbye, relatives had a good gossip and then left us, and I found out Gran wasn’t a bad old stick after all.

  But Annie had different ideas.

  Chapter Six

  “Well, that was a bombshell and no mistake,” Adrienne smiled encouragingly. The girls pushed together on the settee, blonde hair intermingled. Annie felt Tammy was half asleep, felt her twin’s eyes closing. Around them the party debris glasses, half eaten food, curling sandwiches, overflowing ashtrays despite Adrienne’s injunction that:-

  ‘Those who care to smoke use the garden - please!’ The fact there was party remains still around them betrayed eloquently their parents’ agitation. Adrienne had normally had a perfect Interior Homes lounge.

  “We didn’t intend you to find out like that,” Martin’s hand reached out to touch his wife, voice weak even to Annie’s ears. She despised her father, even more so now.

  Annie wasn’t sure how Tammy could even think of sleeping! She was burning up. An old lady spoiling the party. She had looked forward to it for weeks, planning what to say at her birthday speech, who to ask so there would be some talent around - only to have everyone disappear like mercury out of a test tube as the words left the old lady’s mouth.

  Rage consumed hatred, burned a hollow core so hot it was a wonder Tammy couldn’t feel it.

  “Well, it was like this.” Adrienne smiled at Martin, smiled at the girls, took a visible hold of her emotions. “We - couldn’t have children, your father and I, and we so wanted children. So we applied for adoption. There was this very poor family, oh my dears you would never know how poor! Rough house, almost a slum! And there this poor woman was having twins! And she already had four children! No way could she cope with twins! So, the moment you were born you became ours.”

  “We have loved you as if you were out own,” added Martin, reddening under Annie’s steady gaze. “And believe me, we were going to tell you, weren’t we, Adrienne?”

  “Of course! Do you think we would have gone through life not telling you? Of course we were going to tell you, but in our own way and at our own time.”

  Like hell you were, thought Annie viciously. Tammy stirred, put a restraining hand on her arm. There was a time and a place, and this wasn’t it.

  “Just tell us who we really are and where we came from,” said quietly, convincingly calm. Adrienne smiled.

  “I knew you’d understand! And just think what awful names you had too! Oh, we haven’t told you. Your mother, your real mother, named you Mary and Audrey. She had to put something in the register at the hospital. You’re Mary, Tammy, and Annie you’re really Audrey, or you were. We changed your names legally by deed poll, from Mary and Audrey Gibling to Anastasia and Tamasine Webster.”

  A quiet fell over the room profound as the one which had descended earlier. Tammy all but stopped breathing. Annie panicked until she felt her twin’s heart pumping like mad. Tammy was controlling her emotions. Annie had never gotten hold of the meditation bit, just let her emotions boil over.

  “We gave you a proper home,” Martin offered feebly. “You’d have grown up on the streets otherwise, rough, talking slang, probably getting into drugs and all sorts of problems. I mean, London is one hell of a rough place.”

  “Instead you live here with us in this good home,” added Adrienne. “Your own rooms, good friends, food, family to support and care for you. And never so much as a hint of scandal or problems round either of you - you’ve been such good girls! Such perfect daughters!”

  Tammy smothered a giggle, Annie felt her shudder with the effort. If only they knew! Their parents were so obviously unhappy and embarrassed Annie knew she had to end the conversation. There would be other times, other opportunities to pursue the things she wanted to know.

  “It’s been one hell of a party.” Annie moved Tammy gently off her shoulder, stood up gestured almost unseen to her twin. “Whatever happened, it was a good party, and we thank you for that and for the gifts, don’t we, Tam? Listen, it doesn’t matter about the news, we can talk about it another time, can’t we?”

  Tammy struggled bleary eyed went to kiss her parents goodnight.

  “Thanks for everything.”

  “We’re only sorry it got spoiled,” Martin hugged Tammy and held out an arm to Annie who went instead to her mother. As always.

  “Don’t worry about it, we learned a lot, things we didn’t know and it gave them something to talk about for week
s! After all, we’re still one family, aren’t we?”

  Adrienne nodded.

  “Of course we are, Annie, thank you for saying so. I knew you’d understand. I said to your father, my girls will understand. Goodnight, darlings. Oh, we might be going out again Friday.”

  “That’s all right. Coming, Tam?”

  “Sure.”

  They climbed the broad staircase in silence, thinking their individual thoughts yet reaching out to one another as always. Silently Annie thought.

  ‘Come and see me later,’ picked up Tammy’s equally silent response.

  ‘Sure.’

  Annie closed her door, crossed the expanse of dove grey carpet and stood at the window looking out at near darkness, band of light bordering the horizon, a tree standing black and sentinel silent on the boundary, hoot of an owl, protesting cow in the field, dog barking somewhere far across the other side of town.

  Annie gripped the window-sill with both hands, knuckles threatening to pierce the skin.

  Adopted. It solved a million mysteries, it had been hard to see any trace of domination in either of them, or their immediate family, so where had it come from? And they weren’t smart enough to have been able to pass on psychic ability, the link with her twin, the trick of conjuring things - she turned, pictured a giant spider in the middle of her bed, watched as it formed its hairy legs saw the heaving body concentrated on holding it there until Tammy came in, heard her start of revulsion and let the vision go.

  “Getting my own back.”

  “No you’re not, you did that to scare me!” Tammy walked over to the chair suspended from the ceiling, flopped into it.

  “Well?” Annie sat at the dressing table, drew the brush down her gleaming hair.

  “Well what?” Tammy stared at the spot where the vision had been. Annie knew she hated, detested and was revulsed by them.