The Ugly Sister

by Jane Fallon

  She’s barely touched the bell when the front door flies open and two pre-teenagers nearly flatten her with the force of their hugs. You’d think they hadn’t seen her for months from the way both of them cling to her, gabbling away about school and where they’ve been and what they’ve done. She had half expected that when she saw them again Tara and Megan would have reverted to their world-weary, seen-and-done-it-all, pre-summer selves, but it’s evident very quickly that her fears are unfounded. They lead her straight through to the kitchen where Jon greets her with another hug and hands her a glass of wine. There’s no sign of Cleo.

  ‘Sorry, am I too early?’

  The shoot had finished for the day at five and, although Abi hadn’t intended to get to the house before seven thirty, once she had checked in to her hotel it felt too depressing to sit there on her own for too long, staring at the walls.

  ‘Not at all. Perfect timing. Cleo’s in the bath, but she shouldn’t be long.’

  Abi notices that the girls set to laying the table without, it seems, anyone asking them to.

  ‘So,’ Jon says, indicating she should sit at the table. ‘How did it go?’

  She tells them all about the shoot and how, after her initial nervousness, it had been quite fun although exhausting.

  ‘I’ve told all my friends you’re going to be the Bargain Hunters woman,’ Megan says, sidling up for another hug.

  ‘What did you have to wear?’ Tara asks.

  ‘You wouldn’t have liked it. The idea was I had to look as ordinary as possible. Like any woman you might see in the street, any day.’

  ‘I bet you still looked pretty.’

  Abi puts her arm round her niece, squeezes hard. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘And tomorrow you have the shoot in the other supermarket, which we’re filming in a studio, and then it’s the stills shoot,’ Jon says. ‘And then it’s all over, which, I’m thinking, you might be glad about. Am I wrong?’

  Abi traces the rim of her glass with her finger. ‘It’s been an experience, don’t get me wrong. And I’m eternally grateful for the money. But I think that’ll be my acting and modelling careers over. I’ll dump them before they dump me.’

  Jon laughs. Abi notices the wilful bit of hair is standing up on the rebellious spot on his crown. She thinks about smoothing it down.

  ‘I can’t believe how long everything takes,’ she says instead. ‘Nine hours and we’ve got, what, twenty seconds of the ad done?’

  ‘You’re lucky it was Bargain Hunters. If this was a high-end product what you shot today would probably have taken a week.’

  ‘I knew there was an upside to being low rent,’ Abi says, making him laugh again.

  ‘It’s really good to see you,’ he says, and he gives her a smile that makes her stomach flip.

  ‘So, girls,’ she says, brightly, breaking the moment. ‘I need a new career. Or I should say I need a career. I thought I could use the money I make from the advert to pay to train to do something. Any ideas?’

  ‘Architect,’ Megan says.

  ‘Fashion designer,’ Tara chips in.

  ‘Vet.’

  ‘Stylist.’

  ‘Doctor.’

  ‘Make-up artist.’

  ‘OK, OK stop. I think I need something that plays to my strengths. What am I good at?’

  They all look at her blankly. ‘You’re funny,’ Tara says eventually.

  ‘And kind,’ Megan adds.

  ‘Great,’ Jon says. ‘You could become a stand-up comedian who only does gigs for charity.’

  ‘Well,’ Abi says. ‘If you have any bright ideas let me know because I’m clueless.’

  At about seven o’clock Cleo wafts in, fragrant and perfectly made-up after her bath.

  ‘Abigail! You’re here already. Why didn’t anybody tell me?’

  Abi forces herself to smile. Tonight is for Tara and Megan; it’s not about her and her sister.

  ‘I haven’t been here long.’

  She tries to think of something to say, some conversation for her and Cleo to share, but the only thing that comes into her head is, ‘Still seeing Richard?’ so she just keeps quiet. Cleo seems to be making a big show of being affectionate towards Jon and, even though it hurts Abi to watch it, she’s relieved that he seems to be enjoying the attention. They look the picture of a contented, loving nuclear family even if she knows the truth, that some of the paper over the cracks is stretched to tearing point.

  Over seared tuna steaks and a second glass of wine Cleo says, ‘So, did Jonty tell you? I’ve decided I don’t want to go back to modelling after all.’

  Abi flicks a look at Jon and he nods, smiling.

  ‘Right …’

  ‘It’s too much of a commitment and it’s not fair when I have a family at home who need me.’

  Abi is in no doubt that the modelling world has rejected Cleo, not the other way round, but she knows she would have nothing to gain from saying so. Let Cleo rewrite history if she wants. Who cares?

  ‘Good for you,’ she says.

  Cleo, she notices, doesn’t once ask her how the Bargain Hunters shoot is going. At nine thirty the girls are finally convinced by their father that they have to go to bed and Abi decides it’s time for her to leave. Without her nieces chattering on she really isn’t sure what they’ll all talk about. When her cab arrives, she says goodbye to Jon in the kitchen with a sister/brother-in-law-appropriate hug.

  ‘I won’t see you tomorrow,’ he says, dashing her hopes. ‘I’ve got meetings all day.’

  Cleo insists on accompanying her to the front door.

  ‘It’s completely over between me and Richard,’ she hisses into Abi’s ear once they are out of Jon’s earshot. ‘I just want you to know that.’

  ‘It’s really none of my business,’ Abi says, and she means it. She’s tired of caring about how Cleo is living her life. It’s time to move on.

  29

  Weeks go by. Abi’s routine ticks along, a flat plain with no highs or lows. Days in the library, days pottering about doing not very much. She thinks again about getting a cat, a dog, anything that will make her flat seem more like a home. She goes on a date with a man she meets at Juliet’s birthday party. He’s nice enough, kind and smart, but she can’t summon up the enthusiasm to see him again. The cheque for Bargain Hunters arrives and the money sits in her bank account waiting to be put to good use. She hears nothing from Cleo or from Jon.

  She takes to going up to London on the train whenever she can. She tells herself she’s getting her modern-art fix, pounding the floors at the Tate and the Saatchi, but a big, mostly unacknowledged, part of her just wants to be there soaking up the energy of the city, trying to feel a connection to her family. To Jon in particular.

  At the beginning of November she’s watching the TV late one night, a mindless home improvement programme on a small cable channel, when suddenly there she is, attractive, approachable, friendly young mum urging the viewers not to waste their money on perfect packaging. She goes through every emotion from embarrassment to pride to sadness that she has no one to share the moment with. She checks the time, calls Phoebe, risks getting her out of bed.

  ‘It was just on,’ she squeaks with adolescent levels of excitement when her daughter answers her mobile. Phoebe knows at once what ‘it’ is.

  ‘Oh my god, Mum. I can’t believe I missed it. Tell me everything.’

  ‘It’s awful,’ Abi says laughing. ‘I look a fright and I sound really odd, like I’m putting on a voice.’

  ‘Who cares? You’re a superstar.’

  Phoebe sounds happy. The world she’s inhabiting, the sun, the sea and the spontaneity, couldn’t seem more alien to the damp and dark predictability of a Kent autumn. She tells Abi that she and her friends are still in Malaysia, soon to depart for Bali and then on to Sydney, Melbourne, Tasmania.

  ‘Lovely.’ Abi can’t help but be relieved that Australia is on the horizon. It feels like a safer, more familiar place for her teenage daughter to be.
A larger Britain, just with more sunshine and cuter animals.

  Every now and then someone double takes or asks her if they know her from somewhere. One of her colleagues in the library tells her they saw her face on a poster at a train station. It’s a strange feeling; she’s not entirely sure she likes it. She’s a million miles from Cleo territory – in fact, make that two million, five, ten – but she’s no longer completely anonymous. On one of her days off she takes the train up to Ashford, seeks out the poster and takes a photo on her phone to email to Phoebe and then copies it to Tara and Megan. She feels rootless, restless, adrift. She scours the internet for inspiration, but every course she finds seems too daunting or too frivolous or just too uninspiring. The significance of her choice – the choice of what direction the rest of her life might take – suddenly seems too weighty. She’s paralysed, unable to commit. She stops looking, allows herself to drift back to her routine. After a while it’s like she never went away. Every now and then she catches sight of her advert, still running on some obscure cable channel or other. It doesn’t feel like her.

  At the end of January – after a quiet Christmas that she actually quite enjoys, watching bad TV, eating too much, walking on the beach – another cheque drops through her letterbox. Bargain Hunters have decided to keep up their campaign for world domination for another three months and have therefore had to pay out almost the same again for her services. She pays it into the bank, into her fund for her mythical future, and wishes she had any clearer idea of what that future might be. Actually she’s tempted to just hand the money over to Phoebe, to go some way to paying off the loans she’s going to need to get her through three years at the London College of Fashion, but she doesn’t even get a chance to mention the idea before Phoebe is telling her, in no uncertain terms, that that’s not an option.

  ‘You have to use it on yourself,’ Phoebe says, a slight upward twang creeping into her sentences courtesy of her weeks in Australia. ‘And for something proper. Don’t go frittering it away on rubbish.’

  Abi smiles. ‘That sounds like something I would say.’

  ‘Well, you know who to blame, then. I mean it, though. When are you ever going to get this chance again?’

  She’s right, but it doesn’t seem to be that simple. ‘I know.’

  In February she gives in, goes to the nearest shelter and comes home with a sad-looking tabby-and-white cat. He’s old and cantankerous and spends most of his time sitting behind one of the armchairs, peering out at her mournfully, but she gets to like knowing he’s there. She sends a photo to Tara and Megan, asking what she should call him, declines their suggestions of Justin and Aston and instead plumps for a more regal Henry. Grumpy as he is, he’s company. She knows she’s a cliché but now she also knows why that cliché has become so universal. It’s nice to have something to come home to. Everyone needs to be loved, even if Henry has a funny way of showing it.

  She’s sitting at her computer, Henry behind his chair, one morning, when her request for news pages for Cleo suddenly throws up multiple results. It’s been a while since anything new popped up; in terms of her career Cleo seems to have firmly stepped away from the radar. Now there are ten or so stories, each with a variation of the same headline. Abi stares at the screen, unable to believe what she’s reading.

  Cleo in marriage split.

  She reads every one of the links, scouring them for more detail than the one before, but they all say the same. Cleo MacMahon Attwood, one time supermodel, has split from her husband of twelve years, advertising executive Jonty MacMahon. The couple who have two children, Tara ten and Megan seven, say they are saddened by the end of their marriage, but the split is amicable. They will continue to bring up the children together.

  Abi sits back. She feels numb. Cleo and Jon have separated. It’s agony not knowing the details. Did Jon find out about Cleo and Richard? Did he walk in on them? Or did she confess – no, Abi thinks, that would never happen. Or maybe Stella discovered what was going on and turned up on the doorstep – ‘I think your wife is screwing my boyfriend.’ What do Tara and Megan know? Have they been as protected as they should be? Forced to take sides? Whatever they have been told, she knows they’ll be devastated. She wants to call them or email them, but it’s almost impossible to think what to say. The story might not even be true. She can hardly write to her nieces offering her condolences for their parents’ impending divorce if there’s a possibility it might not be happening at all. Eventually she composes a short but heartfelt message:

  Hi my gorgeous girls,

  I hope you’re both OK. I just wanted to say if you ever need to talk to me about anything I’m here. And you know you’re always welcome to come and spend a few days down here in Kent if you want to. You can meet Henry.

  Lots and lots of love,

  Auntie Abi xxx

  Two hours later she’s at work and, feeling her mobile vibrating in her pocket, she heads out of the front door, onto the steps and answers. A tearful-sounding Tara is on the other end.

  ‘Dad’s moved out,’ she says, sniffling.

  Abi can hear the bustle of a school playground at break time behind her. She sits on the top step. ‘Oh, sweetie, I’m so sorry.’ She’s not sure what to say, she can hardly ask why or what has happened between Jon and Cleo. ‘Do you want me to ask them if you and Megan can come down here for a few days? When’s half-term?’

  ‘It’s OK,’ Tara says. ‘I don’t think we should leave Mum on her own. She’s really upset.’

  Of course she is. Abi can picture Cleo now, making herself the victim, courting sympathy, not even attempting to be strong for the sake of her girls.

  ‘Well, you can come any time you like. You don’t even have to give me any notice. So long as either your mum or your dad says it’s OK, then I’ll come up on the train and get you. Any time. I mean it.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘How’s Megan?’

  ‘She keeps on crying. It’s harder for her because she’s so young,’ Tara says, mustering all her ten-year-old sophistication.

  ‘You can look after her, though, can’t you? And she can look after you too even though she’s younger?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where’s your dad living?’ Abi tries to ask the question casually. Not just because she doesn’t want to give away how interested she is in the answer, but because she wants to try to make Tara feel like her father moving out doesn’t have to be such a big deal.

  ‘He’s staying with Uncle Simon,’ Tara says, naming Jon’s Shepherd’s Bush-based brother. ‘But he’s looking for a flat near us.’

  ‘Well, then hopefully it won’t be so bad. You’ll still be able to see him every day.’ Abi has no doubt that Jon will do everything he can to make the transition as painless as possible for his daughters. She wonders again what happened. Wonders if she’ll ever even know. ‘Are you going to be all right?’

  Tara sniffles a yes.

  ‘Call me whenever you want, day or night. I won’t mind. And I’ll phone you in a couple of days just to check you’re doing OK. And give Megan a big kiss from me. I love you.’

  Abi speaks to either Tara or Megan almost every day and Phoebe tells her she does the same. They compare notes, trying to piece together what’s going on. Thankfully neither of the girls mentions anything about their parents fighting or shouting so she’s hopeful that whatever is going on Cleo and Jon are behaving like parents first and a couple in crisis second. Arguing behind closed doors and in low voices, probably. Saving the big fights for when their children are at school. Frustratingly that also means there are no clues as to what exactly has gone wrong.

  Abi thinks about contacting Cleo to find out the truth, but she has no desire to get caught up in her sister’s melodrama. And, of course, she thinks almost constantly of calling Jon to find out whether he’s OK and what his plans are. She tries to pretend to herself that it’s anything other than wanting to hear his voice again, wanting to find out if he’s hurting or embarra
ssed, or even relieved, but she knows herself too well. Hard as it is, she knows she has to stand back and just let things take their course. Be there for Tara and Megan if they need her.

  Weeks later, it seems like years, Megan tells her that Jon has found somewhere to live in nearby St John’s Wood.

  ‘We can walk there,’ she says, sounding more cheerful than she has done in ages. ‘Well, we could if Mum would let us, but she doesn’t like us going on our own.’

  ‘You do see him, though?’ Abi asks, concerned. She has already decided that the one thing which would make her get involved would be if she ever heard Cleo was being difficult about letting Jon have access to the children. If she was a judge, she knows which parent she’d be awarding custody to.

  ‘He picks us up from school most days. And on the weekends he comes to get us. He waits outside, though; he never comes in,’ she adds sadly.

  ‘Is it nice, his flat?’

  ‘It’s OK. We have our own room, but we have to share, so that’s a bit rubbish, but Dad got us a hamster so that makes it better.’

  ‘A hamster! Henry would like him.’

  ‘Henry would eat him and he’s a girl.’

  ‘OK, well, we won’t introduce them, then. Maybe they can write to each other.’

  Megan giggles and Abi feels a wave of relief.

  ‘Or text. Henry likes to text.’

  ‘Stupid,’ Megan says, laughing.

  One night Abi wakes up in a cold sweat. What if Cleo and Jon didn’t break up because of Richard? What if Cleo broke it off with Richard all those months ago, but Jon left for another reason (he met someone else? No, she knows that would never happen) and Cleo’s devastated? Abi has become so suspicious of her sister, so immune to her posturing, that she has never even considered that she might be genuinely hurting. She thinks about what Tara said – ‘I don’t want to leave her on her own; she’s really upset.’ She could be scared to reach out to Abi in case Abi rejects her. Abi has no desire to have any kind of relationship with Cleo any more, but she also knows that she has a duty to check that she’s OK. If her sister needs her, she has to be there for her. Or at least offer to be there. That’s what family is all about, after all. You have no choice; you’re related to these people – you share their genes – you can’t suddenly decide you’re not, like them or hate them.