A Tale of Two Sisters

by Anna Maxted

  I played the message again. She didn’t sound like she was joking. Her voice cracked on ‘wring’. Also, at five thirty that morning, I’d heard Tomas crying, through the wall. ‘Please,’ he’d sobbed. ‘I want to sleep in Mummy’s bed. Please!’

  Seconds later, I’d heard a baby screeching, a series of thumping footsteps, and a bloodcurdling yell of ‘Get back in your bed NNNNNNNNOOOOOWWW!’

  Since the birth of Celestia, I’d thought, rolling over and pulling the covers over my head, Tabitha seemed to be losing the will to retain her Best Mother in World title. I’d also heard her commanding Jeremy, ‘Multitask! I never just stand there speaking on the phone!’

  I felt a twinge of pity for Tomas, and Jeremy. No one wants to be spoken to like that by someone they love. No wonder Jeremy was doing a lot of advanced driving around North London in the black Volvo V50 – I bet he had V70 envy – with his Top Gun shades on, and ‘Cigarettes and Alcohol’ blaring out the windows.

  Tomas – according to Tim who’d heard it from Jeremy – was not coping well with the interloper. When Tabitha returned from hospital, Tomas had looked at the bundle in his mother’s arms and said, ‘Are you her mummy too?’ At the time, I’d only heard the word ‘Mummy’ and wondered if anyone would ever call me that. I still wondered. I decided against taking Tomas for an hour. I could feel his need, but mine – to be left alone by other people’s children – was greater.

  Chapter 23

  ‘Biscuit, your face is totally unreal!’ said Kevin, as he sucked up a long strand of spaghetti, spattering tomato sauce all over his Mango top. ‘Purple . . . blue . . . bit of green . . . some yellow. Very David Lynch. Given me a storming idea for a shoot. Birds, all bruised up, but, like, stylised, yeah?’ I snappishly ate the fried cheese in my halloumi salad, feverishly buttered a white roll, and scraped the lettuce into a pile at the side of my plate. No one likes lettuce. I mean, do they? Really? ‘What,’ I said, ‘sort of like “Wife Battering à la Mode”?’

  ‘Yeah!’ he said. ‘Yeah! I mean, we can’t have the word “wife” in the mag, but apart from that – yeah! Modish.’

  I was being sarcastic, but I don’t think he was. For lack of contenders, I’d become his confidante, and I wasn’t thrilled about it. It was great for my career – providing that my ultimate goal was the porn industry – but Kevin was quite the most stupid person I’d ever met. I disliked myself for humouring him for, I suppose, money. Tim was doing well but that had nothing to do with me. I was still hovering around the poverty line. I no longer had trust in us two as a unit.

  ‘That makes you my muse, dunnit?’ Kevin grinned across the table and patted my hand. ‘Go easy on the cheese, love,’ he added. ‘Got yourself a nice little figure there. Don’t want to let yourself go. Got to be careful at your age.’

  How old did he think I was? Fifty-five? He had a figure like a skittle.

  ‘Mm,’ I said, and laughed, which was the conversational sum that Kevin required of me before alighting on his next subject.

  ‘We’re going to have some girl-on-girl action, but get this – all the shots: black-and-white. Yeah? Yeah? So, like, it’s not pornography, it’s art. It’s all about playing the market!’

  ‘Mm. Ha ha!’ I said, adding, ‘Excellent!’ for good measure. I wondered what Tim was doing.

  The theme tune from Miami Vice exploded from Kevin’s mobile, placed in front of him on the white linen table cloth. Come on, I thought, as surrounding diners glared. Kevin popped a large chunk of walnut bread in his mouth and chewed casually, tapping his fingers to the music.

  ‘Are you going to answer it?’ I said.

  ‘It’s Fletch,’ said Kevin. He waggled his fingers, and put the phone to his ear. ‘Thought I told you not to disturb me during lunch. What? Private Eye? What? Ugandan what? Oh. Right. Riiiiight! Me and Biscuit, eh? Cool! Nah, like I give a toss! Nah, course it ain’t, I like ’em blonde, but, you know, walk the talk – lad’s mag – ed’s a bit of a boy. Sorry, what? Who’s Elizabeth? Biscuit? Why should she care? She’s up for a laugh! She’s a frickin’ sex columnist, goes with the territory!’ He snorted, beeped off.

  ‘What was that about?’ I said. I felt shaky.

  Kevin laughed like a seal. He reached for my hand and licked the top of my finger.

  ‘Jesus!’ I shrieked. ‘What’s the matter with you!’ I flapped about and sterilised my hand in his glass of vodka and lemon.

  ‘Oi! That was my drink!’

  ‘Oi. That was my finger.’

  ‘You asked, I was telling you. Showing you. This week’s Private Eye says we’re shagging.’

  ‘Oh my God. That’s horrible.’ I burst into tears.

  Kevin stared at me. ‘What’s your problem?’ he said. ‘You should be pleased, being associated with a bit of class.’

  ‘A bit of class? What, you?’ Suddenly, the tears dried and I was furious. ‘I’ve got a family and a boyfriend and a professional reputation to protect!’ (A good third of that statement was correct.) ‘About what should I be pleased, exactly? Having vicious lies printed about me having sex with my – no offence, Kevin – moronic moron of a boss, I mean, look at you! Admit it – you’re a bit of a worry! Wrong side of forty, those ridiculous bug-eye sunglasses, and what is that pendant, and your hideous, hideous tattoo, every time you bend over in those terrible cut-off denims, I have nightmares about that evil eye above your bum crack, not to mention the bum crack itself, get a belt why can’t you, and everyone knows you wax your legs and use Boots fake tan and we all laugh about it, and your ideas for the mag – ideas! Hah! – they’re shit! They’re shit, ok? Whoever heard of making fashion useful? No one, not even a criminal, wants to look at a Tesco suit! They want Paul Smith and, and . . . other posh names, even if they can’t afford them. That’s what aspirational is, not a fanny on every page! You are a rubbish editor, because you have no original thought, no intelligence, and your writing is painful in its unfunniness, and I promise you that Fletch would have made a brilliant editor and the only reason you were hired is because you’re a company lapdog and he isn’t, because you’re certainly not what I’d call a journalist, you’re like a monkey with a typewriter, and we are all ashamed to work for you, and if we see the magazine on the newsstands, we hide it, and I hate the name Biscuit, it’s not my name, and the whole staff is looking for other jobs—’

  ‘I don’t know about the whole staff, love,’ said Kevin. ‘But you’re looking for another job. You are so fired.’

  ‘I resign anyway,’ I said. ‘And speak English. You can’t be so fired. You’re either fired, or you’re not.’

  ‘Well, you are. Like a fucking cannon ball.’

  Fletch brought my meagre belongings to the door of the building, as I refused to step inside.

  ‘You know it’s not true, don’t you, Fletch?’ I said.

  Fletch paused. ‘Babe, your sex life is up to you.’

  My eyebrows shot up. ‘You have got to be joking.’

  ‘Lizbet, I’m not judging you.’

  ‘Yes you are! When I didn’t do it! I’m going to sue them. How could you even think I’d consider it? He’s grotesque! Repellent. Vile. Disgusting. And he’s my boss.’

  ‘Yeah. He is.’

  ‘Is that what you think of me?’

  Fletch shrugged. ‘You have been pretty tight with him. What am I meant to think?’

  ‘I forgot. You’re a man. You’re not meant to think. I’ve just been sacked because he was offended that I was offended at the allegation.’

  Fletch grinned suddenly. ‘I believe you. Though I did worry. Still, who cares what I think? What about what Tim thinks?’

  My heart squirmed in fear. Tim! Tim wouldn’t believe it. He’d laugh if he saw it, because it was so ridiculous. ‘He doesn’t read Private Eye,’ I said. ‘I’d better get home.’

  Fletch ruffled my hair. ‘Give Tim a snog from me. Or a firm handshake and a gruff, manly slap on the back.’

  I applied the same logic to the story in Private E
ye as I did to my sex column – if I didn’t see it, it didn’t exist. Tim wouldn’t see it either. Would someone tell him? Who, though? What sort of person does that? ‘Morning, Tim! Nice weather for ducks! Saw that piece in the paper about your girlfriend shagging her boss! Tut tut! I presume you’re aware of the story? No? Shall I fax it over? Not at all! Glad to help ruin your life! Anytime!’

  I had the key in the lock before I realised that Tim’s car was in the drive. A pebble of fear lodged in my chest.

  ‘Hello?’ I shouted, as I let myself in. ‘Hello!’

  There was no reply. But Tim’s jacket was draped over the banister, and his car keys were flung on the hall table, next to his Prada wallet – a present from me when we thought we could afford such things. It was fat as a phone directory with receipts and credit cards and shopping lists, and it gave me a pang, just seeing it.

  I ran upstairs. Tim was in the bedroom, digging through the wardrobe. There was a green suitcase on our bed, half full of clothes.

  ‘Hi! You’re back! How were your parents? What are you doing?’ I said, with fake cheer. I suspected that the last time we’d spoken, I’d been less cordial, but I was hoping that if I persisted friendly, Tim would overlook this.

  ‘I’m packing,’ he replied. ‘What does it look like?’

  ‘Packing,’ I said. ‘It looks just like packing.’

  I stared at him. He looked beautiful. Not to anyone else – except, maybe, his mother – but to me. The sunlight caught his hair and it glinted gold. He was wearing faded jeans and a dark blue Ralph Lauren Polo shirt. Ralph, my mother had said. Ralph does such nice things for babies. I swallowed. No more baby. And now . . . no more Tim?

  ‘I suppose you saw Private Eye today?’

  ‘Mum showed me.’

  Tim’s mother reading Private Eye? What was wrong with Weekly Chatter and Witches Today? ‘Does she actually love you?’ I said, before I could stop the words.

  ‘Do you?’ he said.

  ‘I promise you. I am not having an affair with Kevin. Or anyone. I’ve never cheated on you.’

  ‘Yes you have, Elizabeth.’

  He never called me Elizabeth. Only once, when I broke his MP3 player.

  ‘Tim.’ There were tears in my eyes. I couldn’t bear the waves of hostility coming off him. For a while now I thought I’d hated him, but I’d been fooling myself. He still had that power to make me crumple with one disdainful glance. ‘I probably have annoyed a lot of people by being friendly to Kevin. I don’t feel good about it. Not very honourable. I know that Fletch was hurt. It wasn’t loyal of me. But harmless friendliness – not even flirting – is all it’s been, I—’

  ‘Elizabeth.’

  ‘He’s just sacked me, ok? He thinks being libelled is hilarious, so long as he comes out of it looking like a stud. So I told him what I thought, and got fired on the spot. See? Doesn’t that prove to you that I—’

  ‘Elizabeth!’ shouted Tim. ‘I know you didn’t cheat on me with that prick Kevin, so stop drivelling on about it!’

  ‘Oh!’ I said, collapsing on the bed with a bounce. ‘Thank God!’ My face was all smiles. ‘For a bad moment there, I—’

  Tim was not smiling. ‘But you did cheat on me.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘YOU CHEATED ON ME!’ he screamed at the top of his voice.

  ‘NO I DIDN’T!’ I screamed back, incensed.

  ‘YES YOU DID!’

  Tabitha and Jeremy would be ears-aflap, glued to the wall.

  Tim wrestled a small packet out of his jeans pocket and hurled it onto the bed. ‘WHAT’S THAT THEN, YOU LYING BITCH?’

  My contraceptive pills.

  I trembled from head to toe as I snatched them up.

  ‘Where . . . where did you find these?’ I said, as if it was relevant. As if I could somehow claw back some moral standing if it emerged he’d been ferreting in my bedside drawer.

  ‘What does it matter where I found them?’ he said. ‘In your bedside drawer!’

  ‘You went in my bedside drawer?’

  He shot me a look of disgust. ‘Yes! You’ve got a bunch of my old design magazines stuffed in there. And a phone mike. And my cufflinks. And in my bedside drawer I’ve got your jewellery box. And a lace garter. And some mint green antique calfskin gloves. Don’t try and make the issue our bedside drawers!’

  In retrospect, I shouldn’t have hidden my contraception in my bedside drawer.

  ‘I thought we were trying for a baby,’ he hissed. ‘And all the time you were tricking me. I—’

  I was too tired to have this conversation.

  ‘Boo-hoo,’ I said. ‘Cut to the chase.’ I flicked my hand in the direction of the green suitcase. ‘You’re leaving me.’

  Tim smiled stiffly. ‘No,’ he said. He folded his arms.

  My gaze flickered to the contents of the suitcase. Hang on. Pink knickers with lace edging? A black padded bra? Unless the relationship was faltering for shadier reasons than Tim was willing to let on, these were not his clothes.

  Tim marched to my wardrobe and grabbed a jumbled mess of sweaters and T-shirts and jeans, and dumped them into the suitcase. He pressed down the top, and zipped it shut. ‘I’m not going anywhere,’ he said. Then he hauled the case off the bed, and shoved it towards me with a haughty expression. ‘You’re leaving me.’

  Cassie

  Chapter 24

  I was having a baby.

  George was the father, although I thought of him more as the donor. I had a sick feeling in my gut, but I had a very sick feeling in my gut every time I thought about Lizbet. George had trumpeted the proof of his virility – I’d told him not to – and she’d gone bananas. I’m not sure he didn’t do it on purpose.

  I’d attempted to contact her over the weekend, but she wasn’t having any of it. I wasn’t a masochist. After fifteen calls, I quit trying and feasted on the fact that soon enough, I’d be the proud owner of a pink, squally, wriggling pig. A wriggling roo. I meant, a baby. I just went all silly and goo-faced at the idea and my language changed to what a tabloid psychologist had called ‘Mummy-ese’.

  Sarah Paula was to be a grandmother. Ah, she would have been proud. I saw her, leaning over a fairytale cot – pale wood and gauze canopy – all sweet murmurings and smiles, her long straight blonde hair (because to me she was forever eighteen) gently brushing the baby’s chest. Or maybe that baby was me. I killed the thought. It was what Aunt Edith would call ‘a flight of fancy’. Mummy was to be a grandmother, a fully functioning grandmother with all the trimmings, a Ralph-buying, pram-pushing, photo-demonstrative grandmother.

  I was a bit previous. Lizbet had assumed along the same lines. George had gone off on one, ordaining that we Go Private. He had a million horror tales about the Health Service – curious, as not one of his friends had children. He’d booked me an appointment with The Top Man. ‘Isn’t that a clothes shop?’ I’d said, but I didn’t object. I intended to hang on to this baby. To lose one baby is careless . . . George had prepared a meticulous case, should any liberal colleagues purse their lips: he wanted to ensure his baby received constant and efficient surveillance, the maximum face-time with abundant and well-rested medical staff to promote the odds of safe passage, ‘and you can all fuck off!’

  I should try that argument in court.

  I sighed. Court. Give it a few months and I was going to have to suck in my stomach big-time. I felt a thrill of joy. Can you believe that? Joy at the idea of having to suck in my stomach? If that’s not messed up, tell me what is. That’s how much I wanted the baby. I’d gone right off coffee, God help me, I was twitching towards the concept of peppermint tea. It was a monstrous affront to all that I stood for. I felt like a helpless bystander, watching my brisk, brusque personality being washed away in a landslide. If I didn’t keep a tight rein, I’d be regaling the judge with details of weak bladders and varicose veins. It struck me that all these little trials of pregnancy, Lizbet would have been grateful for.

  I pressed 141, so she w
ouldn’t know it was me, and rang her mobile.

  ‘Don’t hang up,’ I said, when she answered.

  Silence.

  ‘Where are you?’ I added, taking this as a good sign. ‘Work or home?’

  ‘Neither,’ she replied. ‘I don’t have a work, and I don’t have a home. I’m standing in the road with a suitcase.’

  Her voice was rock hard with the effort of not crying.

  ‘What?’ I said. ‘Your road? I’ll be there in a sec.’

  I jumped off the sofa, and found that I had zero strength and couldn’t catch my breath. My head felt as if it was about to float off my neck, and it was an alarming sensation. My legs became rubber, and I fell back onto the sofa. ‘George!’ I gasped, but he was in the power shower and incommunicado. I managed to grab a bottle of Badoit – agh! – that he had brought back from the gym, and after two minutes, felt better, although my hands still shook. This time I got up slowly. Oh, how unpleasant. A preview of old age.

  Lizbet sat in the passenger seat of the Merc, and if her high pointy shoes scraped the beige leather as she fidgeted about, I wasn’t going to mention it. I tried to prod her for information but she turned to me and said, ‘I can’t talk to you right now.’

  I shut up. Sophie Hazel Hamilton has a fat cousin who can’t have children, and three months after Sophie gave birth to Justin, she saw the cousin at a wedding. The cousin greeted Sophie with the words, ‘You’ve just had a baby and you’re thin, you bitch.’ As far as I was concerned, my sister’s conduct was impeccable.

  ‘I don’t want to stay here,’ said Lizbet, as she watched me haul her suitcase into the house.

  ‘Drop the case!’ roared George, thundering down the stairs, his hair wrapped in a towel. ‘You mustn’t LIFT! She’s pregnant, you know,’ he added, glaring at Lizbet.

  I looked at my sister properly for the first time that evening. Her face was white. It was also yellow, green and purple.

  ‘Lizbet! Your face . . . ?’