The Sister Swap

by Fiona Collins

  ‘Swap?’

  ‘Yes! Swap! You come to my flat; I come to Orchard Cottage.’

  ‘Well, how would that work?’ asked Sarah. Meg could hear the hesitation in Sarah’s voice. If they swapped, was her elder sister calculating how much time she’d have to spend with her little sister, when she returned to Tipperton Mallet from London at the weekends?

  Luckily Meg’s brain was also calculating. ‘I’m thinking of a complete swap,’ she offered. ‘Maybe.’ Yes, this could work. If they swapped they wouldn’t have to be together at all. She was relieved at the thought of her sister not being there when she was, having the place to herself. Not having to share painful anecdotes, sad memories … The silly thought – the speck – of cosy chats at the kitchen table was flicked far, far away. ‘You could stay in London at the weekends, too. Think of all the art galleries, the museums … there’s no point trekking all the way back to the country every Friday night just to come back two days later. Not when there’s a summer of London to explore! And you’ll save a packet in train fares …’

  ‘I don’t know …’ Sarah hesitated. ‘There’s a lot of train strikes at the moment, so commuting back and forth could be a pain, but I was planning on the weekends to see the children, do things with them …’

  ‘Well, they can come up to you in London, trains permitting! Do some sightseeing. It could be a great opportunity for them.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Sarah. ‘I would like to get to know London properly again … Show it to them, too. We never seemed to make it up there, in all these years …’

  ‘So, let’s do it!’ exclaimed Meg. ‘I think it’s a fabulous idea! Shall we?’

  ‘OK,’ said Sarah tentatively. ‘OK. It could maybe work.’

  ‘When would you like to come up?’ asked Meg. ‘Tomorrow? Today?’

  ‘Tomorrow would be better. Give me more time.’

  ‘Tomorrow’s fine with me. And don’t worry about paying me any rent and I won’t pay any to you. We’ll do it as a straight swap, and—’

  ‘Have you really got high blood pressure or are you running away from something?’

  ‘What?’ Meg was taken aback.

  ‘Are you running away?’

  ‘No!’ Meg did have form, she had to admit. Even before their parents died in the crash she used to do it; she’d assemble a little cardboard box of all her favourite possessions and march off down the road with it, to see how far she could get by teatime. When she and Sarah lived together she upped her game, although it was more running off than running away, and it usually occurred after half a bottle of vodka and sometimes some purloined Malibu. Her final running away had been when she fled to London at eighteen, but that had turned out to be a good thing, for all of them, hadn’t it? ‘I’m not running away. Why would I run away from a job that I love? The sooner I get back to it the better! No, this is a bona fide medical emergency. Hey, I could do things for you, at the cottage.’ Meg was already bored at the prospect of doing nothing in the country. She was just so busy in London – she couldn’t imagine not being so. It frightened her a little. ‘I could deep clean for you,’ she offered brightly. ‘Do some decorating?’

  ‘Deep clean!’ scoffed Sarah. ‘When have you ever cleaned anything?’

  ‘I’m pretty good now,’ Meg replied, in self-defence. ‘I’m tidy these days, too.’

  ‘Really?’ Sarah didn’t sound convinced. ‘And we haven’t seen each other for fifteen years, but you want to do some decorating for me?’

  ‘Well, it’s no weirder than us staying in each other’s houses!’ retorted Meg. Blimey, Sarah was snippy. Nothing much had changed with her then; she obviously still thought Meg was hopeless. Had she not been following Meg’s career at all? Didn’t she know how brilliant she was?

  ‘True,’ said Sarah. ‘Have you any decorating experience?’ She was scoffing again, wasn’t she? Meg felt quite angry.

  ‘That doll’s house,’ offered Meg.

  ‘The one you papered with toilet roll and tin foil?’

  ‘Tin foil makes excellent mirrors.’

  Sarah made a sound that could have been a laugh, but Meg wasn’t sure. She felt glad her stubborn pride had got in the way of her getting in touch again with Sarah, after she had first moved up to London. That one month had eased into two, then three, then before she knew it, twenty years … The terse phone call they’d had ten years ago didn’t count; neither did Uncle Compton’s funeral when they’d said one ‘hello’, one ‘goodbye’ and that was it.

  ‘I don’t need any decorating doing,’ Sarah said, ‘but can you please just keep your eye out for Connor and Olivia? Your niece and nephew?’ Meg now detected a note of bitterness in her sister’s voice, but thought it unfair. Meg had never met them – they were too young to have been at that funeral – and why would Meg have been in contact with them when she wasn’t ever in contact with their mum, and vice versa? It worked both ways. ‘They’re nineteen, but if I’m going to be away for a whole two months I’ll be a lot happier if there’s someone else here—’

  ‘—that you can trust?’ offered Meg. ‘Aren’t I more likely to lead them astray?’

  ‘I’m hoping you’ve changed,’ said Sarah, with a great deal of sarcasm Meg didn’t like.

  ‘I have changed!’ she protested, indignant. She hated feeling like the naughty little sister again. ‘And I can keep an eye on them,’ she added quickly, but she wondered exactly what would be required. Would she have to fumigate rooms with air freshener, pick up socks, give advice on boyfriends, that sort of thing? She only ever had one piece of advice on relationships: keep things casual and always keep on walking …

  ‘OK. Thank you,’ said Sarah. ‘Oh, another thing. I’ve resigned from my part-time job in the village, but I’ve been running an art class and the local library here for a year or so. I was going to let the parish council know I can’t do them for two months, but if you get the urge …’

  ‘I don’t think so!’ Meg was mildly horrified.

  ‘And you can use my car if you like – it’s pretty terrible but it does start sometimes.’

  ‘I passed my test, but I don’t really drive,’ said Meg, ‘I live really close to the Tube. Where’s your new old job?’

  ‘Just off Tinder Street.’

  ‘Cool. I’m off Tottenham Court Road, that’s only four stops from there on the Central line.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. I used to know the whole Tube map, once upon a time. So we’re really doing this? Tomorrow?’

  Meg stretched out both legs straight in front of her and admired her jewelled toenails. If she had to get out of London, she would go to Tipperton Mallet and stay at her sister’s cottage. She would recharge, lower her sodding blood pressure and come back to be a better model agency owner than she’d ever been before.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ she said.

  Chapter Four

  Sarah

  Sarah put the phone down. She extracted a dead peony from the vase on her hall table and straightened up the potpourri bowl. This mad, mad thing was actually happening. She was starting a new job in London after nineteen years as a stay-at-home mum, and not only a new job but her old job, at the same company. Plus – maddest of all – she was swapping homes with her estranged little sister for the next two months.

  She headed to the kitchen in pursuit of a bottle of wine, tripping over one of Connor’s trainers, which had been lying in wait like a mischievous banana skin in the middle of the sitting-room rug. ‘Ow! Flipping heck!’ She picked it up, returned it to its messy friends in the porch and went to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of Sauvignon. A casserole was in the slow cooker, simmering away for tonight. She liked to make a home-cooked meal for the children, even if they didn’t always bother to eat it.

  Sarah sat at the kitchen table and sipped her wine. She’d been so nervous at the prospect of phoning Meg, knowing only sheer desperation would make her do it. Sarah knew no one in London except her sister. She was the only person she could try. Whe
n Meg had phoned her first, Sarah was relieved; it would have been very easy for her to chicken out of doing it.

  It had been so weird talking to her. So strange to hear her sister’s voice after so long … although she didn’t need to wonder what Meg looked like these days, she’d seen her in Glamour magazine; ‘Day in the Life of a Model Booker’ – an interview with accompanying photo. The punky, purple back-combed mess of old was now a honeyed, stripy blonde, all artfully tousled. The black, gothy make-up replaced by subtle tones of beige and peach. Her younger sister had always been very attractive, though, in whatever guise.

  A complete swap, Meg had said. Sarah was relieved about that, too. She didn’t really fancy coming home at weekends only to spend them with Meg, and if she’d gone and stayed with her in the London flat they probably would have both ended up doing really long hours in order to avoid each other. This was better: Sarah would stay in London the whole two months and the twins would come up for lovely sightseeing weekends. It would be expensive, but they could manage it. And the sisters would not have to spend any time with each other at all.

  ‘Twit!’ Sarah gave herself a sardonic smile and poured another half glass of wine. Before she’d looked up Meg’s number she’d gone momentarily silly and nostalgic and for one tiny moment had imagined her and Meg in Meg’s London flat, getting back to how they’d been in the early days, when Meg was born and Sarah had adored her. To later on, when Sarah had given Meg cuddles and piggybacks round the garden. They could forget the cider binges and the stealing of money and the nightmare of those two years and get back to being the sisters they were before it all went wrong.

  Sarah should have known they’d still manage to rub each other up the wrong way; she was silly to think that particular little dream could ever happen. Never mind. Some sisters could just never be close. Some sisters would always make each other angry. Both of them were getting what they wanted, and the swap was on.

  ‘Hi, Mum!’ There was a shout and a rap at the window. Connor was outside, grinning, in a sleeveless checked shirt and a cherry-red bandana. Sometimes he liked to think he was Axl Rose. ‘Can you get the door for me? I’ve got my arms full.’ Dangling from each of his forearms was a bulging white carrier bag.

  ‘Not more sandwiches!’ exclaimed Sarah as she opened the back door. ‘I’m doing a chicken casserole again.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Connor, coming in and dumping the bags on the table. ‘They couldn’t shift these.’ ‘They’ was the factory where Connor worked – Larkins – where he cycled each day for a random shift in a dead-end job he’d done since completing his A levels last summer. A job he bizarrely loved, despite the hairnet and the white Crocs.

  ‘I’m not sure I can, either,’ replied Sarah, as she rifled through the bags. Egg mayonnaise with cucumber, on thick white sliced. About twenty packs of them. Yuk. ‘We can freeze them, or something,’ she said. ‘Eat them next week for your lunches.’

  She wouldn’t be here next week, thought Sarah. And she was almost knocked for six by a massive wave of guilt. She was leaving her children, leaving them for two whole months. She felt terrible and wondered how to tell them without just blurting it out and risking their dumbstruck and stricken faces – perhaps a little grubby, too, like Victorian street urchins. Where was Olivia, anyway?

  ‘Do you know what time Olivia’s coming home?’ she asked. Connor had slouched over to the fridge and was helping himself to a carton of orange juice. He had honed his foraging skills by watching American teen movies – taking great bites out of things, swigging juice straight from the carton and never putting the lids back on anything so when Sarah picked up jars the bottom fell away and the contents went all over the kitchen floor.

  ‘No idea,’ he said, between slugs. ‘I think she’s got a new boyfriend.’

  ‘Has she?’

  Sarah wouldn’t know; Olivia was always out. She would be glad when autumn rolled around and Olivia headed off to Durham University. Her daughter was coming to the end of a gap year she’d done nothing with except mooch around the village.

  ‘Yeah. Apparently he’s a playwright.’

  ‘A playwright? Really?’ Sarah hoped he wasn’t a very good one. She didn’t see the point in Olivia getting a boyfriend when she’d be off to Durham in three months and leaving Tipperton Mallet far behind. Thank goodness her daughter was going places. She wished Connor was. Perhaps Sarah going up to London to do a proper, exciting job now would stir him up a bit, and encourage Olivia to do something vaguely useful for the remainder of the summer? She hadn’t been a great role model for them, Sarah realized; she had done nothing for years except play Pocahontas at those parties and run the art class and the library. Perhaps now she was a go-getter, working in London, it would inspire her offspring. If it wasn’t for the overwhelming guilt about abandoning the twins, she might almost be excited to tell them. As soon as Olivia got home she’d do it …

  ‘I don’t suppose you saw Monty on your travels, did you?’ she asked.

  Their cat hadn’t been seen by anyone for four or five days. Clearly, he was surviving on birds and the occasional wild rabbit, but Sarah was getting a little concerned. She adored that cat; her children teased her relentlessly about how soppy she was over him. Would she have to leave with him still missing? That would be awful.

  As she flung the sandwiches in the freezer, guilt gripped her again.

  Oh god, how could she leave any of them?

  *

  ‘I’m going to London,’ Sarah said brightly. To avoid seeing her children’s reaction she reached for the suitcase which was sleeping under a layer of dust on top of her bedroom wardrobe. Olivia had just sat down on the bed – her honey-coloured hair in beachy loose waves over a floaty dress and DMs she was supposed to have taken off when she came in the house. Connor was leaning against the doorframe. The unusual scenario of their mother noisily dragging items of clothing out of the wardrobe and onto her bed had brought them into her room, as planned. She’d chickened out of telling them when Olivia first got home, about nine o’clock. She thought if she got on with her packing she could tell them in context.

  ‘What? When?’ asked Olivia.

  Sarah turned back to the bed to dump the suitcase on it, catching sight of herself in the mirror on the inside of the wardrobe door as she did so. She looked awful. Shapeless shorts, an equally uninspiring pale-pink T-shirt and a cheap bra she knew had been a mistake. It made her boobs look like a uni-sausage. Perhaps she’d take a trip to Agent Provocateur in Soho, when she got to London … if they let frumpy people who hadn’t had sex for eleven years in there …

  ‘What do you mean you’re going up to London?’ asked Connor, his long fringe now released from the bandana and halfway through an exaggerated flick.

  ‘I’ve got a job there,’ said Sarah, almost gulping as the words came out. She ran suddenly sticky hands down her thighs. ‘An eight-week contract. I’m going up there tomorrow – Auntie Meg’s coming down to stay with you, and I’m going to stay in her flat.’ There, she’d said it. It was out there. A hideous twangy pang of motherly guilt flicked viciously at her stomach. She was abandoning her children to selfishly take a job she was far too greedy to have applied for, and to visit sexy lingerie shops. What a terrible mother.

  She sat down on the bed between Olivia and the dusty suitcase.

  ‘What sort of a job?’ asked Olivia, incredulous. She tossed her wavy hair over one shoulder and gave a little pout. She looked gorgeous; Sarah felt like a galumphing troll next to her.

  ‘Who’s Auntie Meg?’ asked Connor. He’d suddenly got a chocolate bar from somewhere and was languidly chewing at the end of it, like a cowboy.

  ‘My sister,’ said Sarah. ‘You remember I’ve got one, don’t you?’

  ‘Barely.’ Connor sniffed. He was always sniffing. ‘And does she have to come, whoever she is? We can look after ourselves. We’re nineteen!’

  ‘I know, but I’ll be staying in her flat and she’s been ordered to come to the cou
ntry by her doctor. It makes sense for us to do a swap. And she can keep an eye on you.’

  Connor rolled his eyes. ‘We don’t need it,’ he said. ‘It’s ridiculous. Anyway, what sort of job could you do up in London? You’ve spent the last few years dressing up as Jess from Postman Pat!’

  ‘Among others,’ muttered Sarah. ‘And plenty of jobs!’ She got up from the bed and started further appraising the contents of her wardrobe for anything not too hideous. ‘I’m not so old I couldn’t try something new.’ She caught the scathing look between them but chose to ignore it. ‘But actually, I’m going back to my old industry.’

  ‘And what was that again?’ said Connor, chewing like John Wayne. ‘I can’t remember. Chimney sweep, down the coal mines—?’

  ‘—Dinner lady in a Victorian workhouse?’ joined in Sarah with a wry smile. She pulled out a ratty navy T-shirt with ‘Bonjour’ on it then quickly shoved it to the back of the wardrobe in disgust. ‘Ha ha, very funny. None of the above – events organizing.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ said Olivia, examining her nails. ‘That.’ She sounded bored. Unimpressed. And Connor’s expression didn’t change either. They had never been interested when Sarah had told them semi-glamorous tales of working in London before they were born; in fact, brilliant anecdotes from one’s past never impressed one’s offspring, Sarah noted. She bet even Madonna’s kids rolled their eyes and huffed, ‘Yes, you’ve already told me,’ when she started waffling on about going to the Oscars with Michael Jackson or whatever. ‘Events organizing sounds a bit too swanky for you, these days,’ Olivia added.

  Sarah looked past the green fleece she was holding up against her and down to her comedy socks – rainbow stripes with a grinning sheep on each foot. ‘I can be swanky, you know,’ she protested, vowing to dump anything frumpy in the Thames once she got to London, which might not leave her a lot. ‘And I was damn good at that job. They obviously think I’ve got it in me. My old company.’