After Harry, Sarah had been war wounded. She’d only met one seemingly decent man since, when the twins were about eight – a solicitor called David – and she’d fallen hard, again, but he’d turned out to be married, inflicting Sarah with another wound as fresh and painful as the first. She decided she was done at that point. That she was better off on her own. Just her and the twins would do from now on – no complications, no upset. Hadn’t she already been through enough? Falling in love and getting hurt really wasn’t good for her and she was determined not to ever do it again.
Sarah closed the door. She decided she needed to get a major grip. What had she told herself? That she was going to get some life back for herself. It was time for her to stop thinking about the past – Harry and all the bad times – and even about the twins too much. Now was the time to focus on her and the return to her career.
She walked back over to the bedroom, unclasped her case and unpacked her stuff in whatever space she could find in Meg’s tall, thin wardrobe and chest of drawers. Meg had a lot of clothes – all neatly arranged and hung and folded, and Sarah enjoyed having a good nose through them. They were still about the same size, she realized – big boobs, non-existent hips – although, as Clarissa had rightly pointed out, Meg was quite a few inches shorter. Sarah pulled out a pair of red suede court shoes – perilously high, in a shoebox with a photo of them glued to the front – and tried to stuff her long size sevens them. They were way too small. Shame.
By the time she was done, and the horrid red case shoved under Meg’s bed, Sarah realized it was ten o’clock. She’d better get to sleep; after all, she had work in the morning. She was thrilled about it, excited, and nervous as hell.
All OK?
She was in her pyjamas and under Meg’s cool sheets. She texted Olivia before she turned out the light.
All’s fine, Mum.
How is Auntie Meg? Do you think you’ll get on?
I don’t know. We don’t know her.
No. Neither did Sarah.
What are you going to do tomorrow?
Probably go to the cinema with Jude.
Jude? Who was Jude? The new boyfriend?
New boyfriend?
Yes. Smiley face.
A casual one I hope?
Night, Mum. Oh, she was being dismissed. Served her right, she supposed.
Night, Olivia.
Sarah slipped further down under the covers. A siren went off in the street below and a car alarm started shrilling angrily. Sarah couldn’t help but smile to herself as she turned her face towards the pillow.
Welcome to your new world, she thought. You’re not in Tipperton Mallet any more, my girl.
Chapter Seven
Meg
Meg was woken by a cockerel crowing lustfully from somewhere beyond the window. She groaned. Really? There was still a cockerel here, making a row loud enough to wake the dead every morning? It used to drive her nuts. Stuffing a pillow over her head, she tried to get another five minutes, but the cockerel wouldn’t shut up, so the pillow was shoved off and Meg sat up.
What time was it? Quarter past seven. Oh, pretty early, but country folk always got up early, as far as she remembered. They had boring things to do like livestock to feed and crops to water and stuff. Anyway, she got up earlier than this in London. She’d be on her way to the office by now, doing the first leg of her power walk. God, she wished she was on it right now. What on earth was she going to do here all day?
She checked her phone, her emails. There were loads, all being forwarded to Lilith. It made her blood boil to think of Lilith sitting at her desk, doing her work. Actually, it made her heart race. Palpitations, oh god. She took one of her tablets and forced herself to calm down and breathe. She was here to get better, not worked up, and once she was better she could get back to London. She sent silent pleas to her blood pressure to lower. And then she texted Clarissa.
Hi, lovely, all OK for the Rome job today?
Yes, Lilith already called me. Everything all arranged.
Great. Meg texted this with her teeth firmly gritted. Don’t forget we need to get you a new passport at the end of August.
Yes, I know. Guess what? I met your sister.
Already? Obviously, they might bump into each other, in the lift or something, but Meg hadn’t thought it would be so soon.
Really? How was she? It was strange that after fifteen years, Clarissa had seen Sarah and she hadn’t.
Nice. Nothing like you.
Charming!
I mean looks wise. You’re tiny, she’s tall.
The genetic lottery. She got Dad’s, I got Mum’s. What did you think of her?
She was nice. Friendly. How come you never told me you had a sister? That was a difficult question for Meg to answer. Because she found it easier to not mention Sarah, to not explain why she didn’t see her. Because she was happier trying to breeze through life without thinking about her. Clarissa liked her sister, though. Interesting. Although first impressions did have the tricky habit of being deceiving.
It just never came up, texted Meg, lamely.
OK, replied Clarissa. She was a smart girl; she knew when to let things go. I invited her for coffee sometime.
Oh, not so smart. Why?
I don’t know, I just felt sorry for her. She seems … vulnerable.
I doubt it, responded Meg. When had Sarah ever been vulnerable? Controlling, condescending, strict, and implacable, yes. Vulnerable, no. So, have a great time in Rome. I’ll speak to you soon x
Will do. Hope you’ll be ok down there. Don’t break any farmers’ hearts!
I’ll try not to x
Meg got out of bed. She hadn’t brought her white waffle dressing gown as there hadn’t been room in her bag, but the bathroom was down on the landing and she was wearing her short cotton nightie, the one with the straps that kept falling down, so her eyes darted round the room for something she could put on. Oh, there, on the hook on the back of the door was Sarah’s old faithful – that yellow dressing gown Meg used to hate. Sarah had worn it more than once picking Meg up from various pubs. It was fluffy and made Sarah look like Big Bird; Big Bird had usually sat in the driver’s seat, looking highly disapproving and sour faced. Meg couldn’t believe Sarah still had it.
After a quick shower and a good old nose at Sarah’s toiletries (all supermarket brand and totally uninspiring), Meg, dressed in designer jeans and an old Gentlemen Prefer Blondes T-shirt, walked down to the kitchen. All was quiet – except for the sound of gentle snoring coming from Connor’s room upstairs. Meg opened the fridge, took the plastic milk carton out of the door by the lid and the whole thing fell on the floor, splattering milk everywhere. What the hell? She grabbed a cloth from the side of the sink and quickly cleared it up. Teenagers! She would have to get used to living with them, and living with people in general again. She hadn’t shared anything much with anyone for a long time.
Meg poked about in the fridge and the cupboards and was not surprised to see them all groaning with food. Sarah had always been good at keeping groceries stocked up. When she came back to Tipperton Mallet to be Meg’s guardian she’d primly said, on the very first night, that Meg had always been very well fed when their parents were alive, and she was going to have to keep that up. Meg had been served ‘proper’ home-cooked meals by Sarah – martyring around the kitchen in Mum’s ‘cat’ apron – for two whole years, which Meg still felt resentful about. Every dinner in their mother’s repertoire had been replicated: spaghetti Bolognaise, cottage pie, smoked haddock and cheese sauce, endless casseroles … Each recipe had been un-deviated from. Except nothing had been the same. All those meals had done was make Meg feel sad and angry. Every mouthful had just filled her with further bitterness and grief.
Meg slammed shut the door of the last cupboard, which was stuffed with different types of pasta. She made herself a quick piece of toast and Marmite, then called up the stairs to any teenager who might be listening. ‘I’m just going out!’ She would go
for a walk, lower the blood pressure, follow the doctor’s bloody orders … see if, miraculously, there was anything interesting going on around here these days.
From upstairs came the sound of a door opening. ‘Are you going to Binty’s?’ grunted an almost indecipherable Morgan Freeman. Bloody hell, Binty’s, thought Meg – was that still there?
‘I don’t know,’ shouted up Meg. ‘Why?’
‘I fancy some doughnuts,’ grunted Connor. ‘Please.’
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Meg called up. ‘What time are you going to work?’
‘Not ’til tonight. I’m on shifts. Thaaanks.’ The door banged shut again.
‘OK,’ muttered Meg to herself. ‘Doughnuts.’
She pulled on a pair of Sarah’s wellies that were in the tiny boot room by the back door – she may have to have a sort out at some stage; it was as messy as the porch – adding a thick pair of socks she managed to extract from the huge pile of footwear and miscellaneous items there, as the wellies were too big. And she stepped out of the back door.
‘Bloody Nora!’ A thick, pungent pong of manure slapped her right in the face and nearly knocked her for six. ‘Muck spreading’, that’s what her parents called it; Dad sometimes used to put a comical washing line peg on his nose as he mowed the lawn. Mum used to laugh and say it was good for clearing the sinuses. Meg shook her head and tried to zone out the stench – she preferred Eau de London: traffic fumes, food of every denomination, the occasional drain – and stomped down the stony path that wove through the overgrown back garden to the low hedge and wooden gate at the end. Beyond, all she could see were fields. Fields and yet more fields. Ugh. Meg prayed for an oasis of a Starbucks or a Costa on reaching the village. Maybe one had sprung up since she was last here. She could lounge on a sofa with a latte, read the emails she wasn’t allowed to reply to and pretend she was back in London.
The field was on a slight incline and furrowed, so Meg followed the lines. If she went straight up this field and right along the next two she would reach the village. Not that she was in any rush. She, sadly, had all the time in the world. It was a hot morning – she should have worn flip-flops not wellies – and she tried to make the effort to appreciate it. Not that she ever had – this walk across the fields to the village had only ever been highly dull. Birds were chirping overhead, bees hummed in the hedgerows, there was the distant sound of shots … Shots? Meg ducked automatically, going into a kind of comedy walking squat, peering around her. Then she remembered. Mad people in green tweedy jackets liked to shoot pheasants around these here parts. She straightened up again.
Meg was on the second field now. There was a bull in the neighbouring one, trumpeting and looking angry about something. The third was planted with some kind of shaggy grass – she remembered, with a giant yawn, that each field had something different every year – and sloped downwards. Finally, she came to the road. It looked exactly the same as it had twenty years ago: dead boring. To get on to it she had to climb the old stile set into the thick, dense hedge. She’d done it a million times before, to be picked up seconds later by some rusty old banger with an unsuitable boyfriend in it, who would take her to pubs in various neighbouring towns and villages, or, sometimes, to Ipswich, for a night of usually underwhelming underage clubbing. There was a huge cowpat on the road, the other side of the stile, but she wouldn’t be falling for that one. She was an old hat at climbing stiles; she used to live here.
The beam that crossed the middle of the stile was worn and a little slippery. The further two steps to the top were rough and sturdy. Once up there, Meg looked over to the village. She could see The Duke of Wellington, her local old stomping ground, where so many hilarious and terrible nights had taken place. The awful hairdresser’s, old-fashioned even back then. The ancient village green, looking just the same. No Starbucks, no Costa. Oh well, what did she expect? Covent Garden? A life-size replica of the London Eye?
Meg stepped down onto the beam the other side. She was still looking over at the village, wondering what time the pub opened, when her foot, sliding around in the too-big welly, made slippery contact with the edge of the beam and skidded off. It flailed, trying but failing to land, and, before she knew it, she was crashing through the air and landing right on her backside in the enormous cowpat. Oh god! She was hapless City Girl, wasn’t she, she thought, as she landed – like in books – who falls into a cowpat only to be rescued by the handsome local vet, whom, after a few chapters of resistance, she marries on the village green with all the locals cheering and waving bunting … Yuk.
‘Oh, sh—’ she was about to say, but before she could get the very apt words out or even begin to struggle to get up, she was highly surprised to be suddenly and forcefully flattened into said cowpat by a steamrollering, rushing grey hulk of taut muscle and tickly, silky fur.
‘Oof! What the bloody hell?’ Meg, with a very soggy bottom and shocked limbs, was prone, on the ground, and something was licking her face with a very large, wet tongue. ‘Get off me!’
There was a whistle, from somewhere in the distance, and the thing that was licking Meg stopped licking her and raised its head away, tilted in curiosity. It had huge, floppy, silky ears, jowly chops and eyes that said ‘I wish I could lick you again.’ Then there was another whistle and the creature bounded up and galloped over to a man who was walking swiftly up the road.
‘Come on, boy! Good boy, Garfield. Oh god, I’m so, so sorry.’
Meg slowly picked herself up off the ground. She checked herself out for physical damage – none, apparently, apart from a sore arse and – sartorial disaster – oh, not good, designer jeans probably ruined. Still, at least she was alive. Miraculously, she had survived being rugby tackled by the biggest dog in the world.
‘I’m so sorry,’ repeated the man. He now had the enormous beast on some kind of lead and had almost reached Meg. She recognized him, didn’t she? He was the man from the field outside the train station. The one with the horse. She’d been right – he was handsome. He looked thirty-something, tall, floppy brown hair, brown eyes, wearing jeans and a checked blue shirt. Very good-looking, for a country sort, she acknowledged. Shame his dog was an absolute animal.
‘That’s one big dog,’ she commented dryly, checking her elbows for grazes. ‘And isn’t Garfield a cat?’
‘Sorry he’s such a brute,’ said the man. ‘And he’s named after Andrew Garfield, from the Spiderman movies. I’m a Marvel fan.’
‘Marvellous,’ she retorted.
‘I’m sure he’s very sorry, too.’ The man gave a sheepish grin; it would have been quite cute had he not indirectly tried to kill her. ‘I guess he saw you and just had to come and make friends.’ He patted Garfield the dog, who snuffled his wet nose into the man’s hand.
‘Some way to make friends.’ Meg sniffed. ‘Knock a person to the ground and then lick them half to death!’ She looked at the dog suspiciously. It was staring at her with love in its eyes and an overactive tongue. Meg was not a dog person; never had been. They were smelly, they needed walking all the time, they ambushed people on the street and their not-sorry-enough owners had to apologize for them … She was really glad Sarah only had a cat, not that she’d seen hide nor tail of him yet.
‘I really am very sorry.’ The man ran a hand through a head of floppy hair; it had a slight wave and looked overdue for a cut. ‘He has form for this, I admit. Great Danes do get very excitable, I’m afraid.’
‘Fabulous, I’ve been mauled by Scooby-Doo,’ said Meg. ‘I guess that makes you Shaggy?’ She glanced at him, from under her stripy side-sweep fringe. He was really rather good-looking, she had to admit. Not her usual type, but definitely flirtable with. She smiled a wide, slow smile and ran her fingers through her tousled hair, a couple of classic ‘pulling’ gestures of hers. This man could be a fun, no-strings-attached dalliance, like the ones she had in London – a ‘thing’ to stop her being bored, and it was not like she was going to fall in love with him or anything. She knew bett
er than to fall in love. People you loved left you; any fool knew that. Her parents, the two men she was foolish enough to have serious love affairs with in her early years in London … The first had left her for a revoltingly talented opera singer; the second had been cruel throughout and then had broken her heart by simply falling out of love with her in the most devastating way. She was not stupid enough to go anywhere again where she might get hurt.
The man responded to her two shameless classic pulling gestures with a look of suspicion. ‘I’m not sure I possess the Seventies slacker clothing or the gormless expression,’ he replied, his voice suddenly gruff. Oh. He patted Scooby-Doo on his silky back and looked at her ruefully. Moody type, despite the initial bonhomie, she surmised. Oh well. Trying to lighten him up might be entertaining; she had nothing else to do.
‘Well, you’d look cute with both,’ she said. ‘Shaggy could do with a re-boot.’ She gave him a slight wink, for good measure and her own amusement. Surely he would go back to smiling, nice country-person now and start flirting with her back.
‘Where are you headed?’ he asked; his expression still guarded. ‘Are you going into the village?’
‘Yes, I’m off to have a little look around,’ she said.
‘I’m going that way,’ he said brusquely. ‘I’ll walk with you.’
They walked for a while in silence. He had wellies on, too. Those posh ones with the band of leather round the top. Garfield the Great Dane trotted next to them. That dog really was enormous, thought Meg. If he stood up on his hind legs you could do the foxtrot with him. There was more silence: this man was certainly not the chatty type. Funny, thought Meg; he’d seemed exactly that when he’d first approached.
‘What’s your name?’ Meg asked him.
‘Jamie Chase.’
‘I’m Meg.’
‘Nice to meet you, Meg.’ He said it without looking at her. He didn’t sound like it was ‘nice’ at all.
The Sister Swap Page 6
