by Lucy Diamond
Clare arched an eyebrow. ‘That’s what I’m wondering, Rox,’ she said. ‘You just hit the nail smack on the head.’ She turned back to her computer screen, but the patient names kept jumbling before her eyes. Polly was coming back. Shit. This was all Clare needed.
‘I sound really horrible, don’t I? Like the worst sister in the world. But the thing is, I just don’t want her to come back, Debs. Does that make me an evil person?’
Debbie eyed Clare over her mug. It was later that day and Clare had dropped round for a natter before the school run. The two of them were sitting in Debbie’s warm kitchen, along with a pair of dogs snoozing comfortably in front of the Aga, and fresh coffee and home-baked shortbread on the table. Debbie, being Debbie, had painted the kitchen a warm vibrant pink, and the walls were full of children’s artwork. Plants and bright vases jostled for space on the window-ledges and a colourful clutter of mugs, teapots and plates were randomly displayed on the old wooden dresser.
‘No,’ Debbie replied. ‘It doesn’t make you an evil person. It makes you an honest person.’ She sipped her coffee. ‘But it might actually be a good thing, her spending some time here. You can get to know each other again – start a new relationship.’
Clare snorted. ‘Never going to happen,’ she muttered. ‘Not a chance. It’s going to be one long mutha of a summer, I’m telling you now.’ Then she caught the gloominess of her voice and felt mean. ‘Oh, I dunno, maybe I’m being too pessimistic. Maybe you’re right. Only ever seeing each other at Christmas doesn’t exactly make for the best sisterly bond, does it?’ She pulled a face. ‘I kind of wish I hadn’t sold all those awful presents she’s given us on eBay, though. Do you think she’ll be expecting Leila to be prancing about in that ridiculous dress? I really hope not, because I flogged it to some woman in Northampton last week. Ninety quid she paid for it too, the maniac.’
She nibbled her shortbread. Orange and chocolate-chip: yum. Debbie was an ace baker. ‘It’s just going to be weird, that’s all. My sister, back here on Wednesday. I can’t imagine it.’
‘Well, if you’re finding the thought of it strange, just imagine how freaked out she must be,’ Debbie pointed out. ‘Once word goes round that she’s here, everyone will be noseying at her. The great Polly Johnson, back in Elderchurch. We are not worthy!’
She bent over, arms outstretched as if worshipping a deity, and Clare giggled. ‘I’m worried she’ll be expecting a bit of that,’ she confessed. ‘You know: Return of the Golden Girl. Didn’t she do well? How come Clare never managed anything more exciting than a job at the Amberley Medical Centre?’ She broke off, aware of how bitter she sounded.
‘It’s not a competition,’ Debbie reminded her, ‘as I find myself saying to the kids at least twenty times a day. Honestly, I’m going to get a T-shirt printed up with that on, one of these days.’ She mimicked herself, wagging a finger. ‘It’s not a competition. It’s not a race. What’s the magic word? No hitting. Stop fidgeting. Have you washed your hands? Eat those peas … Aargh, I sometimes hear myself and feel depressed at what an old nag I am. What’s happened to me?’ She grimaced. ‘Maybe your sister had the right idea, getting out of here and doing something exciting with her life. Better than turning into a boring old housewife like me.’
‘You’ll never be a boring old housewife,’ Clare said in surprise. Apart from Roxie perhaps, Debbie was the least boring person she knew. She’d been a pink-haired punk at school with plans for art college, until baby Lydia had unexpectedly arrived and put that on hold. Even though she was now a so-called respectable wife and mother of four, it was always Debbie who’d be at the helm of a raucous night out, a party girl through and through. ‘You’re lovely. And you’ve been more of a sister to me than Polly has, that’s for sure.’
‘But …’
‘But nothing,’ Clare said firmly. ‘Don’t start wishing you were more like her, whatever you do. Once you’ve met her again, you’ll realize that being like Polly is the last thing you want.’
On Wednesdays Clare worked an early shift at the surgery and was always the first person to arrive and unlock the building at eight in the morning, after dropping Leila and Alex at the school ‘breakfast club’. She rather liked coming in early and getting everything straight before the patients arrived. She tidied the magazines, went through the answerphone in case anything urgent had come up, then sorted the post and left it in the doctors’ in-trays.
The doctors arrived one by one, followed by Roxie, and the waiting room began to fill up. In came Frank Lullington, who was on the waiting list for a liver transplant. Next was a frazzled-looking mum and her sobbing, curly-haired toddler, who kept clutching one ear as if she was in a lot of discomfort. Then came Ellen Cartwright, who’d lost her husband to pneumonia the last winter and was heading rapidly downhill herself. The phone was ringing non-stop too and Clare’s head began to ache, trying to juggle all the patients into the diary.
At one o’clock, just as the appointments were tailing off for the doctors’ lunches, a text pinged on her phone from her mum. Short and to the point, it merely said: She’s here.
No need to ask to whom ‘She’ referred.
And? Clare texted back furtively, dropping her phone in her lap as a heavily pregnant woman waddled up to her counter. ‘Hello there, can I help you?’ she asked.
‘I’ve got an appointment with Dr Copper at ten past one,’ the woman said, scarlet-cheeked and short of breath.
‘Elizabeth Harris? Take a seat,’ Clare said.
Her phone pinged again. Looks awful. Twiglet all over. Face like a smacked bum. Why don’t u pop in later with the kids?
Clare grimaced. Wow, Mum, you’ve made it sound so appealing, she wanted to text back. How could I refuse?
She hesitated, her finger on the reply button. Popping round for a civilized cup of tea was going to be much harder than suffering her sister on Christmas Day. At least at Christmas you could have a gin and tonic permanently by your side and nobody thought the worse of you for it. At least at Christmas there was the distraction of presents and stockings and cheesy films to offset any awkwardness. Still, she was going to have to see her sister at some point, so it might as well be in the neutral territory of their parents’ house.
‘Fancy a cuppa?’
Roxie’s cheerful voice broke into Clare’s thoughts. ‘Ooh, y—’ she began, but Roxie interrupted.
‘Fab, make us one while you’re there then, cheers. Biscuit as well? Thanks, that would be lush. If you insist.’
‘Roxanne Fetherington, you are a nightmare,’ Clare said, laughing. ‘Go on, then, just this once. Because you’re so damn cheeky.’
As she got to her feet, an elderly gentleman shuffled to the reception desk. After some rummaging in his pockets, he brought out a sample-pot and placed it on the counter in front of Roxie. The contents were brown, and quite unmistakable.
‘I’ll get on with that tea then,’ Clare trilled, stepping away and trying to hide a gurgle of laughter at the appalled expression on Roxie’s face.
Roxie, to her credit, managed to smile up at the old man. ‘Do you bring gifts for all your girlfriends, eh?’ she joked. ‘Thank you. I’ll treasure it.’
The old man winked at her. ‘Popped it out fresh for you just now, darling. Still warm.’ And with that, he turned and shuffled away.
‘Well, that’s just lovely,’ Clare heard Roxie muttering, and giggled as she filled the kettle.
‘Was that a chocolate biscuit you wanted with your tea, Rox?’ she couldn’t resist teasing.
‘I am so making the tea next time,’ Roxie replied. Clare peeped around the door of the little kitchen to see her gingerly manoeuvring the sample-jar into an envelope. ‘Ugh. This job, honestly. Sometimes I wonder why I bother. And no, I don’t want a chocolate biscuit. I’ve gone right off the idea now.’
Clare brought the mugs of hot tea over and quickly texted her mum back. Okay. Will be there after school x
She was a grown-up, after all. She cou
ld do it.
Chapter Nine
Polly had meant to tell the truth all along, truly she had. It was only when her mum had answered the phone and she’d heard that kind, concerned voice in her ear that she saw her own failings through the lens of her parents’ eyes, and found herself unable to go through with the full story. The lies had come out instead – this sabbatical nonsense had flown out of her mouth like breath, and before she could say ‘bullshit’, her dignity had been restored within a matter of seconds.
She would be researching the impact on the company of new risk legislation, she’d said, a grandeur reappearing in her voice that she’d not heard for some time. Complete peace and quiet were essential, hence the move out of London. She was hoping that after she’d completed this research and handed it in, she’d be given promotion. With a bit of luck, she’d be heading up the division by October.
If there was any word of this that her mum didn’t believe, it didn’t show in her voice for a second. ‘Oh, it’ll be lovely to have you back,’ she’d gushed. ‘Graham, Graham, where are you? You’ll never guess!’
Then, when her dad had turned up with the hire van, more lies had tripped out, every bit as fast as the first few. She had arranged for an agency to take care of the apartment while she wasn’t there, she told him – well, it was kind of true, she supposed. The reason she was so pale? Oh, she’d been slaving away, burning the candle at both ends, as usual. She was looking forward to a more restful time in Elderchurch (the biggest lie of all).
Again, her dad seemed to swallow all of this down and had loaded up the van without a murmur. They’d driven away through the maze of London streets, and the lies had taken root. Polly was actually starting to believe them herself. It sounded much nicer, didn’t it, a comfortable three-month sabbatical, rather than ‘unemployed’. Meanwhile, she would secretly keep applying for vacancies, and hopefully they need never know the truth. Breathing space, that’s what she’d just bought herself.
It was all too soon before Graham turned off the M3 onto the smaller roads that led deeper into the Hampshire countryside. It had been drizzling in London, but the big skies were clearing now, the clouds becoming fluffier and brighter as the sun burst around them. Polly stared dully through the mud-speckled windscreen. Usually when she came this way she was hurtling along in her foxy little sports car, not chugging down the road in a filthy old van. She felt a pang of missing her car. She’d loved zipping about in it, the top down, sunglasses on her nose. When she’d bought it, she’d imagined herself driving to meet a lover for weekends in country piles, glamorous hotels, days at the races. She’d hardly ever taken it out of London, though, had travelled mostly via cabs in fact.
‘Not far now,’ her dad said, breaking the silence.
She didn’t reply. She knew it wasn’t far now – she could tell because all you could see for miles around were fields and trees and hedges. Not a shop or apartment block or office building in sight. The thought made her feel queasy. The countryside seemed horribly alien after the bustling warren of inner and outer London, and she realized that she hadn’t actually seen Hampshire in the summer for years, having only ever deigned to return at Christmas time.
She imagined her skin breaking out in hives. I am allergic to the countryside, she thought wryly. Living in Elderchurch for the summer was absolutely going to finish her off.
‘Here we go,’ her dad said, slowing to thirty miles per hour as they turned into the quiet lane that led to the village.
Polly tensed as they drove past the high hedges and through the awkwardly narrow stretch of the lane. There was the white farmhouse, stuck on the edge of the village, and then the first smaller cottages, some dating back to the fifteenth century, built of warm red brick with tiny windows and thatched rooftops. Jacky Garland from school had lived in one of them, she remembered, the image of going there for tea one afternoon surfacing from the depths of her brain. It was the first time Polly had ever had ginger beer, and Jacky’s mum had baked fairy cakes with buttercream icing and fruit pastilles on top, like glittering jewels. They’d sat on the back step together, sucking the pastilles in companionable silence, the gritty sugar dissolving deliciously on Polly’s tongue.
There was the church with the old wooden lychgate and worn stone path up to its heavy door. There was the village shop where she’d been caught nicking a Bazooka Joe bubblegum, aged seven, and had received a smacked hand for it. There was the stream where she, Michael and Clare had paddled on hot days, kicking great arcs of water at each other and squealing.
Oh God. It was like stepping back in time. Make it stop, Polly thought in anguish, trying not to look any more. Make it stop!
Graham bibbed the horn and raised a hand at an old lady, who smiled and waved back. Then her eyes fastened on Polly and widened in surprise. Polly wrenched her face away, her heart thudding. Was this what it was going to be like, then? Everyone staring at her, the fallen star? She imagined her mum had told the entire village that she was coming back. Oh, great.
They didn’t know she was a fallen star, she reminded herself. She wasn’t a fallen star. She was on a sabbatical to write up a very important, career-enhancing paper, so there!
She stuck her nose in the air, glaring out of the windows at the old schoolhouse and its parched playing field, the pub, the butcher’s and the baker’s. All they needed was the sodding candlestick-makers, she thought sourly, and they’d have the full set.
Graham turned down a winding lane. A string of modern houses had been built here, away from the older heart of the village. Nasty little 1960s semis, Polly thought contemptuously, with their manicured lawns and hulking caravans on the driveway. One caravan actually bore the name ‘Marauder’ and it was all she could do not to snort in derision. And here was bungalow valley down at the end, where the older villagers gravitated with their fruitcakes and greenhouses and silly little dogs.
Graham slowed the car and tucked it into the neat block-paved driveway of number fourteen. He pulled on the handbrake and put his hand on Polly’s knee. ‘Welcome back, love,’ he said. ‘Knowing your mum, she’ll have the kettle boiling and lunch on the table. Come on in.’
Polly forced a smile, but she felt like crying. This was really happening. She was actually back here in Elderchurch, in broad daylight, with hordes of gawping locals. She swallowed hard and held her head high. Prepare to be wowed, Elderchurch, she said to herself as staunchly as she knew how, and swung herself down from the van. I’m better than the lot of you put together.
‘Hello, love.’ Karen Johnson’s smile simply couldn’t stretch any wider as she flung her arms around her elder daughter. ‘Good journey?’
‘Fine, thanks,’ Polly mumbled into her mum’s silvery hair. Every time she saw her parents she was struck by how much older they were getting. It freaked her out that they were Grandma and Grandad to Clare’s kids. She wished they could be preserved in time as their 1970s selves, wearing flares and scoop-necked tops and, in the case of her mum, a smelly blue sheepskin-lined coat with toggles. Now look at the oldies they’d become.
‘Come in, I’ve got lunch ready,’ Karen said, finally letting Polly go. ‘Kettle’s on.’
Graham winked at Polly and she gave him a small smile in return. ‘What’s so funny, you two?’ Karen demanded. Privately she was delighted to have them teasing her. It felt like old times, she thought, although she was shocked to see just how gaunt Polly had become. I’ll soon have her rosy-cheeked and bonny again, she vowed, already planning the puddings and pies she’d bake in the months ahead.
Polly followed her mum into the kitchen. The bungalow looked different, she thought, then realized that she was unused to seeing it without all its Christmas clutter draped everywhere. No dinky tree with flashing fairy lights, no crepe-paper bunting crossing the ceiling (the exact same crepe-paper bunting they’d had since she was a child), no messy displays of Christmas cards that toppled over like dominoes whenever you opened or shut a door. The place seemed more subdued, she
thought, although that suited her mood perfectly.
Sissy was yapping around her ankles and Polly fought the desire to kick out at the little mutt with her high-heeled sandals. She pressed her mouth tight shut so that she couldn’t say anything she might regret.
In the kitchen a buffet lunch had been laid out on the table: sandwiches, sausage rolls, a tube of Pringles, and some home-made flapjacks with nubby pieces of glacé cherry. Polly blanched at the sight. She’d hardly eaten lately; the stress had taken her appetite, along with everything else. ‘Thanks, Mum,’ she said faintly, sitting down.
She hadn’t grown up in this house – they’d lived a couple of streets away in a larger, semi-detached house with a swing in the back garden and guinea pigs in hutches. She and Clare had shared a room, whereas Michael had a smaller box room to himself. There had been much arguing and door-slamming it’s-not-FAIR about the room arrangements, she recalled. She and Clare had physically come to blows on more than one occasion, largely due to Clare borrowing Polly’s stuff without asking. She could still remember the fury she’d felt when Clare and her friends had helped themselves to her Coral Queen nail varnish, then spilled the rest all over her dressing table. ‘It was an ACCIDENT,’ Clare had roared, hands on her hips, as if that had made it any better.
She shut her eyes, not wanting to dredge up old memories. She’d rather leave the past firmly silted away beneath the now.
‘Tired, love?’ her dad asked, clapping her on the shoulder. ‘Exhausting business, moving. Mind you, sounds like you’ve worn yourself out full stop lately, all your hard work.’
‘Mmm,’ Polly said, not meeting him in the eye. ‘I have been putting in some long days, I suppose. But that’s how it is in the City, Dad.’ An image flashed into her mind of her stretched out on the leather sofa in her dressing gown, glued to Bargain Hunt, and she felt a twist of guilt in the pit of her stomach.
‘Now don’t hold back,’ Karen said, as she set a steaming cup of tea in front of Polly. ‘You tuck in. Have a spot of lunch, and then you can unpack.’
