A Sister’s Gift

by Giselle Green

  With Gui, maybe. With Richard…no. How will he be with me today, I wonder? I sit by the monument and for a moment I feel a huge rush of nerves, of complete and utter dread as if I’m about to sit the most important test of my life, or take the most crucial interview. Because what if it all goes horribly wrong and he can’t actually see me as anyone other than her little sister?

  I don’t want him to see me like that. I never have.

  I still remember the day she barged in on us in the shed behind the vet’s. Ruff had been so ill that summer. I hadn’t known how to cope. I’d put my name down for some dance show just to get my mind off him and then spent weeks panicking, unable to learn my dance steps, unable to concentrate. Until the day Rich offered to help me out. He’d stopped by to check on Ruff’s progress and found me bawling my eyes out. That’s when he’d offered to show me the steps, help me out. And it had all gone so beautifully till the day she turned up.

  Who knows how things might have turned out? If they’d never laid eyes on each other, maybe Richard’s friendship with me would have blossomed in time? Who can really say how things might have turned out, how they would have turned out if Hollie hadn’t appeared just at that moment?

  Oh, screw her! Think about Rich. Today is about us two. She’s going to get the baby after all, isn’t she? It’s all she cares about anyway. Breathe in the lovely air and calm down and be like you are with Gui – never any nerves there, are there? Maybe it could be like that with Richard too. But I can’t imagine it. I can’t imagine the sex just being sex, simple and uncomplicated, even though that is what Richard will be here for today. He won’t want anything else, no hint of emotion, and how will I hide it, after all this time? How will I manage to keep up the pretence?

  I glance at my watch. He’ll be here soon and I need to make myself ready. I need to make the flat ready. I thought if I came up here early I’d at least get the chance to stake the place out – they’ve had no tenants in there for at least three months from what I understand, and Hollie mentioned that I might find the place a bit musty. I thought I should at least make the bedroom – well, usable.

  But I’ve kept putting the moment off. I’ve been standing out here just waiting because to do anything else feels so odd. To actually go into the flat, to put the new sheets on the bed as I’d planned, to open up the windows and light some sweet-scented candles so the air would not feel so stale when at last he arrived – I’ve put it off for at least half an hour. But now I’ve probably left it all too late.

  When I open the door into the narrow hallway, however, my first thought is, it’s not too bad.

  I don’t look too bad either, judging by my reflection in the slightly smeary mirror in the hallway. I spent an age on my hair this morning and it’s paid off because the wind hasn’t blown it too much out of place. OK, it looks windswept but in a romantic, sexy kind of way. My skin is glowing from the walk and it’s pleasing to think this will be the first sight he catches of me this morning – looking alive.

  I walk around the flat touching all the surfaces with my fingertips, imagining a time when Richard lived here himself. It was ages ago now, granted, but he did once. He would have been living here when we first met him.

  When I first met him.

  He would have come to make his coffee in the morning and paused by this sink and looked out of this very window and the panoramic view that greeted his eyes every morning would have been the selfsame one that I’m looking at now. I wonder when he first brought her here?

  I shake my head, putting that vision out of my mind because it ruins the fantasy.

  In the bedroom – when I pluck up the courage to go in there at last – I see that the double bed is disappointingly small. We’ll have to snuggle in a bit closer then, I decide. That’s a good thing. When I inspect it all more minutely, I see the sheets are perfectly clean and laundered and the bed has been made to military precision – all my sister’s work, no doubt. I decide to leave it all as it is, cursing my decision to go along with her suggestion that we come here for the event ‘because if anyone we knew saw you booking into a hotel that might look a bit suspicious…’

  Maybe so, but the problem with being here is that there is evidence of my sister at work everywhere. I remember when she bought that wicker bedside lamp at a New Year’s sale one time. The off-white colour of the walls and the floral prints all have her stamp on them too.

  I stomp back into the kitchen and have a nose around. There’s nothing in here really. When I open the kitchen cupboards I find only one used washing-up sponge and a small amount of Fairy Liquid. Oh, and there’s a brush and dustpan under the kitchen sink.

  ‘You don’t have to do any cleaning up in here, Scarlett. It really isn’t necessary.’

  When I hear Richard’s voice I jump, nearly hitting my head on the sink. He looks smart, clean-shaved, tired. He puts his car keys down on the kitchen table and I remember that he was in Lincolnshire when Hollie phoned him. He would have stayed on longer but she asked him to come back because we’d found out I was ovulating. He had to take the train back down especially this morning to be here with me. I feel a rush of pleasure at that thought.

  ‘Hollie told me you took a taxi here.’ His voice sounds strange and strangled somehow. ‘I’d have given you a lift if you’d waited.’

  ‘No.’ I give a little laugh, shake my head. We could hardly have left the house together, could we? ‘I wanted to go for a walk anyway. It’s so lovely out there this morning.’ We both turn simultaneously to survey the view from Richard’s kitchen window. Huge swathes of shadow that weren’t there before are darkening the fields and landscape below. ‘Well…it was lovely earlier,’ I breathe. ‘How did things go at your dad’s place? Did you have a good journey back?’ I turn to look at him and he shrugs noncommittally.

  ‘Well, I’m…I’m glad you’re here at last, Rich.’ I want him to greet me like he normally would do, to take me in his arms and give me a loving hug, but he doesn’t. ‘God, this is so awkward, isn’t it?’ I can barely hide my disappointment.

  ‘More than awkward.’ He says it so quietly I can hardly make out his words. ‘Perhaps even madness?’ he suggests.

  He still hasn’t made a move to take off his coat. He’s just standing there, stiff as a board, like an uncomfortable stranger would.

  ‘You should know, your sister and I fought over this, Scarlett.’

  I don’t reply. What am I supposed to say to that? He sits down deliberately. He folds his hands on the little wooden tabletop, looks up directly at me now. ‘I told her that…I felt what she was asking of us all wasn’t fair. Not on you, not on me – not even on her, because if we go through with this it’s going to change the way we all are with each other. Forever.’

  I sit down opposite him, eyes lowered. Maybe I want to change the balance between us, though? I don’t dare look up yet because if I do he will see the truth in my eyes. He’s no fool.

  ‘It will, you know.’ His voice is so soft and low. It mesmerises me. ‘Hollie has wanted this baby for so long though,’ I remind him. ‘We’re only doing what she wants us to do, to help her get it.’ He’s not going to change his mind now, is he? I feel a stab of disappointment running painfully through my chest.

  ‘Scarlett, I want to be honest with you.’ I lift my eyes now, meeting his. His gaze is penetratingly direct, and his hands play lightly with the car keys resting on the table. ‘I’ve been feeling so conflicted about this whole thing. It’s not…it’s not been easy for me. I can imagine you’re feeling the same way too?’

  ‘I don’t take it seriously,’ I breathe, trying to keep my voice light.

  ‘Am I wrong then, in thinking that us…being together – it’s going to mess with your head?’

  ‘Totally wrong,’ I murmur. ‘Completely and totally wrong.’ His relief is almost palpable and I hurry on before he realises how badly I’m lying. ‘But I’m curious. What was it made you change your mind and agree to go along with Hollie if you’re
so dead set against the idea?’

  He sighs now, and I catch a glimmer of the weariness beneath the mask that he came in wearing. I slide softly into the chair beside him and my knee brushes against his. He covers his face with his hands for a second. ‘Hollie is desperate and she believes this will work. You know that.’

  ‘Do you believe it?’

  He smiles softly. ‘We can only hope, Scarlett.’

  ‘She seemed so utterly convinced – about the Mr Huang method, I mean. It worked for him and his wife, I guess.’ God, I’m a bitch. Why am I doing this? I stare at the red polish on my fingernails now, giving it my complete and utter attention. I only put it on last night but already the edges of it are beginning to chip. I could come clean with him now, not put him through this. Except…I swore to Hollie that I’d done that test five times. I swore it was negative.

  I remember that I didn’t want to talk about my sister. I’d planned on steering the conversation away from her if she came up.

  ‘I thought it would be – an act of love, Richard. Remember you told me that, soon after I first arrived? We were sitting in the gazebo in the misty rain and you told me you wanted me to help you both out. It would be the greatest act of charity, you said. An act of love.’

  ‘I did,’ he remembers slowly. He never meant quite like this, though, and we both know that. He’s too nice, too gentle. He wants to get into bed with me for all the wrong reasons as far as I’m concerned. Because he loves my sister so much. Because he wants to wipe away all the sadness and despair that resides in her depths. Not because he wants me.

  I might still change that, though. I stand uncertainly, remembering the overnight bag that I’ve brought with me. It’s still in the hallway.

  ‘Would you like me to go and get changed now?’ Why is my voice coming out so hesitantly like this? I’m never this way with Gui. Not shy and red-faced and stumbling. It’s not as if it’s my first time for God’s sake. I wait for him to reply before I make a move but he doesn’t answer.

  I remember the set of lingerie that I bought for Guillermo’s Christmas present that’s still sitting in the hallway in my overnight bag. I stand up to go and fetch the lingerie and then I bring it back and place it down shyly on the table. His eyes widen when he sees the lacy knickers, the teasing, pretty open-cupped bra I’ve put in front of him. Would he like me to put it on? How does he want to play this?

  ‘Oh, Scarlett! There’s no need for that, really. You don’t have to…’

  Is his voice really trembling, or am I imagining it? He makes it sound as if the task ahead of him is the most onerous duty he’s ever had to perform, so much so that I feel quite taken aback. Does he want me so little, then?

  ‘It’s all right, really,’ he says at last. ‘I don’t expect you to undress any more than you need to. It won’t be necessary.’ He stands up and I follow him into the bedroom. I notice when he opens the door he recoils a little. Perhaps he doesn’t like the scent of the jasmine and ylang ylang candles that I lit earlier?

  ‘I know it’s not strictly necessary, but I thought it might help with the…atmosphere…’ I trail off, putting the lacy underwear down on the chair as he goes in and pinches out the candles. He goes to draw the curtains and I can feel his reluctance.

  ‘If it’s all the same with you, we’ll keep the lights off,’ he suggests. ‘If that’s all right?’

  ‘If you like.’ I sit down on the edge of the bed gingerly. I notice he hasn’t so much as touched me yet. He doesn’t want me to bother to get fully undressed and he wants us to do it in the dark. He doesn’t want to see me at all, in point of fact. I feel my face flush. This isn’t what I expected. It’s as if he wants me to be a nameless, faceless receptacle and he just a nameless, faceless donor so that a sperm and an egg can come together to make Hollie’s baby. I should have expected that really.

  I take off my T-shirt first and lay it on the bed, waiting for him to turn round. Instead, he hovers by the window, looking out through a gap in the curtains.

  ‘Someone’s outside,’ he says after a while.

  ‘Who? Oh. Well. Are they coming here?’

  ‘No. He’s just…looking. He’s probably checking out next door. They’re up for sale at the moment, I see.’

  ‘Are they?’ I come up behind Richard, so close that I’m standing right at his elbow. So close that I can hear his breathing. So near that I can almost feel his heart beating and he turns round and that’s when he sees that I’m already half-undressed. He swallows, hard.

  ‘I’ll leave the room if you like. While you get undressed,’ he offers but I just laugh.

  ‘No need.’ I bend and wriggle my jeans down over my thighs and I feel him tense. ‘Might as well just get on with it, right?’ Would it help if I kissed him right now or would he think I was stepping out of line? I don’t think I want to do it at all if he’s going to be as reluctant as this. I feel the sting of disappointment in my throat.

  ‘Oh, Scarlett.’ He turns and pulls me tenderly in towards him suddenly. ‘I know you’re being so brave about this and so sensible and lovely but I just can’t help but feel…’he holds me in close for an instant ‘…so wrong about this. As if we’re… using you in some way that we shouldn’t. And I don’t want to do that to you. Can you understand that?’

  I lower my eyes, and my gaze comes to rest upon his lips. I’ve never been properly close to him like this before. I bring up my arms to curl softly around his neck.

  ‘I can understand it,’ I tell him gently. ‘But I don’t feel as if I’m being used. It’s OK. I want to do this. For you both, I mean.’

  ‘I love her, you know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ I sigh. I kiss him on the cheek. A featherlight kiss, but in that moment I get to inhale the scent of him and with a shudder I remember – oh, I remember – how very long it’s been since he last held me as close as this.

  ‘Do you remember when we used to dance?’ I whisper into his ear and he turns his face towards me. Oh God. I have always loved him. My fingers go up and tangle in his beautiful dark hair, trembling.

  ‘The summer I taught you to dance?’ He gives a little laugh. It is the first time I’ve seen him smile today. He hasn’t forgotten, either. I take his hand now and I place it carefully just in the small of my back; the other I place around my waist.

  ‘We used to dance like this,’ I say. ‘All summer long in that leaky cow-barn. We had that old tape recorder on the floor, d’you remember?’ He laughs again and I kiss his cheek, his chin. His mouth.

  He pulls away, his eyes shining, for one moment happy.

  Gently, without him hardly noticing it, I’ve moved us backwards towards the bed.

  ‘I’m going to finish getting undressed now, OK?’ He nods, suddenly tense again. But I carry on and undo my bra anyway. I slip off my knickers and let them drop on the floor. Then I get in between the sheets which are cold and starchy and I wait for him to do the same

  After a while he follows my lead. I watch him as he takes off his shirt first, his hands fumbling for an age over the buttons. His stomach is washboard flat and I admire it while he unbuttons his trousers and unzips and then he turns away from me to sit on the bed while he pulls off his socks. And then his boxers. At that point I turn away because it doesn’t feel right to watch him doing that; it’s Richard.

  And then I feel him sliding in beside me at last. At last.

  Hollie

  ‘This is a stunning picture of Rochester Bridge, Hollie. I can easily see why it won that competition.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ I glance at the clock and it’s half past two already. How long are those two going to be gone? My sister left here at half past ten this morning. Richard phoned to let me know he was on his way up to Bluebell Hill at eleven. So that makes it…over three hours they’ve been there together.

  ‘I was just commenting on what a good piece this was,’ my mother-in-law says. ‘I’d have it hanging in my hallway any day.’

  The bridge p
icture. Right. I put my hand up to my head to ease the dull, slow throbbing that’s started up over my right eye.

  ‘It’s a great piece,’ I say dully. We’re sitting at my dining room table which is absolutely stuffed to the gills with ongoing projects this afternoon. Normally I can’t stand this amount of disarray but I hoped having lots of things on the go would help take my mind off what’s happening up at Bluebell Hill today. Only it isn’t working. My eyes graze over the jumbled mess: at one end are all the notes and jottings that Beatrice brought in earlier with her plans for the garden party; at the other, there’s all the brightly-coloured second-hand jumpers Christine wants me to help salvage for their knitting wool. And now my mother-in-law’s also brought her canvas bag out from the car with all her picture frame samples so I can choose the one I’d like to use for the bridge picture.

  Oh, God. I don’t want to choose a picture frame today. I don’t want to look at Beatrice’s plans for the garden party, either. I bite my lip. The only thing I want in the world right now is for my husband to come back home.

  ‘What?’ Christine’s just put aside a thick black corner frame in favour of a thinner, more elegant silver-edged one. ‘You don’t think so? It’s a powerful piece.’

  ‘It is powerful.’ I make a real effort to concentrate on what she’s saying. ‘This picture just makes me feel uneasy. I don’t know why. It has done from the first time I saw it. I guess…I guess this is just not how I see Rochester Bridge.’

  Christine places the silver frame alongside one of the corners of the picture. It matches the grey and black lead pencil drawing beautifully. ‘Ah. This one would do the job to perfection. So.’ She shoots me a sideways glance. ‘How do you see it?’