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.
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. When 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
