If the Royal Mail does its job, then my recipients should receive their letters today. Tomorrow latest. I’m nervous and anticipatory.
What was I thinking?
Evidently you don’t suddenly become brave and thick-skinned overnight just because you’re dying.
At four in the morning, I wake up in a hot sweat, panicking, wishing I could take every sentence back. Horrified by what I’ve done. But now, with dawn starting to break and the birds starting to sing, it doesn’t feel so scary and somewhere deep inside me, I’m actually quite proud.
I wonder how they’ll react. Will I ever hear from Isabelle again? Or will she be so offended by my honesty, she’d rather let me die than utter an apology. No. She wouldn’t be like that. Offended yes but silent, never. Will Harry think I’m an irrelevance from his past who should have said all those things at the time? Will Andy still be so intoxicated with Elizabeth’s poison, he won’t feel a single ounce of shame or culpability or remorse? I can’t imagine Elizabeth will feel anything other than disdain. But I can take that from her. I’m used to it.
Elizabeth is the needy type who sees all women as a potential threat, who flutters her lashes at men while flashing the evil eye at any woman who comes near. As soon as we started divorce proceedings she came out from the shadows, with the strut of entitlement, hell-bent on not leaving her new man’s side. Andy and I would meet to discuss arrangements and there she’d be, all wide-eyed and innocent, steely in her mission to ensure I didn’t win him back. As if I was the one who deserved suspicion. It wouldn’t have surprised me if she had written the parting speech he gave in the kitchen that dreadful day.
They married as soon as our divorce was absolute. Their vows included the line “to the exclusion of all others particularly Jennifer.” Not really, but I wouldn’t have put it past her. Anyway, now she knows exactly what I think. She’s the only one I don’t feel bad about.
I told my boss, Frank, about my diagnosis yesterday. Emboldened by posting the letters, I finally managed to spit it out. He was extremely nice about it. Caring even. I never expected that from him. He said it was important I look after myself and that everything else was secondary. He said it was my choice when to leave but that I should cut back my hours. Eleven o’ clock to three at the most. He hugged me. Frank, the least huggy person in the world, hugged me! I think I welled up but then he got all fidgety and uncomfortable so I pulled myself together. I told him the only other person I was going to include for the moment was Pattie. He said whatever I wanted would be respected because only I could decide what felt right for me. How nice is that?
I popped into Pattie’s office immediately afterward. “You got a second?”
It was tough, far more painful than telling Frank. After all, she was my mate. She sat in stunned silence then fell apart. I requested her not to let the rest of the company in on the secret, not even my team. If anyone questioned why my hours had been cut back, she was to say it was because of a phasedown in HR and that I was completely comfortable with it. I told her I didn’t want to make people feel bad.
“But we all love you here. People will want to know. They’ll want to do whatever they can for you.”
“But there’s nothing anyone can do for me and I really don’t want them to feel any obligation or make them feel awkward.”
“Are you sure? You may need more support than you think.”
“If that’s the case, I promise I’ll ask for it, Pattie.”
She nodded sagely. “You’re very brave,” she said.
“If people keep saying that, one day I might believe it.”
“Believe it,” she said.
So from today, I start work at eleven. I no longer need to get up at seven but it’s irrelevant. Waking up at six thirty, getting up at seven, is so part of my routine I’m going to wake up early whether I need to or not. This morning I wake up at six and for a moment, I feel as though everything is normal until I remember. Nothing is normal. Nothing will ever be normal again.
I don’t want to hang around with these negative thoughts for bedfellows so I decide to head into work anyway. A show of strength for Frank. What do I gain from delay? I get up only to be overwhelmed by that heavy sense of lethargy, which is becoming more and more intense, seeping through my blood into my bones. I realize I have such low drive that even if I start to get ready now, I probably won’t get to work until eleven, anyway. Frank must have known something I didn’t.
I sit on the edge of my bed and muster up my determination. I tell myself I have to get past this. Mind over matter. So I stand up slowly, head to the bathroom, and take a long shower. I get dressed in a strange slow motion, putting on whatever’s to hand and make myself some tea.
I look at the clock on the kitchen wall. It’s not even seven thirty. This is ridiculous. I need to find a purpose. I should think about putting my affairs in order. I’ve already made a will. I did that when I got divorced.
I suppose I should write my funeral service to make sure it happens the way I want. As if it matters. As if I’d know! But at least my friends won’t have to wonder what to do with me. God, my funeral! MY FUNERAL. I’ve imagined it several times as a child in a game I used to play with Emily. In fact she invented it. Should I get in touch with her? Is that what this is telling me? No. It would be too weird. Too much time has elapsed. But my funeral is no longer our silly childhood game. It’s for real.
I go to my table and open my laptop. I stare as it fires up then shut it down. I can’t write my funeral service.
Not yet.
I’m not ready.
Maybe tonight.
Maybe tomorrow.
Perhaps I’ll go out for a walk. Get some fresh air into my lungs and give my blood a much-needed boost. It’s a lovely time to be on the heath. It will be pretty deserted and I can catch the changing colors of the leaves and enjoy some solitude in nature. I can’t take those things that are freely available for granted anymore.
The heath has always been important to me. I grew up in Hampstead Village and the heath is a local treasure full of beauty and nostalgia. As a family we used to come to the fair held every Easter and eat pink candy floss, brave the dodgems, lose money on the one-armed bandits, and watch my father try to topple coconuts to win a goldfish.
When I turned eight, my father would take Isabelle and me to the mixed bathing pond, which was so deep and so cold you couldn’t do anything but kick your legs and swing your arms for dear life. It would make him laugh as he held up our bellies. “I’ll make men of you yet,” he’d say.
Emily and I snuck our first cigarette hiding behind a massive oak tree, promptly declaring it our last as we coughed and choked. I even got my first kiss near the Vale of Health.
Andy and I would come here for romantic walks. He grew up in Hampstead, too. I’d seen him around forever, but he wasn’t my type. He was tall and blond, and all the girls admired him. They thought he was sexy and funny, but I only saw him as arrogant and sarcastic. Then one Saturday we bumped into each other on the tube and had no choice but to make conversation—surprisingly we hit it off. He got off the train before me, at Tottenham Court Road, and asked for my phone number. I admit I was flattered. He phoned the next day. He showed up on time for our first date. He proved reliable and I liked that. I’d had a few boyfriends after Neil, bohemians and men who were totally unsuitable, so with Andy it was like slipping into comfortable flats after the agony of stiletto heels. He felt safe.
When we got married, I was desperate to stay close to family and Andy had no objection—it was his turf too. Happily, we found a wreck we could afford just up the road in Gospel Oak. Some consider it Hampstead but don’t ever say that to a real Hampstead-ite. To them it’s a million miles away.
Still, it’s not as far away as the golf club suburb where my sister moved when she married her hotshit lawyer of a husband, Martin. If it was inevitable that I would marry the boy next door, it was just as inevitable that Isabelle would marry money. And that she would move somewhere grand. She was far more attached to status than she ever was to nostalgia.
Now, here I am on Hampstead Heath, facing my destiny, steeping myself in my past, in the only place I’ve ever truly known. I walk across this vast expanse of parkland, the early morning dew squelching underfoot like the slurps of someone enjoying a good steak. The leaves that cling to the branches of the trees for their final moments are all manner of gold and red and orange under the low sun. It’s the most beautiful intense day. I feel like I’m seeing the world through new eyes; appreciating the true glory of color before it fades to gray and mulch to make way for spring and new life. I reluctantly acknowledge I won’t see spring, and a wave of sadness sweeps over me.
I push back the negatives and focus on the beauty and the silence. A tall male silhouette catches my attention, intruding on my solitude. He has an impressive outline, broad and distinct against the rays of sunlight that throw a godlike glow across the landscape. A dog walker, I hope. But he has no obvious dog. My feminine hackles rise. As he comes closer into view, I feel uncomfortable, thinking I should take another path but I don’t want to be too obvious. We gain uneasy proximity and I can see he has dark curly hair that tousles over the upturned collar of a well-cut black peacoat. Surely he’s too well groomed to be dangerous? Anyhow, he’s deep in thought and unaware of me so I feel instantly bad for being suspicious for no reason. In fact, he is rather handsome and I look away, regretting my absence of makeup and my untidy hair.
Laughing to myself at my vanity, I carry on walking, not sure how best to pass him, whether to stare into the middle distance or look at the ground—odd the way you suddenly don’t know where to put your eyes in a vast open space. Before I’ve had a chance to decide, he says. “Morning! Nice hat!”
I touch my head as though I don’t remember I’m wearing one—a beret. “Thanks,” I say, head dipped, hiding a smile.
“Beautiful day!” he continues and he stops, which makes me stop too.
“Yes,” I say. “So beautiful. Cold, though.” God, do I sound like I’m complaining?
“So what brings you here at this hour? Dog somewhere?” He looks around, checking the void.
“No dog,” I say, wondering if serial killers look like this. “You neither, huh?”
“No,” he says. “I needed to blow off the cobwebs, get some fresh air. Been a difficult morning.” He has the most alluring smile, instantly engaging. “To be honest it’s nice to talk to someone. I’ve been so inside my head I’m driving myself crazy.”
“How funny. Same here,” I say. If he is a serial killer, he’s a very nice one.
“Thank God you get it,” he says. “And don’t think I’m some kind of lunatic.”
I splutter uncomfortably. “Oh, I get it,” I say.
“So why are you driving yourself crazy?”
It trips off my tongue, I have no idea why. His voice? His smile? My need to purge? “Well, if you really want to know, I have seventy-nine days left to live.”
Whaaat? Why do I say that? Forget my precision (thank you, calendar), but why do I tell a stranger? I could have said anything. A work problem. A credit card fraud. Somehow I’ve come up with a total conversation killer.
He gasps with genuine dismay. “That’s awful!” He stares at me in shock. I look back at him in the same way, biting my lip, wishing I could swallow the damn speech bubble that feels like it’s blazing over my head.
“Not great,” I say. “Sorry. Shouldn’t have said it. I wasn’t looking for sympathy, though.” His face has melted into a compassionate frown. “It’s just . . . very much on my mind.”
“Oh, I can imagine. That’s a blind sider but don’t apologize. I’m glad you told me. I’m the one who’s sorry.”
The concern in his eyes makes me want to believe him.
We look at each other, not quite sure where this is going. Then, something extraordinary happens, as though someone else has taken charge of the situation and without thinking, I spring forward and kiss him. Literally. Right there! I meet his open face and kiss his surprised mouth.
And you know what? He kisses me back!
Yes!
He does!
And suddenly we are glued together, hugging, kissing, his body curling around mine, warming me against the chill air. The kisses are lingering, tantalizing. His mouth tastes of cigarettes and mint. We relax into each other with an ease normally borne of familiarity. He lifts me up and waltzes me toward the protection of a massive beech tree, throws off my hat, running his hands through my hair. We tumble to the ground, our mouths reluctantly parted as my head floats down to his chest. The amber scent of his soft woolen jumper alludes to the smell of his skin, which is deeply arousing. He reaches under my arms, drawing me back to meet his face, rolling me so that I’m on my side, propped against him as he stares into my eyes, stroking my cheek before tilting my mouth to meet his. It reawakens a part of me long forgotten as my skin responds to his touch, his gentle discovery as, in turn, my hands discover him. Our earthen mattress, hard and unforgiving, becomes a mound of feathers. Entangled in each other’s clothing, scarves and belts, buttons and hooks become complex creatures needing unwinding, undoing. Layers are clumsily removed until flesh is pressing against flesh. We laugh between kisses, holding each other’s gaze, the high of shock and enchantment outweighing all caution and danger. I have never felt so free.
“You okay?”
“Yes,” I say.
“Can I?”
“Yes.”
There’s an awkward moment as he pushes inside of me but then his hands intertwine with mine and we look at each other, unabashed, smiling, laughing, kissing, and fucking like this is how it always is. How it was always meant to be.
He moves his hands down to cup my buttocks, protecting me from the rub of soil and the upward tilt of my hips heightens each sensation. I am totally in tune with his body, my mind immersed in the rhythm of each pulsating thrust. My breath quickens, my blood rushes through me, so alive, revived, until my whole body judders and I cry out with abandon, unshackled from a thousand woes. When he comes, he buries his face in my hair and his long cry crescendos against my skin. He kisses my neck then flops the entire weight of his body onto mine.
We hold each other, our heartbeats, our quickened breathing the only things punctuating a stunned silence before he whispers in my ear “fuck that was good” and I say “yes it was” only I’m not sure I say it out loud because I’m grinning so broadly. He clasps me to him like he’ll never let me go and I don’t want him to but then . . .
“I can no longer breathe,” I say, aware of being crushed where once he felt weightless. He lets out a deep laugh and rolls off.
“Okay?” he says, grinning.
“Better than okay.”
“Funny thing sex, isn’t it?” His voice has an incredible soothing burr.
“I’ve never laughed like that before.”
“Oh dear,” he says. “Are you normally a lights-out kind of girl?”
“Yeah,” I say with a giggle. “Probably.”
He grapples for my cast-off beret, then places it over my face. “Happier now?”
After days and nights of lonely introspection, this intimate stranger makes me smile. He lifts off the beret and plants a kiss on each eyelid with his soft lips. We lie under the heavy autumnal branches, smiling up at the light that shimmies through the leaves.
I reflect on what’s happened, amazed to feel this comfortable. It was as if we were entirely private, not giving a thought to the prospect of passersby. Passersby! It would have been so possible. But nothing would have stopped us. Not even the threat of arrest.
I shiver.
“Cold?” he says.
“A little bit exposed, if I’m honest.”
He pulls his coat across me.
Our feather mattress is now restored to a lumpen mass of jumbled clothing and gritty soil, my feather pillow once again his arm. I feel the need to make myself decent and fumble for my knickers. He follows my lead, wriggles into the pants that are cuffing his ankles, pulling up his trousers.
“I think I’m wearing half the heath,” he says.
“I’m wearing the other half.” I laugh, inelegantly flicking away some grit.
He jostles inside his coat pockets, pulls out a squished packet of Marlboros, fishes out a cigarette with his mouth, then shakes out a Bic lighter. He makes me cup my hands around his, as he flicks the flint, the flame resisting before finally responding and he lights the cigarette, drawing in deeply, his cheekbones sharp and defined, shaded by morning stubble.
He passes the cigarette to me and I take it as though it’s the most normal thing I’ve ever done, trying hard not to make an idiot of myself, sucking on the filter determined to keep the damn thing alight.
He scoffs. “You’ve never smoked, have you?”
“You can tell?”
“It was a tough call.”
I laugh. “Sounds stupid now, but I was always terrified it might kill me.” I look at the cigarette, take another drag, and, as if to affirm his statement, the smoke hits the back of my throat and I break into a seizing cough.
“Breathe.”
“I’m trying to.”
He turns toward me, his face suddenly serious.
“Are you laughing or crying or choking?” he says.
“I’m not sure,” I splutter, sitting up, as the pounding of a pair of joggers resounds in the distance. It silences me.
“Pinch me,” I say. “Did we really do that?”
He reaches toward me and sweeps a strand of hair away from my forehead, his fingers floating across the curve of my cheek.
“We really did,” he says. “And it was very beautiful.”
I feel myself blush. “Yes, it was.”
“And I’m so sorry about your news. Truly I am.”
“Oh, don’t be. You’ve made my day. And every day counts.”
“You shouldn’t count them,” he says with a somber shake of his tousled hair. “You should live them.” He retrieves the cigarette from my amateur grasp, relights it, inhaling deeply with an air of exotic insolence, then hands it back to me as if to give me a second chance.
“I think I’ll pass.”
He raises his eyebrows in a smile and lies back, cigarette clamped between his lips, looking up between the thick branches at the hints of clear blue sky. “At least you can do all those things now,” he says.
“How do you mean?”
He pauses. “You know. All the things you thought might kill you.”
Suddenly all I can think of is the letters; the brave, honest, foolhardy words out there, possibly held in the hands of their intended, and I shudder. He draws me back to lie down with him, tucking me into the warm curve of his body.
“For a start, you can become an eighty-a-day smoker,” he says with a smile, smoke dancing from his mouth. “I envy you that.” He looks back at me, the cigarette stuck in natural balance to his lower lip. “Hmmm. I guess that’s more my thing.”
“You should be banned!” I say.
“I should?”
“Yes! Because you make it look attractive. They should only allow people like me to smoke in public. I would be the best warning label ever. ‘Jesus, how off-putting is she? And she stinks.’”
He gives a deep appreciative laugh, like I’m the funniest person in the world. I don’t care if he’s faking.
“Do I stink?” he says.
“I like your stink.”
He snorts. “I should give up.”
“Yeah,” I say, then grimace. “Oh God, I sound like such an awful prude, don’t I?”
He points at the lack of bedroom walls and grins. “Nah. You’re no prude.”
“Oh, I am,” I say. “You have no idea how brave this is. I’ve never done anything like this before. Let alone no protection.” The thought just dawns on me but who needs protection now?
“It’s not exactly a habit of mine, either,” he says.
“But you don’t strike me as the conventional type. Unlike me. All my life I’ve stuck to the safe path. You’ve taken me off it and I needed to do that. To see how it feels.” I turn over onto my stomach, prop myself up on my elbows and gaze across at him. “And you’ve made me realize something.”
He props himself up next to me, an elbow nudging against mine.
“I have?”
“Yes . . . Telling you I’m dying has freed me up to live.”
He lets out a mournful sigh and crushes the cigarette stub into the grass. “You’re welcome,” he says.
We stand up and he asks for my number, but I tell him he doesn’t need to be polite.
“I’m not being polite. I’d like to see you again,” he protests, fighting to brush the wet grass and mud flakes off his crumpled trousers.
“What’s the point?”
“Come on,” he insists. “See me again. We can do other things. Art galleries. Cinema. Pub darts. Speed dating as if there’s no tomorrow, pun intended. Cram in whatever we can whenever we can! Or, we can just, you know . . .” He gives a cheeky grin, tilts his head to one side. “. . . fuck!”
I laugh, shocked by his easy candor. I like this man. I’m tempted.
“Come on,” he says. “What are you doing otherwise? Twiddling your thumbs? Counting the days?”
This is agony. I long to have someone to hold and reassure me during the dark lonely hours but somehow I don’t feel that’s what he’s looking for. Besides, why would he want to get involved with a woman who won’t be around much past this season? “No,” I say. “Let’s leave it here. Why spoil the moment?”
“I was hoping to improve on it. A mattress and clean sheets for a start. Sounds appealing, no?”
I smile. It is appealing. It really is. But I’m doing him a favor, sparing him from something he really doesn’t want to be a party to. “It does. But this was special. It’s how I’d prefer to remember it.”
He shrugs. “Your call,” he says, peering at me as though he can see my quandary. “Sure I can’t persuade you?”
I shake my head. “Certain.” I have never been less certain.
We hug each other like the friends we might have been. “Don’t be too good,” he says. “You can let yourself off the hook sometimes, you know.”
“I’ll try my best.” God, he’s perceptive. Damn him . . .
I pick up my beret and start to walk away, clutching it to my chest, as though the imprint of his hand might stay with me forever. I feel bereft, which is crazy, because I’ve known him less than an hour.
Is this what my life is going to be like now?
Full of loss and good-byes?
I think he’s watching me —you know how sometimes you feel it—but I resist the urge to turn round in case I’m wrong. I want to suppose he’s holding on to the very last glimpse of me, the way I’m holding on to the final traces of him. Most of all, I want to believe I’ve left him with a lasting impression because that’s all I have left to give.
I check my face in the lift mirror on my way up to my office, having showered and changed and made sure all the grass and grit is out of my hair.. Does it show? Will colleagues look at me and sense something’s different? Or am I just being ridiculous? After all, if they can’t spot that I’m ill, how will they spot that I did something totally out of character? Maybe the smirk on my face is a giveaway. Stupid. Forget it. Yet, I feel there is a change—a new glimmer of defiance about me. Yes, I’m dying. Yes, it’s terrible. But I’m not going to let it cower me. I feel good about writing those letters. I am going to let myself off the hook.
I turn events around in my head. I had sex with a stranger practically in plain sight. Me! The most law-abiding citizen ever! We could have been arrested, for heaven’s sake. We got away with it. We were lucky. And I feel different. No longer in denial. Not angry or scared. Empowered.
Hang on a minute! What am I thinking? I can’t go round having sex with strangers simply because I have an incurable illness. And yet . . . it was liberating. I’m glad I acted on impulse because, in the moment, it felt right.
I can’t tell anyone. Not Pattie. Not even Olivia. If I share it, it might lose its heady magic. I want to keep it to myself like a piece of buried treasure. I’ve proven I can be wild and fearless, but only I need know.
I hang my coat up on the stand and sit down at my desk, pull my phone out of my bag, and check the screen. Nothing. Not a missed call. Not one response from any of them. Not even my sister.
What would Isabelle make of what I’d done? Her “goody-two-shoes” (her words), conformist sibling. Would I tell her? Probably not. But I’d quite like to, if only to prove a point.
They say the younger child is meant to be the more dynamic, less insecure one, but I maintain the younger child merely inhabits the space left by the older one and Isabelle grabbed all the best bits. Extraordinarily pretty, all she had to do was smile and whatever she wanted was hers. Four years my senior, she seemed so sophisticated, so in charge. In our household, Isabelle was not only granted special privileges but any transgressions were conveniently overlooked. If Isabelle got a bad school report (frequent), it didn’t seem to matter, but if I dared bring one home that was anything less than perfect, there was hell to pay. “Isabelle has the looks but Jennifer has the brains” was said so regularly, it was as though it was intended to bring comfort. It certainly did to my sister who would go all coy, enjoying the pronouncement, while I would swallow it like a disgusting medicine that was good for me.
Don’t get me wrong, my parents weren’t divisive tyrants. I’m sure they saw it as heaping appropriate praise on our individual strengths, doing their best to encourage us like all other parents. But they weren’t like other parents—not the liberal, Hampstead types anyway. They were deeply traditional, clinging to their own wartime upbringing for guidance. The progressive thinking hewn from the swinging sixties bore no truck in our house. My father was a city solicitor. His name came after the ampersand in the firm’s title and from the day she left Pitman’s college my mother became his secretary. When they married, she thought she was the luckiest woman from the Home Counties. She deferred to him on everything, and my father duly rewarded her with a strict weekly allowance that she never exceeded. Knowing the challenges of rationing, even when it was long over and those little blue books torn up and discarded, my mother and father remained most comfortable living frugally. They were only extravagant in their love. They were each other’s world and they put each other first.
Then came my sister. Then me. There was a definite pecking order, but for us it was normal. Any mention of favoritism was derided as ridiculous. Our family was run on harmony and respect. Thus they imprinted their disciplined beliefs into our DNA and I, being suggestible, followed their every rule. My sister, on the other hand, did not.
Isabelle was the canny one, always quick to spot an opportunity. Noting my conscientiousness, she decided I would make an excellent slave and I willingly obliged. It was not an entirely altruistic decision because being her slave allowed me to be around her friends as long as I fetched and carried and did their bidding. I was so in awe, I would happily have done whatever was necessary to remain in their company.
“Brush our hair!” they would say and I would dutifully go round the circle with the Mason Pearson brush, being as gentle or as firm as instructed. “Go get some biscuits from the kitchen.” “Bring up the bottle of squash and a jug of water.” “Bring up some cans of fizzy drink.”
Our mother was complicit in my slavery, preparing the tray while I would to and fro, up and down our narrow Victorian staircase, juggling their requests, tongue clamped between my teeth, desperate not to fall or to spill anything on to the light beige wool carpet and incur her wrath.
“Now go and get some more!” Isabelle would instruct and off I’d trot.
I was never allowed to sit among them or partake of any of the goodies I laid at their feet. Emily, back then my closest friend both in proximity and heart, would join me in my corner and we’d sit, holding hands, gazing with adoration at the sophistication that was my sister and her friends.
When Isabelle became a teenager, our parents in their evenhanded wisdom decided it was time our rooms were redecorated. My mother brought home a book of Laura Ashley wallpapers she’d gotten on loan, which, judging from the look on Isabelle’s face, was the most exciting book she had ever seen.
The Laura Ashley tome was placed in front of us as we sat side by side at the old pine kitchen table. To add to the sense of treat, we were given a bag of Maltesers to share and invited to choose the design we most wanted.
“You can have them,” said Isabelle, pushing the Maltesers at me. “No one will care if you get fat and spotty.” The bag remained untouched but oh so longed for.
Maybe to compensate for this mean-spirited gibe, she grudgingly said I could have first choice, which was so out of character in its generosity, I swiftly settled on a lovely blue-and-yellow floral before she had a chance to change her mind.
“That’s so babyish,” she pronounced. “You should have this!” She pointed to a burgundy-and-muddy-green irregular stripe, which I didn’t particularly care for but since I imagined her taste to be better than mine, I told our mother that was the one I wanted.
Finally, when our rooms were redecorated, mine looked dull and sensible and Isabelle’s was bright and exciting . . . with blue and yellow flowers.
“I wanted that one,” I wailed. “Why did Isabelle get it?”
“I got you precisely the paper you chose,” said Mother innocently.
“Isabelle chose it for me. I wanted the flowers, but she said they were babyish.”
“Oh, don’t whine, Jennifer!” she said. “Your room looks perfectly lovely. It reflects your personality. I think Isabelle made the right choice for you. She’s got a good eye.”
I wanted to punch that good eye.
“Isabelle . . .” I said, tentatively to her reflection in the mirror as she sat at her dressing table, preening. “Maybe . . . possibly . . . do you think we should swap rooms?”
“Jennifer,” she sniped. “Maybe . . . possibly . . . you should have been born first!”
So I went and slumped on the floor in my bedroom, staring at my burgundy and muddy-green stripes, wondering what they said about my personality.
Emily assured me that my room looked wonderful. “Stunning. So smart,” she said, although I could see when we peeked into Isabelle’s she was totally blown away.
“What are you two idiots staring at?” said Isabelle.
“Your room is so pretty,” Emily told her.
“I know,” she said. “Now piss off.”
Isabelle’s innate skills were soon transferred to the boys who pursued her. She could twist them round her little finger, be as beastly to them as she wanted and they responded by being adoring. We all worshipped her, no matter what; she had the power to make us run around her and be grateful.
And then came my turn. Neil Abernathy. My first love. For me, Neil was “the one” and to mess with a popular adage, “it is a truth universally acknowledged that your first love is always the most significant.”
We met at university. He was in the same halls, his room a bit farther down the corridor from mine. I noticed him straightaway because of his hair. While most of the male students proudly cultivated Patrick Swayze mullets or ugly gelled quiffs, Neil had long glossy hair, which swung in curtains above his shoulders. I thought he was insanely handsome. Sadly, he never noticed me.
Until, one day, near the end of second term, I was dragged by a friend to a students’ union meeting where Neil was speaking. Afterward, he came over and chatted with me and I was so flattered, I signed up there and then to be a member of the Labor Party even though I had never given politics a second thought—it was a subject far too dirty ever to be discussed at home.
After attending several political meetings, I got what I wanted. Neil and I became lovers. Soon we were a couple. He made me feel glamorous and rebellious, and I knew this was the man I wanted to be with for the rest of my life.
In the Easter break of my final year I brought Neil home, braving my parents’ disapproval yet secretly craving it. Naturally, we were not allowed to share my bedroom so Isabelle happily went to stay with her friend Miranda and Neil got to stay in her blue-and-yellow floral boudoir.
“I’m not sleeping here,” he says, flopping back against her mound of plumped-up chintz cushions, kicking off his trainers, and patting the bed for me to join him. “Come the midnight hour, I’ll be with you.”
“You have to sleep here,” I told him, sitting half on, half off the edge of the mattress, already uneasy at his suggestion. “My parents will throw me out if they ever discover you sneaking into my room.”
“I’ll be quiet as a mouse.”
“Don’t even think about it.”
“Well, if they throw you out, you can come and live with me. You pretty much live with me now anyway.”
“Please don’t, Neil. I’ll be too uncomfortable to . . . you know, anyway. It would be pointless.”
“Jesus! What’s happened to you? Show the adult her childhood bedroom and she becomes the child.”
“It’s only a few nights.”
And so Neil behaved too.
I was disappointed that Isabelle wouldn’t be around to meet my first official boyfriend. My lover. I wanted to show Neil off to her as much as I wanted to show her off to him. As luck would have it, though, curiosity got the better of her and she turned up for dinner on our last evening. I loved watching her stare at him when he talked politics, expounding on Thatcher’s deserved downfall and that Major was a moron, as my parents’ faces froze over. I knew Isabelle thought he was impressive even though he wasn’t her type (she was into dating yuppies with fast cars and fat wallets), but what I really loved was the fact that Neil didn’t even give her a second glance. This boosted him in my estimation and my confidence soared.
Turns out, people can be deceptive. Neil did not spend his last night in Isabelle’s florals and frills alone. To rub salt in the wound, my parents didn’t even notice what was happening on their watch. Didn’t question why my sister was at the breakfast table in the morning, all pink and tousled, didn’t doubt her explanation that she’d popped round early to say good-bye. Of course, had it been me, you could guarantee they’d have known and I’d have been sent to a nunnery.
On the train journey back to university, I had to endure two hours in a crowded carriage, listening to Neil declare his undying love for Isabelle, watching him simper like a lovelorn idiot, begging my forgiveness, telling me he was not worthy and I deserved better.
But I could see straight through all the fake remorse. He was no different from the rest. He had won the prize sister. He was loving every minute of it.
My last few weeks of that final term were spent back in my own room, in solitary confinement, sobbing as I prepared for exams, determinedly avoiding my once-true love.
Summer back at home, I finally worked up the courage to tell Isabelle how much she’d hurt me. She looked at me and laughed. “You seriously imagine he would have hung around with someone like you?” she mocked. “It was only a matter of time. If it hadn’t been me, it would have been someone else. Better to keep it in the family, don’t you think?”
She at least had the decency to hide the postcards Neil was sending. (My mother, on the other hand, felt it important to tell me about them.) When Isabelle was out, I’d sneak into her room, find them stuffed under a pillow and cry over the words he’d once reserved for me.
To add to my misery, a mediocre degree when I had been predicted to graduate with first-class honors crushed all expectations of my genius. My parents’ disappointment could not outdo my own. I withdrew to my bedroom, refusing my mother’s offers of food and Valium, preferring to beat myself up listening to Mariah and Whitney; all the romantic tunes I used to think were about “us.”
Naturally, Isabelle went on to discard Neil the way you would a watermelon seed. This did not improve my feelings toward either of them. Neil broke my heart but you can piece a young heart back together. Isabelle broke my trust and once you’ve lost trust, it’s very hard to recover.
Apart from the loss of my babies, the fragile dishonesty of my relationship with my sister is one of the biggest sadnesses of my life. And yet I have never braved admitting this until now.
My mind floats back into the office and I automatically check my phone as though something might have come through from Isabelle while I was thinking about her. But why would we be telepathic when we’re not even on the same wavelength? Come to think of it, I definitely wouldn’t tell her I’d had sex on the heath. She probably wouldn’t bat an eyelid at the idea, but she’d doubtless find a way to ruin things.