ABIGAIL

It was strange seeing her sister, dressed in a fitted pattern dress with a full skirt, her waist nipped in, a cardigan thrown over her shoulders, dark brown hair pinned in curls, patent heels clip-clopping towards her. She seemed to be of another time, to have stepped straight out of the pre-war years, the sun bright behind her, haloing her in light.

Abigail had never felt drearier. She glanced down at her own dress, the hem decidedly uneven after a last-minute effort to fix it before she left Bristol, her brown suede heels scuffed at the toe, a grease stain on the arm of her jumper, which was faded and worn. She looked as if she had travelled, all stale smells and hair loose and mussed up after she’d fallen asleep waiting for the connection in Minehead.

Abigail wanted to duck out of the greeting as she stepped off the coach, embraced in a cloud of Miss Dior which overpowered the rest: the smells of the sea, the seaweed lining the banks of the harbour. Her sister stayed there, her hug tight, sharp, definite. Abigail was frozen, both hands clutching her luggage. Then she allowed herself a moment of relief. This was someone who was certain, sure-footed. She let herself be hugged and pressed; she would be told what to do, she could relax as, for the first time in weeks, someone took away the need to make a decision.

She had stumbled off the coach, relieved to be on solid ground after the rattling descent into the village down Countisbury Hill. The screech of the brakes and the momentary alarm that they would end up in a scrunched heap of metal at the bottom had made her squeak with nervousness. The bang and clatter of everyone piling out, pushing down the aisle with children dressed in long socks and shorts, carpet bags clutched to chests, a hatbox bumping past the seats, an elderly woman oblivious to the commotion, a Yorkshire terrier asleep on her lap.

‘How was the journey? You poor thing, it’s a long way. Is that all you’ve brought? I’d have bags and bags.’ Her sister’s voice rose, unfamiliar and confident. Abigail watched her mouth moving as if from a distance, slow to respond.

‘It was fine. I had an Eccles cake.’

‘… I’ve got Edith to put out some lunch, I hope you’re hungry, you must be, and we have so much to do…’

The voice faded in and out. The climb and subsequent drop down the hill had made Abigail’s ears pop; now sounds were louder than before, her head fuzzy. She turned to wave at the coach driver, who raised a hand in return.

Her sister was already walking away in the direction from which she’d arrived as Abigail rushed to keep up, her suitcase and hatbox banging against her legs. Her head was snapping left and right as she took in the village. It was as if she’d been dropped into a world entirely different from the one she’d left: the place was surrounded by banks of green rising sharply at every turn, and churning water below them. Along one riverbank was a line of cottages, people walking arm in arm, neat flowered borders, smoke rising from chimneys. In the harbour boats idled, two men called to each other, hands shielding their eyes. And then her sister: years older, a completely different person from the teenage girl she remembered. Her lips were plumper, outlined in a deep pink, and she had winged brown lines on her eyelids, thin but noticeable, rouge on her cheeks and nylon stockings on her legs. As she marched a little way ahead, back straight, chin tilted up, she looked like a model in a picture magazine, spectacular in this tiny corner of north Devon. It gave Abigail hope that all was not lost.

Connie turned in profile, her snub nose perfect. ‘It isn’t far; it is a little steep towards the end. I did tell Larry it might have been nice to use the car, but he…’ She trailed off, head twisting back around.

‘That’s fine, I don’t mind walking.’ Abigail puffed, keen to please, feeling twelve again, traipsing around the streets of Bristol after her.

‘We’ll go up behind the Pavilion, there are steps there. Do you dance? There are sometimes dances.’ She threw the question behind her.

Abigail nodded, her breaths coming out in short gasps. ‘Yes… dance.’

‘Good. We will, we will,’ Connie muttered, seemingly to herself. ‘Come on.’ She paused at the bottom of a set of stairs. ‘Halfway there now.’

Abigail looked at the small café built into one of the sea walls, the steamed-up windows, the cake stands on display through the glass, and felt her stomach rumble, the Eccles cake a rather long time ago. Connie wasn’t pausing, marching them across a bridge where two rivers met, Abigail peeking over the side to see the water hurtling past.

She was sweating by the time they reached the house, the narrow path, very steep in places, making her thighs burn with the effort. The leather handles of the suitcase were slippery and unpleasant in her hand and the hatbox string bit into her palm. She could feel her hair sticking to her neck and forehead as she followed her sister onto a gated driveway, two stone-ball finials marking the entrance.

The house was perched on the side of the cliff, a line of trees obscuring the sea behind it. Abigail stared up at the vast redbrick building, its dormer windows seeming miles away, the tall, double chimney stacks silhouetted against the sky. They moved through the porch, past a cast-iron boot scraper and a pair of boots abandoned next to the mat. Her sister fiddled in her bag for a key to the front door, which had a polished brass ring in the centre of the glossy paint.

They entered a wide hallway bordered with an elaborate cornice. There was a hat stand and hooks for their coats and a gleaming oak table with a mirror suspended above it. The door to her right opened onto an enormous living room that looked out over the sea. French doors led out onto a large semi-circular stone terrace that provided the best views from its white wrought-iron table and two chairs surrounded by pots full of lavender. The house was decorated like the centre spread in My Home magazine. Elegant sculptures of sinewy women, bare-breasted and lounging on plinths, were scattered about the room; there was a peppermint chaise longue; a book lay abandoned on a mahogany table with spindly legs that sat beneath an enormous gilt-framed mirror. Abigail couldn’t help compare the Bristol house with this grandeur, worrying already that she should have wiped her shoes at the door.

‘I hope you don’t mind stairs,’ Connie said with a tinkling laugh.

They climbed to a first-floor landing, the carpet springy beneath their feet, and turned up another flight: oil paintings hanging in spaces, polished furniture, freshly plucked flowers in cut-crystal vases. The air was sweet with perfume and Abigail felt her head spinning with everything she was taking in. She could feel the sweat collecting in her hairline and under her arms, the suitcase heavy in her hand as she puffed up the last set of stairs.

Connie stood, impeccable, at the doorway, a smile on her painted lips as she prepared to push open the door. With a flourish she showed Abigail inside. The single bed was covered in a baby-pink rug and an ancient teddy bear was propped up against the pillow, perhaps a sign that her sister also imagined she was still the young girl she had left in Bristol all those years ago. A posy of daisies sat in fresh water alongside a small lamp and a Bible squeezed onto the bedside table. An oak dressing table in the bay window looked out over the sea.

‘It’s beautiful, it’s all lovely, thank you,’ Abigail said, looking around at the space, the sun warming the room, the glass polished. She swallowed as a flash of her mum’s face in the dull quiet of their Bristol house appeared in her mind. It was really over, she was here now, in this place with a sister she hadn’t seen in over a decade.

There was a noise downstairs and Connie patted her hair, checking her appearance in the dressing-table mirror.

‘That’s Larry,’ she said quickly, pursing her lips and then releasing them.

Abigail could hear the sound of keys being thrown down onto a metal surface, a pause followed by footsteps, then a quick call to his wife.

‘We’re up here,’ Connie trilled in a new voice, two tones higher.

The footsteps were on the stairs now, then came the top of a man’s head, a thick neck on too-narrow shoulders and finally, crowding into the corridor, turning the corner and blocking the view behind him, a man who seemed all limbs. Thick eyebrows that almost met in the middle, fair hair receding at the crown. His gangly frame filled the doorway as he stood on the threshold, staring at them both.

‘Well, well, well,’ he said, turning to Abigail, starting at her shoes, pausing over the scuff marks, rising slowly to her knees, making her suddenly want to cross her legs or curl herself into a ball before this scrutiny, over her dress, waist, breasts, a flicker in his expression and then her face. Not a word.

Her sister’s high laugh filled the silence. ‘Larry, meet Abigail.’

‘My little sister-in-law,’ he said, taking a step towards her, tipping an imaginary hat. A slow smile crept over his face. ‘Welcome.’