No Sister of Mine (ARC) Read online

  myself wanting to rush and tell him everything that happened, as soon as it happened, no matter how silly or small. I still did it now, by phone, saving up all my news for our twice-weekly

  calls.

  But something wasn’t right. Even as we’d parted at the station, I had pulled back as

  soon as I felt his arms close too tightly around my waist, his pelvis push against mine as we

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  said our goodbyes. Was I being fair, expecting him to understand? And to wait? Or was I just being a coward? Because, even after all the months that had passed, I knew without doubt that

  it still all came down to Arnie. What Arnie had done to me, the panic he had planted in me,

  about boys, about men, knowing that he had taken away my curiosity and the wonder of

  discovery, and replaced them with a wariness bordering on fear.

  I still woke up sometimes, sweating, panicking, with it all running through my head,

  second by second, like a film in slow motion, the sensation of him pressed into my skin, the

  smell and the taste of him rising up through my nostrils, making me want to cry, to run, to

  scream.

  But Josh wasn’t Arnie. When I closed my eyes as Josh kissed me, I didn’t see Arnie,

  not anymore. I didn’t imagine myself in danger, didn’t want to run. It felt nice, right, as if I belonged there, and all I wanted was for it to stay that way, moving slowly, safely, at a pace I could deal with.

  I had the long summer break now, to think about things, to work out what I wanted. We

  were young, I still had my degree course to get on with and he had a job to get started on,

  whether that turned out to be based in his own home town or somewhere further afield. There

  was no rush to plunge into serious territory. No rush to make declarations of undying love, to

  fall naked into whatever bed beckoned. Somehow I had managed to put all of that off, to

  postpone any drastic decisions, to keep Josh in the limbo-land of maybe-one-day. But I couldn’t push him away forever, or I would risk losing him. As if distance didn’t already pose a big

  enough threat. There had to be a way to make it work, because I couldn’t let Arnie win. We

  had to be the winners: Josh and me.

  I felt a thump as Buster hauled himself up, his back legs scrabbling about in mid-air for

  a few seconds, onto the bed. The old dog seemed pleased to have me home, my long absence

  already pushed aside as if I had never been gone.

  ‘Come on, Boy. Let’s get you walked, shall we?’ I climbed out of bed and hunted for

  clean underwear, a T-shirt and jeans among the clothes, most of them dirty, that I had brought

  back with me and that now lay in a heap partly in and partly out of my suitcase in the middle

  of the carpet. Sarah was stirring in the other bed, mumbling something that sounded like ‘Grow

  away’, before sinking back down into a snuffly sleep.

  It seemed only fair that I take over dog duties for a while. Buster was technically mine

  anyway, and Sarah had done more than her share while I had been away.

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  The house was quiet, Mum and Dad not yet having emerged from their room. When I got to the foot of the stairs, I saw that the newspaper hadn’t even arrived on the mat yet, and I put that down to that paper-girl friend of Sarah’s having a bit of a lie-in now the school holidays had begun. It was only when I went into the kitchen and looked at the clock that I realised it

  was still only half past six.

  The streets were empty, just an occasional car and the rattle of the milk float disturbing

  the silence. We took our time, with nothing much to hurry back for, and Buster seemed to relish the chance to investigate every clump of earth, every piece of litter, and sniff to his heart’s content at all the exciting smelly evidence that other dogs had been there before him.

  I didn’t see him at first, the man coming towards me along the pavement on the other

  side of the street. He was dressed for work in an office somewhere, by the look of him. Suit

  slightly too tight, a plain white shirt and a not-quite-straight blue tie, a tatty brown leather briefcase dangling from his hand as he hurried along, head down. But once I had spotted him,

  even at a distance, even without a full view of his face, I knew who he was. Arnie O’Connor.

  It was not cold that morning but I felt a shiver run through me. I didn’t want to look at

  him, and definitely didn’t want him to see me or run the risk of him coming over to talk to me.

  I should have turned my back towards him, walked off in the other direction or hidden behind

  a tree, but I found I couldn’t move. I just stood there, rooted to the spot, and I couldn’t look away.

  He didn’t look up at all. He drew level with me, just yards away across an empty street,

  and then walked right past, probably off to catch an early train, his feet pounding the pavement, the wires and earpieces of a Walkman visible above his collar, utterly oblivious to my presence.

  I wondered where he was going, what job he did, what music he might be listening to, and then

  wondered why I should care. Because I didn’t. He looked ordinary, just some unremarkable

  man on his way to work. He didn’t look frightening or threatening at all, and I had the sudden

  feeling that even if he had looked at me he probably wouldn’t have recognised me or

  remembered who I was. I meant nothing to him and, in that moment, I couldn’t understand

  why I had allowed him, or the memory of him, to still mean so much to me.

  ***

  Lucy and I sat side by side on the swings in the playground. She was my oldest friend and it

  had been far too long since we’d had the chance to spend time together and catch up on what

  was happening in our lives. In many ways we were entirely different. Lucy had no wish to go

  to university. She never had. Life through her eyes was a very simple and straightforward affair.

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  You finished school, you found a job and you got married. Two babies, maybe three if the first two had not produced the required one-of-each, a little house with a garden, and life was pretty much complete. By the sound of it, she was well on her way. She was working at a florist’s

  now, a job that surrounded her with beautiful things, paid a decent enough wage and would, in

  time, mean that she could design and make her own bespoke wedding bouquet, and all the table

  decorations and buttonholes too. And Robert had done the expected thing on her nineteenth

  birthday, going down on one knee and spending the regulation one month’s salary on a ring.

  The wedding itself remained a hazy vision of rose petals and satin and yards of frothy white

  fluff, and was apparently unlikely to take place for at least three or four years, but that didn’t seem to matter at all. The dream was everything.

  If only my own life could be so easily plotted and planned. But for me, there was so

  much more to cram in. I wanted to get my degree, develop a fulfilling career, hopefully in

  teaching, and perhaps travel a bit. And somehow I needed to include Josh in all of that. Not as the be-all-and-end-all of my life, the hub that everything else revolved around, as Robert so

  clearly was to Lucy, but as equals. I liked to imagine our lives being like the swings Lucy and I were sitting on now, swaying around, soaring up and away from each other every now and

  then, each on its own path, but always within reach of each other, the long stretchy chains

  keeping us close and making sure that when we touched back down we were still side by side.

  I shook my head to clear such fanciful thoughts.

  Lucy was talking about her job, about a customer who had come into t
he shop and

  ordered six dozen red roses for his girlfriend, and another who had sent just a single rosebud, and which she thought was the more romantic of the two. I wasn’t sure there was a right or a

  wrong answer to that. Love, romance, sex, they were different things to different people. And

  none of it, none of the important stuff, was about roses, was it?

  ‘I saw Arnie yesterday,’ I said, right out of the blue. Lucy was still the only person I

  had ever told about that night at the party, the only one I could say my thoughts out loud to,

  and seeing him so unexpectedly was still very much in my thoughts that day.

  ‘Really?’ She pulled her swing to a stop, digging her heels into the tarmac, and turned

  to face me. ‘To speak to?’

  ‘No. Oh, no. I don’t think I would ever want to speak to him. No, he didn’t even see

  me, but I saw him. Watched him walk by . . .’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And what?’

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  ‘Well, how did it make you feel? Didn’t you want to just rush up and smack him one?

  Or shout out and tell the world what he did? I mean, now you’ve had time to calm down about

  it all, you must want to . . . I don’t know, get some kind of revenge, or something?’

  ‘God, no. I don’t want to drag it all up again. I just want to forget about it, make it all

  go away.’

  ‘And has it? Gone away?’

  I shook my head, closed my eyes and fought back the tears. ‘No.’

  ‘Oh, Eve. It’s been ages. It must be a year ago now, or more. You can’t let it upset you

  after all this time. Arnie’s just a scumbag who means nothing. Ignore him. Avoid him. Forget

  about him! You’ve got your Josh now, haven’t you? Who I am dying to meet, by the way.’

  ‘I’m not sure he is my Josh exactly.’

  ‘But he’s your boyfriend, isn’t he? You said you’d been going out. Meals, drinks . . .’

  ‘Oh, yes, all of that.’ I felt a smile force its way, unbidden, onto my face.

  ‘And you’re not seeing anyone else? And he’s not either?’

  ‘Well, I’m not, and I don’t think he is. Well, I bloody well hope not.’

  ‘Then of course he’s your Josh! So, tell me what he’s like. Do you have a picture?’

  ‘No, I don’t. I should have got one, shouldn’t I? To put in a frame by my bed and swoon

  over before I go to sleep every night.’ I laughed, but I could see she thought I meant it. She

  probably had one just like that of her Robert. ‘But he’s . . . well, tall, I suppose. Taller than me, anyway. And he’s got dark hair, and brown eyes, and he was studying Maths and Business,

  would you believe! How I ever got mixed up with someone who’s into Maths I do not know!’

  ‘Prospects?’

  ‘What do you mean, prospects? Can he keep me in the manner to which I’ve become

  accustomed? A man of good fortune? Lucy, honestly, you sound exactly like Mrs Bennet,

  trying to marry me off!’

  ‘Who’s Mrs Bennet?’ She looked bemused for a moment and I couldn’t really be

  bothered to start explaining. You’ve either read Jane Austen or you haven’t.

  ‘Oh, never mind. He’s finished his degree and he’s going onto a graduate-entry scheme

  at a bank, starting in a couple of weeks. Just waiting for the details to be finalised. So, yes, he has prospects as you call them. The chance of a good steady career ahead of him. But that has

  nothing to do with why I like him.’

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  ‘ Like him? Not love him?’ She stood up and pulled me along with her, making way for some children who were hovering nearby, waiting to use the swings, but luckily also giving

  me enough time to think before I answered her.

  ‘Well?’ she said, as we moved to a bench beneath the trees. ‘Do you love him?’

  ‘It’s more complicated than that, Lucy. To me love means some really huge all-

  encompassing thing. You know, being prepared to do anything for that person, not being able

  to imagine a life without them in it, giving myself body and soul . . .’

  ‘Aha!’ She lifted her fingers to my chin and slowly turned my face back towards her.

  ‘That’s the problem, isn’t it? The body bit of that sentence? You haven’t, have you? Given

  yourself . . .’

  I shook my head. ‘Arnie O’Connor has a lot to answer for.’

  ‘Arnie O’Connor is a nobody. A loser whose brain is in his trousers. Only you can

  decide what to do, and when, and who with, and if you’re not ready, for any reason at all, then you don’t do it. Okay? Nothing to do with Arnie Knobhead O’Connor.’

  ‘And is that how it is with you and Robert? Not ready yet, despite all the years you’ve

  known him and the wedding plans and saving up for a life together?’

  ‘Not ready? Don’t be daft. We’ve been at it like rabbits for months now!’

  ‘Lucy!’ I was shocked. ‘After all you said about taking things slowly and saving

  yourself? When did this happen? And why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I don’t tell you everything. Well, maybe I do, actually, but you weren’t here and it’s

  not the sort of thing I’m going to talk about in a letter or blurt out down the phone while you’re standing there in your hall surrounded by people I don’t know, now, is it?’ She held out her

  left hand, and let the small diamond catch the glint of sunlight, tilting her finger one way and then the other. ‘Yes, I was hesitant for a while, especially when we first got together. We were only fourteen then, can you believe! It’s a big step. But then, suddenly, just recently, I knew the time was right.’ She gave me a jokey wink and nudged me gently in the ribs. ‘It’s amazing

  what having a ring on your finger can do.’

  ***

  Josh’s voice down the phone sent a warm glow through me. ‘Sorry I didn’t ring yesterday,’ he

  said. ‘Mum and Dad were celebrating their anniversary, and we all went out for a meal in the

  evening. Aunts and uncles, neighbours, Uncle Tom Cobley and all. It was their silver, and I’d

  completely forgotten about it, so I had to do a quick rush out to the shops and get a card and a present and everything. Took me all afternoon.’

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  ‘Fifty pence.’

  ‘Um, no, I managed to get them something a bit more expensive than that.’

  ‘For saying sorry, you dumbo! Fifty pence, remember?’

  ‘Oh, right. Wondered what you meant then for a minute.’ He laughed, then paused. ‘But

  if I owe you money, Eve, I’m afraid I’m going to have to come down there and pay it. Can’t

  have debts building up, can we? And fifty pence is not a trifling sum . . .’

  ‘Says the future banker,’ I giggled. ‘You couldn’t even buy a cup of tea or an ice cream

  for that these days. Do you mean it though? About coming down here?’

  ‘Of course. If you’ll have me. Not that I have anywhere to stay . . .’

  ‘We’ve got a sofa. Well, we’ve got a spare room too, but it’s stuffed full of Mum’s

  knitting and sewing stuff, so the sofa’s probably a better bet.’

  ‘And do you think your parents will be okay about a strange man turning up and moving

  in for a while?’

  I really wasn’t sure how they might react as I had never presented them with such a

  question, or even asked them to meet a boyfriend, before. ‘How long is a while?’

  ‘I thought maybe a couple of weeks? Ten days, at least. It’s a bit far to come just for

  the day, so I’d like to make the most of it while I can, before work starts in earnest. Thought we could maybe go out and about, and you can show
me some of the sights, Big Ben, Buck

  House, take a boat trip on the Thames, that sort of thing.’

  ‘I would love that.’

  ‘So, you’ll ask them? Only, if I have to pay for a hostel or a B&B or something, I

  probably won’t be able to stay more than a night or two.’

  ‘Yes, I’ll ask them. Beg them. Convince them. Persuade them. Bribe them. Lock them

  in the attic. Whatever it takes!’

  ‘That keen to see me, eh?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I am. It feels like forever since . . .’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’ His voice had gone quiet, serious. ‘It’s actually only been nine days,

  you know, but I’ve missed you. A lot.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘Maybe, when I’m in London, we could, you know . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Maybe try taking things a step further? Only if you’re ready, of course.’

  ‘Sex, you mean?’

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  ‘Well, I wouldn’t have put it quite so bluntly, but yes. It’s time, Eve. We’ve waited long enough, don’t you think? And now we know each other better. Trust each other.’

  I took a big breath and closed my eyes, glad he couldn’t see me. ‘Yeah, maybe.’ I didn’t

  want to say that if we hadn’t got that far with two uni rooms at our disposal and twenty-four-

  hour privacy on our side, then there wasn’t much chance of us doing it with my parents

  breathing down our necks and me sharing a room with my sister.

  There was an awkward silence, as though he was waiting for me to say something else,

  but eventually he just said, ‘Right. See you soon then, I hope.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I love you, Eve.’

  And that was when I put the phone down, because I had no idea what to say in return.

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  CHAPTER 10

  SARAH

  I remember looking up from a magazine when he first came into the room and just thinking,

  Wow!

  Josh Cavendish was probably the best-looking man ever to walk through the door of

  our house – not that many usually did – and he was Eve’s. My boring bookish sister Eve had