Page 42 of A Good Heart is Hard to Find
There was a postcard of the Cairngorms hidden underneath Jamie’s letter. It read:
Dear Sis,
Am on Channel 5 programme Friday at 6.45: ‘Impossible Climbs’,
Love, Francis
Friday was today.
I’d just set a video to record it in case I forgot later, when Jane wandered in yawning,with her golden hair falling becomingly over her silk-clad shoulders. Mine felt like a bird’s nest, and though the balding violet chenille robe I was wearing was a much-mended favourite, it could hardly be described as flattering.
Still, I learned the lesson when very young that there was no point in competing with Jane, because the race was fixed: angelic blue-eyed blondes won every time.
Just call me Maggie Tulliver. Nowtherewas a girl with a dark side!
‘Post? Anything for me?’ she asked, pouring a cup of coffee and reaching for my pile of letters.
‘How on earth would anyone know you were here?’ I pointed out, snatching them back, but not before she’d got hold of Jamie’s epistle.
‘How come you got a present, when he hardly ever writes even a postcard to me?’ she complainedindignantly.
‘Because he doesn’t like you, Jane. None of the boys like you, you’re a snitch. When we were little you told on us all the time just to make yourself look good and you’ve never stopped. How else would Ma and Pa know already about Max’s wife? You’re a little sneak andIdon’t like you either.’
‘George’s wife likes me,’ she pointed out complacently. ‘Philadelphia often invites meto stay.’
‘Phily’s a genetic mutation, that’s why she ended up marrying George. He was the only one desperate enough to propose to her.’
‘She does look a bit inbred. Just as well they never had any children, or they might have had to keep them in London Z—’ She broke off suddenly, staring down at Jamie’s letter.
‘Oh God! Did you see what Pa said aboutme? That bastard Gerald must have toldhim about—’ She stopped dead, frowning.
‘About what? Fallen off your pedestal, have you? Is this why you’ve deigned to grace my spare bedroom with your presence?’
‘Call that hellhole with a campbed a spare room?’ she said scathingly.
‘Please yourself, I didn’t invite you.Andit didn’t seem to bother you on all those weekends you so kindly spent keeping me company while Max was away,’ I saidpointedly.
‘What?’ Her jaw dropped and she went all Snow White with just a touch of Dopey. ‘How on earth did you know about that?’
‘Gerald came to see me.’
‘Gerald? And you told him I hadn’t been staying with you? No wonder he’s—’
‘No, of course I didn’t,’ I interrupted coldly. ‘Just because you’re a little sneak it doesn’t mean everyone else is! Anyway, I thought he’d probably got the wrongend of the stick. Now, spill the beans!’
‘I’m in love,’ she said dramatically.
‘Yeah, with yourself. I already knew that.’
‘No, with a man.’
‘Strange, I thought that’s what Gerald was?’
‘Yes, and I’m very fond of Gerald,’ she said earnestly. ‘But I married too young. I didn’t realize what love was until Imet Clint Atwood when he was Painter in Residence at the university last year. He wantsme to leave Gerald and go and live with him in Cornwall. He’s years younger than I am and so impulsive.’
I stared at her, wondering if I was dreaming that my sister was having a relationship with someone calledClint.
‘That’s who Gerald suspected – and I told him he was mad!’ It seemed very untidy and unstructured for Jane. Her perfect image wouldn’t be just tarnished but blown to pieces; andhad she realized just how much satisfaction her friends would gain from rocking her pedestal?
