Page 5 of Sisters Making Mischief
‘Mobile phones in this box until the end of the lesson.’
She hesitated and then handed it over with a sulky expression.
‘Oh, okay then. What time are John and the Stepford wife getting here tomorrow?’
‘Lunchtime. And don’t be nasty. Just because Vanessa is a bit fussy about things. He says he has an important announcement, he was very secretive, said that he had some news.’
‘Knowing John, another promotion, a fatter salary, a bigger house, a faster car. Life’s very unfair sometimes. How can my younger brother, who took three attempts to pass GCSE maths, be running a finance company?’
I didn’t like to say that I’d thought the same thing over the years. John was intelligent and charming, but he had been known to count on his fingers until he left university and as far as I could see had no obvious ability with organising anything. It was a good job Vanessa was in charge of that household or he would have gone to work in his pyjamas.
‘Look, go to bed, I’ll clear up here. Try and get a good night’s sleep.’
Sara hauled herself up and stood swaying for a moment as the gin, the warmth from the wood burner and the turmoil of the last twenty-four hours took effect.
‘Thanks, Mum,’ she said, ‘I meant what I said, I do feel better when I’m here, I feel safer. I already feel more able to cope with things. Is that daft at my age?’
‘Not at all,’ I said, giving her a hug. ‘Go to bed, and don’t forget to brush your teeth.’
She gave a little laugh at that, and went off, her footsteps heavy on the stairs as she went back to what had once been her childhood room.
I turned off the lamps and then sat for a moment in the flickering light from the fire.
Poor Sara. I could see how devastated she was, and yet there was a part of me that remained unsurprised by her news.
Stephen, very early on in their relationship, had once voiced the opinion that Marty had it within him to be untrustworthy and at the time I had disagreed. But it seemed that he had been right. Well, in light of what had happened, he should know. It was a good job he wasn’t around to nod wisely and tell us all he was spot-on yet again.
‘You see, Joy? I told you. You wouldn’t listen.’
I cleared away the glasses and the half empty bottle of gin. There were some paracetamol in the kitchen drawer, and I took them out and left them helpfully by the side of the kettle.
2
When I woke up, my first thought was one of excitement – it was, after all, Christmas Eve and John and his family would be arriving later. A split second later I remembered Sara and her daughters were already in the house, under a significant cloud.
I got out of bed, showered, and dressed faster than I usually did, in the hope that by the time they came downstairs, I would have had time to clear away any overlooked debris from the previous night, set the table for breakfast, and done some preparations for the day ahead. I wanted to make everything perfect for them. To show them that I was managing now, that I could cope.
They had seen me through the months after Stephen had gone when I had just sat looking bleakly into the future, crying, angry, and frightened. Vanessa no longer had to organise a rota so that someone came over every few days with a casserole or flowers as they used to, back when I had been torn between relief that I didn’t have to spend another day alone and embarrassed that I was so pathetic.
Five years ago, Stephen had decided that we should move to a house with a smaller garden because ours was getting a bitbig for me to handle and heaven forbid, he would ever help me. To get the ball rolling, Stephen had produced Gillian, an estate agent, to come around and value our place. She was a middle-aged, horse-faced woman who wore tweed and was a member of a local, titled family who had tenants in cottages, nannies and shooting parties. She had the unmistakeable air of landed gentry about her which was catnip to a snob like Stephen. Seven months later he had moved out to live with her in some Cotswold manor house with positively acres of garden and we had divorced. In our settlement, I kept the family home, Sara and John had warned their father it was non-negotiable and for once he had listened.
I read an article about such things in the paper only recently: ‘Silver Splitters’, we were called. Sixty-year-olds who, having weathered the decades of struggle with jobs, children, mortgages, health issues and looming infirmity, made one last break for the sunny uplands of freedom or romance. I hadn’t seen Stephen for a long time after the divorce was finalised and Sara and John didn’t enlighten me, but I could only assume he had found what he was looking for. Which essentially was a wife with money.
Anyway, that morning it seemed a hungover daughter and her two teenage girls were able to sleep far longer than I could.
Ten thirty came, and I had tidied up the discarded cardigans, handbags, lip glosses and teen magazines. The Christmas tree lights were on as well as all the battery-operated candles because Vanessa said burning real ones was eco-unfriendly and also detrimental to her children’s health, and there was still no sign of anyone.
Never mind, Christmas is a time when there is always a lot to do, and I set to trimming and preparing all the sprouts, wrapping two million sausages in streaky bacon, peeling potatoes, scraping carrots and generally behaving like MaryBerry ‘getting ahead’for the following day. I began to feel on top of things again. I had an important role to play, and I was going to do it flawlessly. I wanted to show them and myself that I was moving forward with my life.
I had already constructed a lasagne for that evening’s dinner, and I whipped up some garlic butter ready to plaster onto the French sticks I had bought the previous day. They were – as is the way of French bread – by now slightly stale. Why is that? I really should find out when an English loaf lasts for days. No wonder the French are always off to the boulangerie.
At eleven o’clock I wiped down the worktops again and went into the hall to listen for any sounds or signs of movement from upstairs. There were none. I polished the dining room table and dusted the sideboard although they didn’t really need it.
Then I began to worry. John and Vanessa were due to arrive for (decaffeinated) coffee soon. Why do people drink it? I thought caffeine was the whole point of coffee. I’d already set out the tray and arranged the (ordinary plus gluten free) mince pies on a Christmas specific plate decorated with snowmen.
What if Sara was unwell, or perhaps haddone something silly?What that would be I wasn’t sure, an overdose of multivitamins? There was only a shower in her ensuite so she could hardly drown herself in the bath.
I hesitated, my foot on the bottom stair and then I heard a muffled thud and an annoyed scream, which I think must have come from the girls’ room. So, she hadn’t smothered her daughters in the night. Actually, at fourteen, Poppy and Mia were already as tall as Sara and having been to after school rugby and football clubs since they were seven, more than strong enough to compete against a gin-weakened mother.
