The Sisterhood (11 page)

'Oh, we're all right. You know. How about you?'

'Mmm. Not too bad. Considering.' I finished the banana, and cast around for chocolate. Then I realised that my dad was treating me to one of his silences.

'So,' I said, filling the gap. 'I'm coming down this weekend if that's still OK.'

'Of course,' he said. 'Of course. We're all looking forward to seeing you. All of us.'

'All?'

'Mmm. Oh, yes. Roberto and Julie are here for a while.'

I put on a fake 'delighted' voice. 'Great! It'll be fun to catch up with them!' I rolled my eyes at myself.
It'll be fun,
indeed. Nobody over the age of five used such a phrase unless they were lying. I had no desire to make my announcement so publicly.

My stepbrother Roberto and I had always antagonised each other. Although he had been nice to me since Steve's departure, gruffly confiding that Steve had always seemed a bit of a wanker to him, the paranoid part of me felt he must be glad at my misfortunes. Julie had been with him for a few years, but I barely had an impression of her at all. Her appearance was bland, and I could hardly recall what her face was like. She was a bit pasty, with hair of no particular colour. I wondered whether she would react to my news at all. Certainly, no one in Haywards Heath would manage a polite 'congratulations'.

'Right,' said Dad. 'Yes. Good.'

He was impossible. I adored my father, not least because I had to. He had brought me up on his own and done a good, if baffled, job. If I didn't love him, I had no one. Dad and I had been thrown together when I was a baby, he having to look after me, me dependent on him for everything. As I grew up, he nurtured me in his eccentric way. My typical packed lunch at primary school contained two mustard sandwiches, a trio of cold potatoes, and orange squash in a jam jar. In the school holidays, I would do whatever I fancied, while he watched the cricket. He took me to dinner parties where I would read in the corner until midnight, then curl up and sleep while he and his bizarre friends continued drinking. Once I found a box of my mother's clothes in the attic, and delighted myself by dressing up in outlandish, too-big sixties outfits. I'd wear a purple smock to school, with green socks and a wide straw hat, and it would never have occurred to my father that anything was amiss. My hair was long and tangled, my reading matter anything I happened to pluck from a shelf (for a long time I had a copy of
The Joy of Sex
under my bed) and the fields around the house were my domain. Despite everything, and despite what everyone thought, I grew up happy, even though I was always aware that someone was missing.

When I was twelve, he met Sue.

'How's Sue?' I said now.

'Oh, yes. Fine. You know.'

'Good. And Roberto and Julie? They're OK?'

'Yes, yes, they're doing well.' He paused. 'At something of a hiatus.' He stopped.

There always came a point in a conversation like this when I wanted to yell:
'You
rang
me!'
I usually restrained myself. Today I just gave an exasperated sigh.

'How long are they staying for?'

'Hmm? Well, for the moment. Just until they find something else. I think that's the plan, anyway.'

'Right.'

Sue had arrived in a long purple dress, smelling of incense and smiling at me with the determinedly kind manner of someone who was going to do whatever it took to become my friend. A tubby boy stood behind her, holding her skirts and scowling, first at my father, and then at me. My stepbrother was five years my junior and possessed of a glamorous Italian father he visited in the holidays. For the first four years, Roberto did everything in his power to annoy me, aided by the fact that in his mother's eyes, he could do no wrong. He barged in on me while I was getting dressed, tipped Ribena on to my homework, and asked me, wide-eyed with pretend innocence, why I didn't go to see my mummy when he stayed with his daddy. When I was sixteen I forced Dad to let me go to boarding school, and a few years after that, Roberto and I finally learned to tolerate each other.

These days, he and Julie largely devoted themselves to sponging off the family. Twenty-eight years had passed since I met Roberto, and Sue was still inclined to indulge his every whim. Roberto and Julie infuriated me but, in the name of family harmony, I generally tried not to let it show.

'Right, then,' I said briskly. 'Got to go, Dad. I'll get a cab from the station.'

'Are you sure? We can always ...'

'Nope. I'll just turn up on Friday night. Bye.'

So I was going to be sharing my news not just with my father, but also with Sue, Roberto and Julie. There was no way I would be able to get Dad on his own for long enough to tell him privately, and Sue would wrench the truth out of him in five seconds anyway. I sighed, and turned back to the website. I continued my sentence. 'My dad wouldn't dream of taking control. I wish he would. I hope my stepmother might come through, because otherwise I'm on my own.'

1 February

I stared, transfixed, out of the train window. This was England. This was the strange, almost mythical land of my heritage.

I had heard about England at school, from the ex-pat girls and boys. They were so casual about it that it was hard to know, from listening to them, what it was actually like. I used to want to scream at them to tell me more. They were talking about a land that scared me and fascinated me, but they spoke, frustratingly, as if it was normal. I had an impression of England as a land of cool music, and dark frightening shadows. It was the country that had driven Mother away, never to return. It was the seat of an old empire, a weird, powerful place.

Yet here I was. I gripped the edge of my seat as I gazed out of the window. I could not believe I had done this. I stared at fields, at houses that were squashed up together. The cars already had their lights on. The sky was full of heavy black clouds. It was getting dark in England.

I told myself that I was not scared. I reminded myself that I was doing the right thing. I did not doubt my mission. I did not doubt it. I did not.

I was running away. Years ago, Mother ran away from England and left her child behind. Now here I was, running in the other direction, to bring the baby back. I was a long way away from anything that had ever made me feel secure and safe. I felt sick. I made a big effort to take some deep breaths. I told myself to live in the moment, to think only of the next thing I would do. I would stay on this train until it stopped, and then I would get off it. Tom was the only one who knew I was here, and lately he had done everything he could to stop me leaving.

'Just write her a letter,' he said, before I went to catch my train.

'But I can't,' I told him. 'Writing a letter would be no good. It would leave it up to her.'

He rolled his eyes. 'Your plan sounds nice, doesn't it, in theory. Make friends with her. Go to London. Meet her. Somehow bring her back here and present her to her mother. It won't work, Helen. I promise you, you won't pull it off.'

I snarled at him, trying extra hard to convince both of us. 'I will! I can do it! You don't think I can do anything, but I can!'

We ended up pulling each other's hair. I shoved him and he hit the ground. I told myself that he was jealous. He was jealous because he couldn't come with me. He was trying to play with my mind.

Mother and Papa seemed to believe me when I said I was going to Paris to stay with an imaginary school friend. They looked worried when they put me on the train, and they told me to use the credit card as much as I needed to. I was certainly planning to take them up on that offer, and at some point, I supposed, they would notice, from their bills, that I was in London, rather than Paris. I tried to savour the notion that, for the first time ever, I was about to surprise them.

Liz knew I was coming, but she didn't know exactly when. I'd made an enormous effort and forced myself to be breezy and casual about the whole thing, and sketchy with details, as if my trip to London was no big deal; as if it was not all about her. I knew that if I was going to appear in her life as a friend, I had to give the impression of having a life of my own. The last person Liz seemed to need in her life was the real me. She needed someone different, the person I pretended to be when we emailed each other. I was going to become somebody new, and I was going to get my sister to come to France before her baby was born. Mother would be enraptured: a daughter and a grandchild in one go. This was why I was here. This was what I was doing. I told myself, again, that it was an excellent plan.

As London got closer, I gripped the armrest so tightly that my fingers went white and my nails hurt. The cars drove on the wrong side of the road. Their number plates were clear and big, like a child would draw them. I tried to see people, but we passed by too quickly to see what the English looked like when they were at home.

I stared at lighted windows as the sky grew darker and we started getting closer to London. I saw occasional flashes of people's lives. I could convince myself to be interested in it all, if I wasn't going to have to get off the train and try to become a part of it.

I stretched my legs, and looked around the inside of the carriage. The train was a haven of stale air and anonymity. Nobody else seemed to be at all interested in what was outside the window. This was normal for them. They would think it odd that it was exotic to me. A woman was reading a book. However hard I stared at her, I couldn't work out whether she was English, or French, or something else entirely A Frenchman shouted into his mobile phone, complaining about the lunch menu for an upcoming conference he was hosting. I listened, but failed to work out what sort of conference it was. His voice clashed with that of an Englishman in his thirties who seemed to be speaking to his children. 'Daddy be home soon,' he said soothingly, into his telephone. 'Daddy'll read you a story tonight.' I smiled at him, and looked away, embarrassed, when he caught me watching, listening, envying his children.

There were not many of us in the carriage, and I was certain I was the only one who was scared. I missed Tom, and I was trying not to think that he might be right. I reminded myself again: I am not being ridiculous. I am not going to fail.

London was suddenly outside the window. It was big and dirty. There were billboards, advertisements for investment funds and Hollywood films that meant nothing to me. Other tracks ran alongside ours, and I found myself peering into another train, a smaller one which was packed with people. A couple of them looked straight back at me, unseeing. The other train was gone a moment later. I looked at streets filled with houses, and at roads, and at people, and then we pulled into Waterloo station, and we stopped. Everyone stood up, put their coats on, gathered their things and disappeared. They all, clearly, knew where they were going.

I hung back for as long as I could, putting off my first step on to British soil. I longed to go back and fetch my brother. Perhaps I could summon him, after all, later on. I had never been so far from him before.

When I put my foot down, a shiver ran through me. This was it. I was in England, and I had a job to do.

Nobody in the station glanced at me, even though I felt I looked weird. I was wearing my smart coat, but carrying a backpack, so I was neither a proper young traveller nor the rich girl on tour. That, I supposed, was me all over. I had never had a defined identity. Someone else would have found that liberating. I wished I didn't want to belong.

I walked as purposefully as I could through the crowds, and took the escalator up to the main part of the station. It was five in the afternoon, and the place was alive with a shifting mass of people. There were definitely more people in this station than lived in our whole village at home.

The thought of home made me ill. I pictured the vines and the trees, the little roads with the same cars trundling along them all the time. Everything I despised about home suddenly seemed good, and I hated myself for leaving. As I passed a couple of payphones, I paused, trying to overcome the temptation to call the parents and Tom. Someone walked into my back, then stepped sideways and dodged past without even looking at me. She didn't say sorry. She didn't even tut or frown at me for being in the way. I didn't know why this was crushing, but it was. For some reason, I would have preferred a stream of abuse.

The station was brightly lit. Most people were wearing suits. I looked particularly hard at the women, trying to work out what I needed to do to pass as a Londoner, to make myself acceptable to Liz, first as a friend, and then as a sister.

It was hard to pinpoint anything I could do that would magically make me a local. I found a wall to lean against, by a shop, and shrugged off my backpack. It settled on the tiled floor, and I sat on it, leaned back, and sighed.

I had booked a hotel, but I had no idea how I was going to find it. This station was bad enough: there was no way I was getting on to the Underground train. I was too shy to put out my hand for a taxi. For some reason I thought everyone would be able to tell I was alien here. They would know I didn't belong. I knew London was supposed to be one of those 'melting pot' cities, and, indeed, the people rushing by me were intimidatingly diverse. All but me knew exactly where they were going and exactly how they were going to get there.

I stayed where I was, sitting on my backpack, and waited for things to calm down. I imagined that these people were all rushing for the same few trains, and that when the trains left, everything would be calmer, less intimidating. Yet the rush went on.

I took the piece of paper from my pocket. I needed to get from here to Norfolk Square, Paddington, London W2. On the map, it hadn't seemed very far. I looked around nervously, searching for someone to ask for directions. The women looked just as scary as the men, and I didn't dare approach any of them.

I stood up, picked up my bag, and walked out of the nearest exit. It was almost properly dark now. I set off down a street, at random. The city was swallowing me up. I couldn't get a grip on it. Changing trains in Paris had been fine. Paris was like Bordeaux. It wasn't busy. I had been able to get on the Métro, to ride to my stop, and to get off again, at the Gare du Nord. London was enormous and terrifying, and even though it should still have been daytime, it felt like night. The air was dirty, and cold. Everything was different, unfamiliar, and unfriendly. I turned corners at random, took side streets, walked purposefully with my head down. From time to time I risked a glance at the grey buildings that towered above me on either side. I passed a bar, and looked in through the bright, misted windows. It was crammed with people, all of them in suits, everyone shouting and laughing and drinking. Loud music followed me up the road.