The Sisterhood (25 page)

'You're sure?'

'Of course I'm sure. Are you after any more drinks?'

'No, I don't think so. I just came over to talk to you.'

'Is this your family?' I was dying to ask her about Rosa, but I couldn't.

'Mmm. That's Dad and Sue, and Julie.'

I looked at my reverse-stepfather and wondered if I could term him my 'pets-father'. That was a funny way of making him a stepfather in reverse, but I couldn't tell it to anyone but Tom.

It was nice to be able to look at William Greene properly, after the sneaked sidelong glances I'd been giving him for fifteen minutes.

He was old, but looked kind and friendly. He had changed since Lizzy's baby photos were taken: it was mostly the hair that did it, but he had lost weight, too. As I looked, he caught my eye and smiled. In fact, I would never have recognised him.

Sue looked like a good witch. She had one of those faces that belong to people who have thought happy, kind thoughts for their entire lives. This was the woman who had replaced my mother in William Greene's life, and in Lizzy's life. It looked to me like a good swap. In fact, I was jealous. If this man had been my father, and if this woman was my mother, then Liz would still have been my sister and I would have been a balanced, functional human being from a loving and normal home. I thought I would, anyway.

I managed to play it cool until they left. Liz came over again, after her stepmother had paid the bill, and said, 'So if you're working here, does that mean you live nearby?'

I tried to be cold. 'Yes, I am, actually. Around the corner. Norbert Road. I got it out of
Loot,
like you said. It was the one with the sanest flatmates and the cleanest toilet. Where do you live again?'

She gestured with her head. 'Over there. Did you know that?'

I shook my head. 'Actually, maybe. I think I knew you lived in Kentish Town. I haven't heard of most parts of London, so that probably made it jump off the page at me. Plus I'd already been here, to the café I mean, so I knew the area a tiny bit.'

She nodded. 'We're practically neighbours. Maybe we'll run into each other sometime.' Liz smiled and stroked her bump. It was visible — it was large — and this reminded me that I had to bring her to France before the baby was born, or all my efforts would count for nothing. That probably meant that, now that I had been cool, I needed to be nicer. I should start to reel her in.

'That would be great,' I told her. 'I'd love that.' She turned to leave. 'And Liz?' I said, impulsively.

'Mmm?'

'It's really nice to see you looking so well. You know where to find me. I'm here, most of the time.'

She grinned. 'Nice to know there's a friendly face in the neighbourhood. Cheers.'

We shut the café at midnight. When the floor was clean and the glasses put away, I poured myself a glass of white wine. It wasn't great, but it was open, and it was cold.

Matt dimmed the lights, and leaned on the counter. I looked at him, surprised. He was well-built, and not much taller than I was. Today, his bleached hair had thick black roots. He was dressed all in black, and I noticed that I could see the outlines of his muscles under his T-shirt.

'Do you go to the gym?' I asked, randomly. 'When do you manage that?'

He smiled. 'Good line,' he said. 'I do press-ups every night and every morning. Thanks for noticing. And to return the compliment, how do you stay so skinny? You must be part of the size zero culture that everyone seems to be obsessed with.' He pinched me, and I backed away.

'I'm not size zero,' I told him quickly. 'And I was just born this way. Anyway, you don't help, keeping me running around with a tray of coffee all day long. How do you do this all the time, without falling asleep?'

'It's called work. And I have a secret weapon in the struggle to get through the working day. Do you want something else with your wine?'

'Like what?' I asked primly. 'A snack?' Then I smiled. I liked Matt and I couldn't help but show it.

'No, Helen. Not a snack.'

I thought he might be going to kiss me. Instead, he took something from his jeans pocket. I watched in puzzlement as he unfolded a piece of paper, and took a credit card from his wallet. I couldn't think what he was about to pay for. A pizza delivery, perhaps? As he moved the contents of the paper around carefully with his bank card, I realised what was going on.

'Are those drugs?' I asked, reverently.

He laughed.
'"Are those drugs?"'
he mocked. 'You're sweet, you know that?'

'Am I sweet? Is that good?'

He looked at me, and I blushed. 'Yeah,' he said. 'It's fine.'

I watched him at work for a while, noticing the way his brow furrowed in concentration. He pushed his fringe back, apparently irritated by it at last. Then he rolled up a twenty-pound note and held it out to me.

'Here we go,' he said, proudly. 'Would you like to be my guest?'

'What is it?'

'What is it? Here's a clue. It's white powder and it comes in lines.'

'Not heroin?'

'Are you really so innocent? Is this an act? Because it's a cute one. Helen, this is coke. Everyone does it. Come on.'

Matt put his hand on the small of my back, and showed me what to do. I put the rolled-up money up my nose, shut the other nostril with my finger, and sniffed. The chemicals hit the back of my throat, and I swallowed hard.

He took the note out of my hand. 'My turn,' he said.

While I watched him, my head started to spin. I got up on a bar stool and gripped the counter. The surge of bliss almost knocked me over. I was suddenly, absolutely and utterly happy. I looked at my bare legs. They were beautiful. I was gorgeous. I was happy and gorgeous and I lived in London and everything was going to work out perfectly.

Matt grinned. 'You look cheery.'

I opened my mouth. He pulled me to him, and kissed me.

It was four o'clock when I started to walk home, and my bare legs were freezing. I ran between street lamps, from one pool of light to the next, giggling. I talked loudly to Tom, though he didn't answer. I carried on the conversation I had been having with Matt, although in fact there had been two conversations going on at the same time, most of the time. As well as that, we had kissed a lot.

The kissing was a first for me. We hadn't actually had sex, but I didn't think we had been far from it. Matt had touched me in ways that I had only imagined before. I wanted to do that again, when we were sober. I thought we probably would. I imagined him being my boyfriend.

'I live in London and I've got a boyfriend,' I said aloud. I wondered whether I actually needed a sister at all.

I was happy, happy, happy. All those solemn warnings about the evils of drugs had been a plot to stop me discovering how amazing life could be, how exhilarating it all was. I hoped this feeling would never wear off. I wanted it to last for ever. I wanted to do it all again, and again, and again.

As usual, I took the long route home so I could pass Liz's house. I skipped by on the other side of the road. Then I stopped, and stared up at the windows. I had been doing this for long enough to know that the big window belonged to Liz's bedroom, and the smaller one was in a different room. She and Julie had been in there earlier.

Now the curtains were closed, and there were no lights on. I fought a strong impulse to ring her buzzer and tell her everything.

'Go home,' Tom said. He was shouting. 'Go home!'

I rolled my eyes. 'OK,' I told him. 'Off we go.' And I decided to hop all the way back.

When I got in, I considered waking Adrian and asking him to have sex with me. I didn't do it, and that, I knew, was good.

4 June

The woman was called Nicky, and her voice was soothing.

And hold it for a count of ten,' she intoned. '... eight, nine, ten. And relax.'

Pregnancy yoga was far easier than I had expected it to be, and I was relishing every moment. I had assumed that, like normal yoga, it was going to involve holding agonising postures while my muscles shrieked to be left alone. Instead, I had just stood with my legs apart and reached up towards the ceiling for ten seconds. This much I could manage.

The class was in a big old house that smelt of polish and incense. There were activities going on in several of the rooms. This one had wide floorboards and large windows. There were seven of us in the class. The others were intimidatingly gleaming and well turned out. I stuck to Anna and got on with the exercises. I was annoyed to discover how inferior I felt when suddenly surrounded by women with clip-on bumps and skinny thighs. They all seemed to know each other, and I caught snatches of conversation about whether one needed a doula, and who was going to 'do Gina Ford'.

We ended with relaxation. I lay on my left side, as instructed, and relaxed everything from my toes upwards. 'The neck. Feel the tension slide away,' Nicky breathed. 'And the face. Your mouth ... nose ... eyes. Let the eyes stay loosely closed.' There was a quiet snore from across the room. 'And try to stay this side of the sleep barrier,' Nicky added hurriedly. 'Now. This is a good time for you to be with your baby. Talk to him, or her. Say hello.'

'Hello,' I whispered, though it came out louder than I had intended, and there was a ripple of quiet laughter. 'Hello, baby,' I said, in my head. 'I'm sorry, baby.' I knew my eyes were full of tears, but there was nothing I could do about it. I thought about my innocent child, and the fact that he or she was often the last thing on my mind. I imagined the life I was going to give it. It would go to nursery while it was still a baby, and while it was there it would doubtless be cared for by feckless sixteen-year-olds who nipped out for fags every ten minutes. We would struggle for money all the time. We would never be able to go on foreign holidays, would never see the Pyramids or queue to examine Mao's corpse in Beijing. This baby's father was a woman who didn't believe a word I said, and who thought I had as good as raped her at the conception.

And yet. My father was a good man, and he would help us. My stepmother would do everything she could, even though I knew I had annoyed her lately. Julie and I seemed to be friends. Anna and I were getting on well, and her baby was going to a local nursery too. She was due to give birth in three weeks, and I was terrified, both on her behalf, and because once her baby was born, mine would be next.

I put a hand on my stomach, and the baby stretched a limb out to meet it. I rubbed it. Moments like this, rare as they were, made me feel that nothing else actually mattered, that all the rest of it was a detail.

'Mummy's here,' I mouthed. I was already this baby's entire world. For the moment, it loved me unconditionally, because I was its mother. I let myself consider the possibility that we might be going to be all right, in spite of everything. Then Nicky told us to sit up gently, and I came back down to earth. Although all the usual worries flooded back in, they were slightly more distant than usual.

I gazed at Anna, too wrapped up in the blissful moment to say a word. I was aware of the other women in the room standing up, putting their shoes back on, and leaving. I reached for my own shoes. They were ballet pumps because summer had started pleasantly early. While I pulled them on, I tried to get my thoughts together sufficiently for me to speak.

'Everything all right?' asked Nicky, who was tiny and sensible-looking, with short hair and a pale face. She looked concerned.

I nodded. 'That was a bit too nice,' I told her, wiping my eyes. 'I'm on my own with this pregnancy. It's a scary thing. I never relax like that.'

'It does you good,' she said. 'Sorry to rush you, but I have another class now. Do come back. I look forward to seeing you next week?' She said it as a question, and I nodded.

'Definitely.'

Anna was looking at me and laughing. 'Didn't I say that you'd like it?' she said as we walked down the front stairs together. It was pleasant to walk into the sunshine, and I hoped that my sleepy happy feeling would continue. I looked sideways at Anna. My seven-month pregnant stomach looked large to me, but Anna's full term one was far more impressive. The black dress she was wearing covered it like a tablecloth, and seemed to end a metre or so in front of her. Her black hair reached all the way down her back. Everything about Anna was gorgeous: she was one of those people who are made to be pregnant.

'You might not be here next week,' I told her. 'You look like you're about to burst.'

'Yeah, cheers for that,' she said, laughing. 'Jeremy said to me last night, "There's no way that's coming out naturally." I mean, thanks. Cheer me up, why don't you?'

I waved a hand. 'You'll have a great birth. You've been going to yoga, after all. It's funny because before I was pregnant I thought the idea of childbirth was petrifying, but these days, that's the one part I don't care about. I read people's birth stories on the forum — I read them obsessively sometimes — and you do read things like, "and after four days of labour they said I wasn't progressing and so they gave me a section", but I just assume it'll be fine. You know? It's a day or so — how bad can it be?'

'I know. Me too. Forget about labour. It's the bit where they let you keep the baby that worries me.'

'Tell me about it.'

We strolled towards Matt's place. I had seen Helen in there a couple of times lately, and I was regretting ever having been so horrible to her. She was unremittingly kind to me, and I needed people like that around.

I was pleased to see that she was working today. She was wearing a skimpy red dress, with her hair in an eighties-style high ponytail. The trouble with Helen was that she could carry anything off, and she often seemed to have no idea of how sexual she looked. Today, she seemed tired.

'Hi, Helen,' I called as we came in.

Anna looked at her. I saw that she was screwing up her face, trying to place her.

'Hello,' Helen said. She looked at Anna, shrugged, and looked away.

'I've seen you around, I think,' Anna said suddenly. 'Do you hang out near Lizzy's house?'