The Ugly Sister (30 page)

It seems to Abi that Cleo’s brittle defensive mask is weakening by the day. Not completely cracking, not yet, but the fault lines are widening. Something between the two of them has changed; it’s as if a switch has been flicked and the stiffness, the polite formality, has gone. They’re bordering on something like a normal, friendly relationship. Abi knows it’s too soon to hope they’re going to morph into the Waltons, but it feels like progress. Bizarrely whatever happened between Cleo and Richard may turn out to be the best thing for Cleo and Abi. Cleo is being extra nice to Jon too, which both pleases and upsets Abi. She wants their marriage to work, she really does, but seeing Cleo with her hand
on his arm or her arms thrown round his shoulders is almost more than she can bear.

One evening they’re playing Trivial Pursuit on the PlayStation, the five of them holed up in the cosy family room, the adults sharing their second bottle of wine, and Megan and Abi munching through a bag of microwaved popcorn. It’s Megan’s turn. She chooses entertainment, reads the question aloud.

‘Who first presented
The Tonight Show
on NBC in 1992?’

She looks clueless, looks around the room for any help that might be coming her way.

‘Don’t give her any clues,’ Tara says, looking accusingly at her father. ‘It’s not fair.’

Jon looks at Megan struggling, takes pity on her.

‘Jay …’ he offers up.

Megan looks none the wiser for a moment, then a big smile crosses her face. She’s got it.

‘JLS.’

Jon tries to keep a straight face. ‘Um … not JLS, no.’

Cleo’s face starts to twitch and then she snorts, which makes both Abi and then Jon start laughing in turn.

‘Sorry, Meggy. I’m not laughing at you,’ Cleo manages to say. Megan knows she’s lying, looks indignant.

‘JLS,’ Cleo says, wiping her eyes. ‘JLS! I don’t know why that’s so funny, but it is. Sorry, Megan.’

She lies back on the sofa giggling helplessly, one hand covering her mouth, and Abi thinks, Finally, there she is; there’s Caroline.

‘Is that a homeless person sitting on our steps?’

Megan, Tara and Abi are on their way home from a trip to Somerset House where Abi left the girls in the courtyard running in and out of the fountains with all the other kids while she had a quick art fix in the Courtauld Gallery. Now they’re walking home from the tube station (sorry, Cleo, your girls are now old hands at getting the underground) and Megan is pointing to where, indeed, there is a scruffy young woman with long dark hair sitting on their front porch. Something in the way she brushes her long fringe away from her eyes strikes a chord and Abi’s heart begins to beat like there’s no tomorrow. She breaks into what – for her – counts as a run. By which she means she starts to walk fast.

‘Phoebe? Phoebs?’

Phoebe stands up and practically throws herself at her mother. ‘Mum!’

Tara and Megan – who haven’t seen their cousin for a couple of years – stand open-mouthed as Abi hugs her daughter who, judging by the general air of her, not to mention the smell, may not have had a bath for several days. She’s sure that Tara must be dying a few ‘What will the neighbours think?’ deaths but Abi doesn’t care. Her little girl needs her.

Well, not exactly little. Phoebe towers above her. She has her aunt’s height.

‘What’s happened? What are you doing here?’

Phoebe looks at her – Abi thinks she’s lost weight in the few weeks she’s been away, something she could ill afford to do in Abi’s opinion – and immediately bursts into tears.

‘Everyone hates me,’ she wails.

Inside they sit Phoebe down in the living room and Abi sends Tara off to make her a cup of tea. Phoebe tells Abi a long tale about how she has fallen out with her two friends because one of them liked Jimmy but Phoebe got off with him (lovely, just what Abi wants to hear) and then her other friend accused her of doing it deliberately just to show off that he liked her best and then Jimmy didn’t want to see her again anyway because it turns out he has a long-term girlfriend back home.

Abi waits for the big sting at the end – ‘and now I’m pregnant’ or ‘and he gave me herpes,’ but of course it never comes. In Phoebe’s only just post-adolescent world, falling out with her friends is enough of an international incident to send her fleeing back across Europe into her mother’s arms. While Abi feels for her, of course she does, she is so relieved that nothing more serious has happened that she almost laughs. She lets Phoebe cry herself out noisily like she used to when she was little, occasionally stroking her
hair and telling her it’ll all be OK. Eventually it seems Phoebe has got it all out of her system because she suddenly sits up and says, ‘I’m starving.’

‘Why don’t I take you upstairs and you can have a quick bath while I fix you something to eat? Pasta? Pizza? I’m not sure what we have.’

Phoebe sniffs at herself. ‘Do I smell? I smell, don’t I?’

Abi shrugs and Megan says, ‘You do a bit,’ which makes Phoebe laugh.

‘Hi, girls, by the way. Remember me? I probably wasn’t this much of a mess last time you saw me.’

Tara wrinkles her nose. ‘Definitely.’

‘Actually, girls, why don’t you show Phoebe up to my room? That way I can get some food on. Twenty minutes, OK?’

Phoebe nods, managing a smile. Tara and Megan edge round her like she’s electrified and then beckon her to follow them out to the hall. Abi imagines they’d be behaving in the same way if she’d brought home a mangy old dog she’d found in the street. Interested but wary. Needing to make sure it wasn’t going to bite before they get too close.

‘Wow, you’ve grown, both of you,’ Phoebe says as she follows them, a guaranteed crowd-pleaser for pre-teenagers.

‘I’m the same height as my mum was at my age,’ Tara says proudly.

‘Bring your washing down,’ Abi shouts after them.
‘And use anything of mine you want.’ She realizes that the idea of having someone to look after again is making her feel euphoric.

Twenty-five minutes later, just as Abi is worrying that the bean chilli she’s rustled up is going to be dried out, Phoebe reappears, looking like the after photo in an advert for a miracle beauty product. She’s wearing a dress of Abi’s, which, while too big in one way (width-wise, obviously) is also too small in another, so that what, on Abi, is a run-of-the-mill knee-length sun dress has become a stunning mini, belted in at the waist, on her gazelle-like daughter. She looks tanned and glowy and a lot happier than she did half an hour ago.

‘How are you feeling?’

‘Better,’ she says, and gives Abi a hug. Her hair is wet and smells of Abi’s mint shampoo. ‘Stupid. I think I overreacted. I just got an email from Carly saying sorry and that they’re worried about me.’

‘Well, you can always go back and join them later in the summer if you feel like it. But first you’re going to stay here for a bit and I’m going to feed you up.’

‘Great,’ Phoebe says, and she sets about the chilli as if she hasn’t eaten for weeks. Tara and Megan sit at the other side of the table and stare at her in awe.

‘How tall are you?’ Tara says after a while, and Phoebe says, ‘About five nine.’

‘You should be a model,’ Tara says, and Abi imagines that’s the highest compliment she can pay anyone.

‘Why would I want to do that?’ Phoebe says between mouthfuls, and Abi says, ‘Phoebe …’ to remind her where she is.

‘I mean not that there’s anything wrong with it. I just wouldn’t fancy it, that’s all. Thinking about what you look like all the time and never being able to eat what you want. Doing what you’re told and never being in charge? Boring.’

‘But …’ Tara starts to say. In her world no one who was physically suited to being a model would ever want to do anything else. She’s been brought up to think it’s the pinnacle of existence.

‘I’d rather be a fashion designer and make the clothes all the models want to wear,’ Phoebe continues. ‘That way I can get old and fat and still be rich and successful.’

‘I want to be a nurse,’ Megan says.

‘Wow. Good for you,’ Phoebe says. ‘I really admire people who want to be nurses. I don’t think I could do it myself. I’m not brave enough.’

Megan beams. ‘Or an architect. I haven’t decided.’

‘Well. Either would be brilliant,’ Phoebe says.

‘Last week she wanted to be a vet,’ Tara says dismissively. ‘She keeps changing her mind.’

‘How about you? What do you want to be?’

‘A model,’ Tara says as if it’s obvious.

‘Right. What if you don’t grow tall enough, though?’

‘I will.’

‘Well,’ Phoebe says, ‘you might not. I mean look at
me, I inherited my height from Auntie Cleo. You might get yours from my mum.’

Tara shoots Abi an accusatory look.

‘Sorry,’ Abi mumbles apologetically.

‘I’m just saying,’ Phoebe says. ‘You should come up with a back-up plan. Just in case.’

If she hadn’t grown so fond of Tara, the look on her niece’s face probably would have made Abi laugh.

‘Do you want anything else?’ Abi says to Phoebe. ‘I think there’s frozen yoghurt? Or would you rather go off to bed for a bit? You must be exhausted.’

Phoebe reaches up and takes her hand. ‘Mum, stop fussing. I’m fine.’

‘I know you are, but you have to let me fuss. It gives me a purpose in life.’

Phoebe stands up and kisses Abi on the top of the head. ‘You need to get out more.’

Abi doesn’t say anything, but she thinks Phoebe might have a point.

By the time Jon and then Cleo get home Abi has washed all of Phoebe’s stuff and it’s chuntering around in the dryer in the basement. The house smells like laundry, one of Abi’s all-time favourite smells. Phoebe, Tara and Megan are sitting round the big table making necklaces out of things Phoebe has found in the kitchen like macaroni and chillis and red lentils which they are piercing with safety pins. It all looks a bit lethal but Abi trusts Phoebe not to let the
girls do anything too potentially dangerous. She has been quizzing her about her weeks away and, to be fair, it all sounds like fun apart from the last few days. There’s definitely no lasting damage done and it seems like really Phoebe just wanted to come home for a bit of TLC. Abi has no doubt she’ll rejoin her friends sometime soon.

Jon and Cleo make a fuss of her, and they both just seem to assume she’ll stay, which Abi is grateful for. Cleo looks Phoebe up and down and says, ‘Gosh, you turned out pretty,’ as if that’s a major surprise considering who her mother is. Phoebe, who seems oblivious to compliments generally, just rolls her eyes and manages to mutter a thank you. She goes off to make up the bed in the room next to her mother’s, and Tara and Megan who – now she is scrubbed up and looking less like a hobo – seemingly can’t take their eyes off their grown-up cousin, follow her upstairs where, Abi has no doubt, she will put them to work.

‘Thanks for saying she can stay,’ Abi says to Jon once the girls are out of earshot. Cleo has gone to get changed and Abi and Jon and find themselves unexpectedly alone. ‘Sorry we couldn’t give you any notice.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ he says, and he hands her a bag of carrots and the peeler. She is so grateful for the gesture, which to her says, ‘Let’s try to go back to our normal, friendly way of getting along,’ as much as it says, ‘Can you help me prepare the veg?’ that she
practically grabs the peeler out of his hand and sets to in record time. Its seems like a year since she and Jon used to prepare the dinner together every night. ‘She’s family. She’s always welcome. Is she OK? Did something happen?’

‘She fell out with her friends. Over a boy. I get the impression it’s all blown over already. She just wanted to make a grand gesture, I think. Storm off and hope they felt bad. It worked. I must try it sometime.’

‘I can’t imagine you’re the grand-gesture type.’

‘No. I’m more your put-up-with-it-silently-for-years-then-go-mad-with-an-AK47 kind of woman.’ Jon laughs as he’s meant to. ‘Actually, I was never given to histrionics. Even with Phoebe’s father I let him off pretty lightly when he said he wanted out. I just didn’t see the point of trying to force him to change his mind. You can’t make someone do something they don’t want to do.’

‘No,’ Jon says with a hint of resignation in his voice. ‘I suppose you can’t.’

Oops. Abi has inadvertently torn a tiny puncture in the easy atmosphere that they have so carefully constructed around them. She needs to patch it up quickly before too much of the stuff they’ve tried so hard to suppress leaks out. She has to get the conversation back onto a light and unthreatening topic, so that they can keep up the front that everything is fine between them. She has gathered from Jon during one of their – very general – chats as they eat dinner that
the
onehitcomparison.com
campaign is all done and dusted. That they went with the inspired slogan ‘The one-hit wonder’ in the end. She has been waiting with baited breath for the finished article to pop up on some cable channel somewhere, in between
Most Haunted
and
Britain’s Worst Parents
. Jon and his team have now shifted their attention to a chain of discount
shops called Bargain Hunters whose USP seems to be that everything they sell is damaged in some way and therefore ridiculously cheap. Abi misses the fun easy conversations they used to have where they made each other laugh trying to come up with slogans as they diced vegetables.

‘How’s Bargain Hunters coming on?’

‘Why pay for perfect packaging?’

‘Right. That’s good. To the point. What’s the story going to be?’

‘Normal mum next door with two adorable kids, in the supermarket picking up beautifully packaged produce. Looks in her purse; she doesn’t have enough money for what she wants to buy. Voiceover says, “Why pay extra for the stuff on the outside?” Cut to the woman going into Bargain Hunters, filling her basket with the same stuff she was looking at in the supermarket, but it’s all damaged and torn. Voiceover says, “When it’s what’s on the inside that counts.” Woman at the till, paying with coins, big smile on her face. Turns to the camera, “Why pay for perfect packaging?” The end.’

Not much she can say to that. It’s hardly genius, it’s not going to win awards but it’s a hundred per cent product appropriate. Which is surely all that really matters with advertising.