Blood Sisters(38)

‘Crispin’s got this really floppy fringe that’s so cool,’ simpered Vanessa.

‘Yes, he has,’ echoed my sister.

Didn’t they realize how serious this was? ‘My essay counts towards my final A-level mark,’ I yelled, grabbing a tea towel and trying to blot the pages.

‘It will be all right, Ali.’ Mum came in to hear the tail end of our argument and handed me some kitchen roll in a vain attempt to soak up the coffee. But it was too late. The ink had run. My essay was totally illegible.

‘They’ve got three cars in the drive – three – and they’re building a swimming pool in the garden,’ squealed Kitty. ‘They’ve come from somewhere called Ealing.’

Vanessa interrupted. ‘That’s near London.’

She said the word with reverence.

‘I need that essay,’ I said, trying not to cry.

Mum was looking doubtfully at the sodden pages. ‘Do you have a copy?’

‘NO.’

I wanted to kill my sister. She was still going on about Crispin and London. I’d only been there once. It was for a wedding, when I’d been bridesmaid to one of my mother’s younger cousins. Kitty – always needing to be the centre of attention – had had one of her toddler tantrums because I was following the bride up the aisle and not her. It ruined the whole ceremony.

Last year she and Vanessa had gone on a school trip to see the Houses of Parliament. How I’d have loved that – what an experience! – but they’d slipped off to Oxford Street during Prime Minister’s Questions and bought a pair of jeans each with their emergency money. Not only did they frighten the teachers by disappearing like that but they also delayed the coach back to Devon.

David and Mum actually told them off that time. Not that the girls cared. ‘One day,’ Kitty sniffed, ‘Vanessa and I are going to get out of this dump and find jobs in Knightsbridge. That’s the best bit of London. All the magazines say so.’

The sooner the better, as far as I was concerned. If only David was a bit stricter, Kitty might be better behaved. But his precious daughter – or ‘princess’ as he was always calling her – could do no wrong in his sight. Mum just went along with it because she didn’t want to upset David. She never said as much to me but I could tell. Sometimes, when it was just the two of us together – like it used to be before she met my stepfather – she’d give me a big hug. ‘You know, there’s always something special about a firstborn.’

So she loved me best! It made me feel a whole lot better. For a time. But then Kitty would start to be horrid again and the whole cycle would continue. It might be different if there wasn’t such a big age gap between us, or if we had more in common. Often I thought that she and Vanessa would have made better sisters than Kitty and me.

They got even worse over the following weeks. ‘Crispin is such a cool name,’ Kitty kept saying. She and Vanessa spent hours discussing him. I knew because sometimes I’d listen in at her bedroom door or – on the rare occasion when they left it slightly open – peep in through the gap.

You wouldn’t think those two were only eleven to hear them speak. Sometimes they’d sneak in some of Mum’s high-heeled shoes and strut around, pretending they were grown up. Kitty’s favourite was a shiny red patent pair.

‘I’m in love!’

This was my sister. How ridiculous was that! She barely knew Crispin.

‘How are we going to get him to notice us?’

‘I’ve told you.’ Vanessa’s sharp know-it-all voice cut in. ‘Borrow my make-up and put it on before you get on the bus.’

‘What if he fancies only one of us?’

There’s a short silence.

‘I don’t know. But we’ve got to find a boyfriend soon or everyone will think there’s something wrong with us, like Ali.’

Ouch.

‘Has she still got that weirdo friend of hers, Robin?’

‘Yeah. They play Leonard Cohen in her bedroom with the door open. How sad is that?’

‘The door or the music?’

‘Both.’

There was the sound of giggling. ‘She ought to do something with her hair.’ That was Vanessa. What cheek! ‘That dead-straight fringe doesn’t do anything for her. And her ears stick out because she keeps tucking it behind them.’

‘Just as well she’s blonde like me or she wouldn’t have anything going for her.’

Sometimes I wondered how two sisters – even half-sisters – with broadly similar features – blonde hair and blue eyes – could turn out so differently. It wasn’t just that I was tall. It was also that Kitty’s nose was smaller with a pretty, turned-up bit at the end. ‘Roman noses like yours are a sign of intelligence,’ Mum would say in an attempt to comfort me. Those blue eyes? Mine were set just a tiny bit too close together. Only a fraction but enough to give a slightly intense look. Kitty’s, of course, were perfect, as if measured to scale.

I told myself that Kitty was just jealous because I was the brighter one. But, to be honest, I’d swap that in a heartbeat to look as pretty as her. And although I was fond of Robin, it was purely in a platonic sense. I didn’t like to admit it, but Crispin did something to my insides that I’d never felt before.