Seven Days of Us(40)
“Wiv, are you coming?” shouted her mother from the corridor. Emma had declared today an “attic clear-out.” Olivia felt drained at the prospect. The attics gave her the creeps. It was Phoebe who used to love playing up there, trying on talc-scented dresses, sometimes emerging in full period dress when their parents had guests, so that everyone could coo and get the camera out.
“In a sec!” she shouted back. She had ignored her mother’s summons twice now. She would have to haul herself up there soon.
The attics at Weyfield spanned the whole top floor, but the rooms were dingy and low ceilinged—at the eaves even Phoebe had to bend double. There was one main room, three other rooms, and various cell-like bedrooms, which her mother said had belonged to teenage maids. It made Olivia feel grubby, as if she was implicated in a caste system against her will. She found Emma and Phoebe in the main room, cross-legged on the splintery floor, beside a box of yellow papers. “Liv! It’s our reports,” said Phoebe. “This is me in year seven, chemistry, Dr. Spiro. ‘Phoebe is a dithtraction to otherth,’” she read out, with a pompous lisp. “‘Unlike her thithter, she lackth focuth. Phoebe would do well to remember that thcool is not a thocial occathion, but an opportunity to learn.’” She had Dr. Spiro’s voice spot-on. She’d always been a good mimic.
Her mother was wiping away tears of laughter as she read out, “Autumn term, 1991: Olivia’s performance as a turnip, in the lower school’s production of Harvest Hooray, was outstanding.”
“Oh my god, that play! I was a fairy!” shrieked Phoebe.
Olivia vaguely remembered it, too, but not in the razor-sharp focus that Phoebe seemed to have recorded every moment of childhood.
“Now, there’s a huge pile of your things over in that corner, Wiv,” said her mother. “What do you want to do with the compact discs? And your A-levels, do you still need all that?”
Olivia began looking through the boxes. Here were her lower sixth biology notes and first CDs—Blur, Coldplay, and The Verve. She recalled a bitter row with Phoebe in the back of the car about the musical merits of David Bowie against Britney Spears, when they must have been about fifteen and twelve. That had been the start of realizing that Phoebe was fundamentally misguided. She could hear her sister now, talking about whether she should get married here or in Gunston Hall, and how here was more “her,” but maybe Gunston would better achieve the Winter Wonderland theme she wanted. Her sense of entitlement was mind-boggling. Not just Phoebe’s—this entire country’s. Olivia shunted the box she had emptied to one side, and there, beneath it, was a loose floorboard she recognized. She and Phoebe used to hide things in the space beneath it, when they still played together. Prizing it up, she uncovered a nest of Kinder Egg wrappers and a Start-rite shoebox. It was labeled, in Olivia’s own childish script, “TIME CAPSULE 1992 DO NOT OPEN UNTIL 2092.” Without thinking, she shouted, “Phoebe, I’ve found our time capsule!”
Her sister darted over, shrieking, “No way, I remember doing that so well! Open it!”
Olivia peeled back the Sellotape, gooey with age, and took off the lid. Inside the box was a Sylvanian Families rabbit, a tube of rock-hard Opal Fruits, a photo of their first cat, a smelly eraser, a bath pearl, a Save the Rainforest pamphlet, a blank cassette, and Olivia’s treasured Filofax. In the middle was a jam jar, with an inch of gray water at the bottom.
“How old were we, eight and five?” said Phoebe.
“Guess so, if it was ’92.”
“It was your idea. I thought it was so cool.”
“What is that?” said Olivia, reaching for the jar.
“Our perfume, remember? Rose of the Valley.”
Olivia saw the tiny label reading “Rose of the Vally” in her best italics. They looked at each other, and Olivia saw Phoebe as her little disciple again, following her everywhere.
“Wow, that must smell rank,” she said.
“It was pretty foul at the time, wasn’t it? Dare me to?” said Phoebe, thrusting the open jar under Olivia’s nose before she could answer. Her half laugh, half shriek, as she batted Phoebe away, made their mother look up in surprise.
“Hey, here’s the letter,” said Phoebe, unfolding a piece of Disney notepaper. “‘To the person that opens this time capsule,’” she began reading. “‘Our names are Olivia and Phoebe Birch, we are eight and five. We go to St. Edwards School. When I grow up I’m going to be a doctor, and Phoebe wants to be a pop star. We like playing Operation, Fimo, Sylvanians, and Pass the Pigs. Our Mummy and Daddy are called Emma and Andrew, and we have a ginger cat called Freckles. The tape is a tape of our songs, from our band Sugar n Spice.’”
“Sugar n Spice!” they shouted in unison, both reaching for the tape. “Mummy, we’ve found the tape from when we had our girlband,” said Phoebe. “Where’s that Walkman?”
But now that Olivia had started giggling, she couldn’t stop. She wanted to say, “Do you remember ‘Rainbow of Love’?” but she couldn’t speak. Her cheeks were hurting, and tears were starting to squeeze out of her eyes, at the memory of the two of them putting the camera on timer and trying to pose sexily.
“You’re crying!” said Phoebe, dissolving into giggles herself, and then warbling: “Raaaainbow of Lo-ve, you’re red like a ruby,” before standing up to do the dance routine. She put the tape in a dusty Sony Walkman and, miraculously, it began to whir. A sound like a cat came screeching out—Olivia, aged eight, warbling: “Laaaand ahoooooy! Laaaand ahoooooy!”