The Ugly Sister (3 page)

Abi smoothes down her hair – grown long again since her rebellious student days and now fairer, streaked with a white blonde – as if her subconscious knows that she needs to smarten up to match her surroundings. She leans back, taking in the vast majesty of the place and her nerve leaves her. She suddenly has no idea why she had thought this would be a good idea. If she hotfoots it back to Charing Cross station now she could be back home in Deal in a couple of hours. Except, of course, that home is packed up in boxes and sitting in a dank musty-smelling storage facility in Dover.

The only thing that Abi knows about Primrose Hill beyond the fact that her sister lives here, is that it is – or, at least, once was – home to all sorts of glamorous celebrities who were famous for not very much other than thinking that they looked good and partying a lot. When Cleo had first said that she and Jonty were moving there, Abi had thought, Perfect. It made sense for them to live among the self-anointed beautiful people, all style over substance. She remembers thinking that Primrose Hill must be like a kind of Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills (not that she has ever been) with a bit of
Footballers’ Wives
Cheshire (again, ditto, but she has seen it on TV) thrown in. All McMansions and bling. In actual fact, Abi thinks, looking around now, it all looks rather pretty. The houses are stately and dripping with features that are both original and tasteful. The little shopping street is stuffed full of one-off shops
and restaurants. There are normal-looking people walking their dogs and going about their non-celebrity business. She decides to have a look around the area and try again in a few minutes.

She’s halfway down the steps when she hears someone walking across the hall. She freezes and stands
rigidly to attention, waiting for the door to open. She has been assuming that one of Cleo’s staff would let her in. That’s right. Cleo has staff. ‘My people’ she calls them. As in ‘I’ll get one of my people to call you back’, which is what she said to Abi when Abi called to try to persuade her to go to their dad’s seventy-fifth birthday party a few years back: ‘I’m not sure where I’ll be.’ One of her people did indeed phone back and thanked Abi very formally for the invitation but unfortunately Cleo had a prior engagement and would not be able to attend. ‘Thank you for thinking of her,’ he’d added insincerely.

‘Do you know I’m her sister?’ Abi had said, not being able to hide her irritation. ‘Do you know that this is an invitation to our dad’s birthday party not some show-business lunch or the opening of a new art gallery?’ To be fair he had been very apologetic and had completely dropped the sanctimonious tone and Abi had known that this was in no way his fault. Cleo had obviously just given him a bunch of requests to turn down and hadn’t even thought it worthy of a mention that one of them was from family.

Anyway, Abi is standing there rigid, holding her breath, still thinking of leaving rather than waiting for one of the ‘people’, when the door opens and there she is. Cleo. Abi’s big sister Caroline, aka Cleo the supermodel. Abi is momentarily dazzled by the five-thousand-watt welcoming smile. The smile that always makes you feel you’re the person Cleo most
wants to see in the world. Until you know better, that is.

‘Abigail! Come in. It’s so good to see you.’

Abi feels the breath squeezed out of her as Cleo sweeps her up in a big embrace. She savours the moment, hugging her sister back, which is a bit awkward what with the Debenhams bag and the champagne. She inhales Cleo’s signature ‘Exotica’ scent and marvels, as she always does, about the fact that Cleo still has some left, it having been discontinued years ago. Then she allows herself to be led inside and into the enormous hallway, which is easily twice as big as Abi’s whole house and probably four times as expensive. She has never been to this house before – even though Cleo, Jonty and their two girls have lived here for the best part of six years – and she struggles, trying to find the words in her head to describe it. Palatial, opulent, lavish, regal (although that last one is more or less covered by palatial and so doesn’t really count). Lush, Phoebe might say, Abi thinks fondly. Fierce.

If the outside is intimidating, then the inside is its scarier bigger brother. All marble and dark wood and classic, ornately framed works of art and antique vases and that’s just the hallway. Abi doesn’t really have time to take it all in though because she is trying to take in her sister. Every time they see each other these days it has been so long since the last time, and Abi’s vision has been so clouded by the airbrushed images of Cleo that pop up in the most unlikely places (her face was on one
of the best-selling posters of the 1980s, every boy student had it and you still see it for sale everywhere. A gaunt faun’s face peering out from under that fringe, her long hair just-got-out-of-bed sexy, endless bare legs emerging from the volume of her oversized thigh-skimming sweat top, which had cheekily slipped off one tanned shoulder; you know the one. That’s her. That’s Cleo)
that she has to adjust her mental picture to take account of the real live woman. Cleo is still beautiful, there’s no doubt about that. Still tall (obviously, Abi doesn’t know why that one always surprises her), still slim although, thankfully, not the emaciated stick that she was in her twenties. Still groomed to within an inch of her life. Still, to be honest, scary.

When she stopped modelling about five years ago, Cleo had allowed herself to relax just a little after an adult lifetime of a strict self-enforced dieting regime. To Abi’s eyes she looked even more beautiful, more natural, more like a real person, but some of the papers had been a little unkind. One of the glossy magazines printed a blow-up of a photo of Cleo on the beach with a red circle highlighting a microscopic area of cellulite. Several times journalists had insinuated that she didn’t quit of her own volition as she has always stated, but that her looks simply hadn’t stood the test of time like Naomi’s and Cindy’s had, and that she had pissed off so many people with her attitude on the way up that they were positively queuing to push her back down again and then stamp all
over her when they got the chance. Abi has no idea what the true story is. It isn’t something
she’s ever felt she can ask.

Cleo’s trademark hair is still dark brown, nearly black, although she has grown out her thick fringe and trimmed the whole thing to a stylish shoulder length. The sleepy upward tilt of her eyes is as pronounced as ever. Maybe more pronounced – can that be possible? Her skin is ridiculous. Smooth and glowing and healthy. Actually, Abi thinks, maybe it’s a little too smooth. She catches herself wondering, not for the first time, if Cleo has had Botox. Or worse.

‘You look great,’ Cleo says, holding Abi at arm’s length. Her smile doesn’t quite meet her eyes. Not because it isn’t sincere necessarily, but because her face is refusing to move to accommodate it.

‘You too.’ Abi feels herself blush a little and realizes that she has come over all shy and clumsy. Straight back to adolescence. This happens to her pretty much every time she sees Cleo. It’s like their relationship, from Abi’s point of view, halted at the point where Cleo left home, and whenever they spend any time together she is instantly transported back to her awkward thirteen-year-old self, wanting approbation from her big sister.

‘This house is incredible.’

Cleo smiles graciously again and says yes, they love it and that she’ll show Abigail straight up to her room if she’d like so that she can get settled in. Abi latches
on to this as if it is the most profound statement she’s ever heard.

‘Great. Perfect. How are you?’ she asks and even she is stunned by her own banality.

‘I’m well,’ Cleo says. ‘Busy.’

Abi thinks about asking her what she is busy with since she no longer works, but that might sound rude so she says nothing. It’s always like this when they haven’t seen each other for a while. It takes a few minutes to warm up. They have to feel their way around each other, both conscious that their relationship is held together by a few fragile threads and neither wanting to be the one responsible for breaking them irreparably. She follows Cleo across the hall and up the stairs, looking around in awe. There are ornate mirrors and sculptures everywhere you look. Everything, right down to the handles on the doors, is exquisite. It’s like a show home, something from the pages of
Country Life
. There is no obvious evidence that a family lives here. It’s perfect. Sterile. Abi assumes that some of Cleo’s people, the ones who do the housekeeping, must spend all day tidying and polishing. It’s
intimidating. Abi finds herself wondering all over again if this is such a good idea. She and Cleo hardly know each other. Caroline is long gone. Abi isn’t sure any longer what she was hoping to achieve by spending the next two months in a house of near strangers. Part of her, she knows, has been fantasizing that the sisters can somehow recapture some of
what they once had. That Cleo’s mask will fall and there will be the old Caroline, funny and clumsy and, above all, Abi’s friend. But, actually, now that she’s here, she really isn’t sure Caroline could be alive and well living in a house like this.

When Caroline and Abigail were fourteen and eleven they took a vow that they would be each other’s best friend forever. They were too squeamish to swear in blood so they used tomato ketchup instead, smearing it on their thumbs and rubbing them together, laughing at the gory mess they’d created. Abigail felt safe and secure knowing her big sister had her back, and about a week later, when a boy in Caroline’s class who Abigail had liked for ages asked her if she wanted to meet him in town on Saturday morning, Caroline had proved her worth as protector.

Gary Parsons had a haircut like Ian McCulloch from Echo & the Bunnymen and Abigail had often seen him smoking in the alleyway beside the school and thought he looked very big and very clever. She’d taken to hanging around outside Caroline’s classroom at break time (cue much shouting of ‘Why are you hanging around me all the time? It’s embarrassing’) in the hopes of reaching the dizzy heights of him one day saying ‘all right?’ and her being able to say ‘yeah, you?’ in a cool and insouciant way. She’d been practising. Anyway, to cut a long story short, they had all righted and yeah, you’d? successfully a
couple of times and then one day they exchanged a couple of other scintillating words and then Gary had dropped his bombshell of asking Abigail to meet him upstairs at McDonald’s in town at eleven o’clock that Saturday.

It was her first date. She was nearly faint with excitement. She couldn’t wait to tell Caroline. Caroline got asked on dates all the time. Sometimes she went, sometimes she didn’t. She didn’t seem that bothered. But she’d mirrored Abigail’s excitement when Abigail blurted out her news, she’d indulged her in her trauma about what to wear and how to do her hair. She’d coached her in the art of captivating conversation based on her observations in class of what Gary’s interests might be.

Then, on the Thursday, just as Abigail’s excitement peaked, with the watershed that was the coming weekend – the transitional step between her childhood and the fabulous, glamorous life of an adult – set firmly in her sights, Caroline had come home from school, taken Abigail up to her tiny attic bedroom and told her that Gary was not the boy Abigail thought he was. He had betrayed her already without ever really giving their love a chance.

Caroline had found herself sitting next to him in double Biology and somewhere along the life cycle of the frog, between amplexus and the metamorphosis, he had admitted to her that it was she, Caroline, that he was really interested in and not Abigail. In fact,
Caroline had said in a half whisper to emphasize how awful she felt for having to tell Abigail this, he had said that he had only got friendly with Abigail in the first place to get closer to Caroline. Then he’d asked Caroline to meet him in McDonald’s and to tell Abigail not to bother, Caroline told Abigail, a look of horror mixed with concern clouding her face. Could she believe that? The cheek of it. Caroline had turned him down, obviously, telling him exactly what she thought of him. He wasn’t good enough for either of them she’d said, so loudly that the teacher had asked her what was going on.

Abigail had cried from the sheer shame of it and Caroline had mopped up her tears and comforted her with the fact that it was far better for Abigail to have found out what kind of person Gary really was now rather than later. Rather pitifully, devastated though she was, Abigail had still wondered whether she should turn up on Saturday as arranged. That maybe she and Gary could pretend nothing had happened and he might still agree to become her boyfriend. But Caroline had talked her out of it. She wouldn’t let her sister show herself up like that, she’d said. Abigail had to keep her dignity and not go chasing a boy who was clearly far more interested in Caroline’s looks than anything Abigail’s own personality might have to offer. There must be a boy out there somewhere who valued brains over beauty and Abigail should wait for him to come along and announce himself. Despite
her misery Abigail
had known that she was lucky to have an older sister looking out for her.

‘The girls are at their friends’,’ Cleo says as she leads Abi up several flights of stairs. Abi nods, panting. She’s out of breath by floor two and she knows there are still more to come. It’s beyond her why you would ever need to go to the gym if you lived in a house this size. Just going up to bed at night would constitute a workout.

‘They should be home any minute. They’re dying to see you.’

Abi finds it hard to imagine that the arrival of an aunt they hardly know is going to be the highlight in the girls’ social calendar. The girls, by the way, are Tara and Megan. Ten and seven. The family Christmas newsletter that always accompanies the card generally makes it sound as if the girls are accomplished in ways you couldn’t even begin to imagine – tennis, dancing, languages, polo, international diplomacy, you name it. No doubt they’re also well versed in etiquette and could ace an exam in their sleep on which forks go where and which way to pass the port.

Abi is intimidated by the very idea of them. She hasn’t seen either girl in the flesh for a couple of years – apart from in the pictures on the aforementioned Christmas cards, which are always happy family portraits like the ones the queen sends out, only with less tartan. They had still seemed like normal little girls
then, a bit overconfident, but when has that ever been a bad thing? Now their list of skills mastered and engagements attended threatens to eclipse the curriculum vitae of Abi’s entire thirty-eight-year life. To put it bluntly, they scare her.