“I don’t want to drink and smoke anymore,” She told me over the phone one night, “I don’t want to discover every boy who’s interested in me is a scumbag. My flatmates are sluts and slobs. This street I live on stinks! It smells like something died in the gully! A few nights ago a girl was raped a block away from my flat. I don’t want to be here, Silvia! I have to make a change before it‘s too late, but I don‘t have any money!”
“You can come here, Lu,” I told her. My heart ached for my sister.
“Do you have space?”
“For my sister, yes! We’ll make space!”
“Will I be imposing?” She gulped the words, but sounded hopeful, as if somebody had just switched on a torch in a dark room and she could faintly see a door out.
“Lucy Cotton! Imposing? Good Lord, what are you talking about? It’s no imposition!”
“Well, maybe I’ll stay a week or two then?” I could hear a tissue rub across the receiver. Lucy cried easier than me and that was saying something.
“You can stay as long as you like.” I promised, “You always have a home with us.”
“Oh, Sil! Home! Do you know how long it's been since I've really had a home?”
She rang me the following evening to tell me that she’d booked a ticket on a train.
“I’m so happy!” I squealed, literally jumping up and down, “The Cotton sisters teamed up with the Dickinson boys once again! Oh, Lucy, I hope nobody gets hurt! “
She laughed, “It’ll be too much fun! It’ll be sick! “
I ran out into the garden where the twins were standing the moment I got off the phone, “Lucy will be here on Saturday!” I shouted as I skipped crossed the lawn, “She’s really coming this time!”
“Sweet Little Lucy Cotton!” Alexander grinned, “I haven’t seen her in donkey’s years!”
“That’s excellent, Love!” Oliver shaded his eyes from the setting sun, “Little Lucy Cotton here with us in the wood once again! We’ll have to do something special!”
“I’m going to buy her chocolate,” Alex nodded in agreement with himself.
“Well, aren’t you thoughtful?” Oliver patronisingly observed.
“Goddamn right I am! She loves that crap!”
Oliver was on call at hospital on the day she came, so it was Alex and I who dropped the children off with Ana and went to get her at the rail stop. We were quite early so we grabbed a bite and had a nice chat in a pub down the road. Alex was in good spirits that day. He reminded me of the old Alex; engaging, funny and bright. It was great spending the afternoon with my best friend. Funny how we had been living in the same house and I had still missed his company.
Every time I saw my sister since I’d left her at Bennington, she’d amazed me with how she’d transform herself. The only thing we had in common physically was our red hair, although Lucy’s was a tamer shade to my fiery auburn. Lucy was taller than me and as a young girl, she had a body narrow as a ruler. No hips on that girl, small, perky breasts, a tiny little bum. She had a lovely face with a button for a nose and a smile that stole the hearts of men. And she was cute with how she carried herself, too, skipping about like she hadn’t a care in the world. But when she felt like changing the way she appeared, she may as well have been a magician. Lucy could go gothic one night to a club looking like a vampire and be dressed in a ball gown the next looking like a film star. The last time I had seen my sister was when Carolena was born. She’d still had her straightened then. It was cut as high as her chin in a symmetrical bob, a la Victoria Beckham, and it gave her a rather hard appearance. She’d been wearing false eyelashes and a lot of make up at the time and she’d looked lovely, but as if she was trying too hard to achieve something she was not.
I was not prepared for the woman who stepped off the train that afternoon. Her hair had grown to her shoulders. It bounced as she walked, silky strawberry strips of curly locks all around her face. Her makeup was light and natural and accented her dark eyes. She’d developed hips, noticeable, noticeable, and I thought to myself that her perky breasts had filled out and were particularly round under her clingy blue t-shirt.
“Silvia! Oliver!” She waved her arms wildly as she toward us.
Alexander’s mouth was slightly ajar.
I caught my sister. We danced in a circle, “Lucy! Lucy! Let me have a look at you! Oh, it’s so good to see you! I missed you so much!”
“Silvia! Oh, I’ve missed you, too, Sissy!” She turned and threw her arms around Alex, “Oliver! You look so handsome!”
“Alexander!” He corrected. He kissed her cheek, “How are you, Munchkin?”
“Alex!” Her cheeks were pink as he set her down, “I mixed you two up!”
“It’s our job, you know? Embarrassing those who can’t tell us apart! If we could have made a living at it we would’ve!” He took a step back and looked her up and down, “Look at you, Lucy! You’re a right grown and beautiful woman! CFMS, too, Munchie!”
She laughed nervously, “CFMS? Do you think so?”
“Oh, aye!”
“What’s CFMS?” I asked, feeling very much out of the loop.
“They’re Come Fuck Me Shoes,” My sister said naturally as if she was explaining Inc behind a company name. She lifted a foot to show me her high heeled boots, but her attention was more on Alexander, “Not so much a munchkin anymore, yeah?” She held out her arms and did a little turn so he could have a better look.
I was not sure what was going on. Was Alexander flirting with my sister and had she just said ‘come and get it’ without using those words? And did the idea of that strike me as interesting, humorous or hit me with a pang of horror? I looked back and forth between them and I’m not sure, but I think I was laughing.
“Well, we need to get going,” I said suddenly, “Do you have all your bags, Sissy?”
Alexander carried the bags off the platform while my sister and I chatted away about what she’d been up to. While I’d been having babies and chasing children, stealing opportunities to make love to my husband, she’d been romanced by a boy from Blackpool, who’d taken her virginity and talked her into moving to Glasgow with him, then broken her heart with his inability to commit. “He really wanted me all for himself,” She explained, “My needs meant nothing to him, but I couldn't ever please him. In the end, it just didn't work out and he ran off with one of my good friends. Cow can have him. Best of luck to them both!”
She continued on to tell us that the betrayal was intensely painful, even if she didn't like to admit it, and after several months of pining and heavy drinking with her friends, she’d met a man from France who was much older than her. He’d whisked her off and seduced her on holiday in Spain. He showered her for almost a year with expensive gifts and showed her amazing sexual experiences, but a few months back he had left her to return to an ex-lover.
It kind of threw her for a loop. She was still talking about it as we drove home, “I didn’t think he’d ever marry me or anything. Bloody hell, I wouldn’t have married him even if he’d asked! And I knew that he had unresolved issues with her,” Lucy was speaking so openly it shocked me. My sister tended to keep personal things personal, even from me, but especially from the twins, “But I don’t understand why he left me to go back to her, either. She’s older than him, even, she’s a cow, and she’s not that pretty. Sort of scary looking, really. I don’t mean to be conceited, but why would he want some bone nosed old woman when he could have had me?”