Dad was still snapping away: ‘My two little girls,’ he kept saying. ‘My two, gorgeous girls,’ which for reasons I am yet to fully understand made me suddenly so mad, and so sad, it was all I could do not to punch him.
We had tea, eventually, around 9 p.m., with Lexi being passed between Dad and Cassandra and the Moses basket. Nobody asked me a thing, except for Dad, who asked when I’d started to get psoriasis on my scalp. Then I went to bed, an hour earlier than normal, and balled my eyes out, all the time listening to Lexi do the same.
So Dad, as much as I loved him, was never a father to me or Chris, and yet, here he was being one to somebody else. And that hurt. That hurt like nothing else had ever hurt in my life, and if I’m honest, my realisation that day that Alexis Simone was not, as I’d hoped, my very own baby-sister-shaped saviour but a usurper, stayed with me. If I’m really honest, it’s probably still there.
CHAPTER THREE
The morning after Lexi arrives in London, I wake up to the sound of something throbbing. At first I assume it’s a hangover, but then decide I feel nowhere near rancid enough, since mine are largely of the vomit-on-waking variety. I remove my earplugs and fumble around on the floor for my glasses, morning being a gradual reintroduction of the sensory world to me, my myopia at a level where I have been known to say hello to my own reflection.
It doesn’t take me long to realize the thumping is music and it’s coming from downstairs.
It’s only then that I remember I have a guest.
‘Lexi?’ I’m banging on the bathroom door in my pyjamas now. ‘Lexi, are you in there?’
‘Yeah,’ comes a muffled voice from inside. ‘Come in if you want. I’m fully dressed.’
I push open the door. It’s steamy and warm. I just can make out Lexi hovering over the sink but not much else.
‘Er, music?’ I shout with what I hope is a vaguely humorous I-am-so-cool-with-your-rock-music-at-seven-in-the-morning but there’s an accusatory rise at the end of the sentence.
‘Gossip!’ she shouts back
‘I’m sorry?’
‘GOSSIP!’ She stands up from the sink. ‘The MUSIC. It’s GOSSIP. Why, do you like them?’
‘CAN’T SAY I’VE EVER HEARD OF THEM!’
‘WHAT?! BETH DITTO IS A FEMINIST ICON OF OUR TIMES!’
‘I THOUGHT YOU SAID IT WAS GOSSIP?’
‘IT IS. BETH DITTO IS THE LEAD SINGER OF THE GROUP, GOSSIP.’
‘OH …’
‘WHY ARE WE SHOUTING?’
‘I DON’T KNOW. I CAN’T HEAR BECAUSE I CAN’T SEE AND I CAN’T SEE BECAUSE I HAVEN’T GOT MY GLASSES ON. I THINK I LEFT THEM IN HERE!’
‘Oh my Lord,’ giggles Lexi as I edge right up to her face. ‘You really are blind, aren’t you?’
She fumbles around near the sink, hands me my glasses, and I put them on. Only then does everything become clear. Well, almost clear, there’s still something obstructing my vision. Lexi has her hair wrapped in a Tesco bag, dribbles of purple dye running down her forehead, around her ears. My sparkling white, Italian designer bathroom basin – obscene amounts of money from a place on Lavender Hill – is splattered with purple dye. As is the wall. As is the towel around Lexi’s neck. As are, I discover, my glasses. Hence the dark spots in front of my eyes.
‘Um, the sink,’ I squeak, thinking, keep a lid on it, Caroline. Keep things in perspective.
‘The sink?’ says Lexi.
‘It’s covered in dye.’ I put a specific emphasis on the word ‘dye’.
‘Oh!’ She bites her nail. ‘Shit. But it’ll come off, right?’ She goes to rub at it with dye-covered fingers. ‘Er, Lex, don’t do that?’ I’m trying to sound calm, whilst suppressing the hysteria that’s bubbling within me.
‘If I just …’ She licks her fingers and goes at it again.
‘Stop!’ I mean it to come out normally but it shoots out of my mouth like a small, hard pellet. ‘NOW. Please. Lexi.’
‘All right, missus.’ She’s brightly rubbing at it with my flannel now. ‘Calm your boots. I’m just going to give it ever such a little …’
She wipes away a drip of dye that’s rolling down her forehead and then goes to pick up the flannel again, at which point I crack. I literally slide, cartoon style, across the bathroom floor in my towelling bedsocks, grabbing the side of the sink. ‘FOR GOD’S SAKE JUST LEAVE IT OKAY? JUST …’ I gather myself. ‘Leave it.’
She stops rubbing.
‘Oh, okay. Sorry,’ she says. Does she actually flinch? Something tells me this little arrangement may not pan out that well. Something tells me I have lived alone for far too long.
My sister turning up for the summer aside, I do occasionally worry what it says about my life that I look forward to coming to work on a Monday. The hating weekends thing crept up on me, really. For the fourteen years that Martin and I were together, weekends were okay. Well, they were much the same as anyone else’s – any other couple’s, that is.
Endless rounds of barbecues and visits to the almost in-laws; Sunday afternoons spent at the Tate Modern, even though neither of us really liked anything in there so we’d end up in the shop where I’d buy another Dali postcard and Martin would buy his mum her birthday present in advance – usually another Liberty-print oven glove.
Post break up, there were about three months where I revelled in my new-found freedom. When the novelty was over, however, and my concerned friends, who had rallied round went back to their neglected boyfriends, I began to dread weekends. Especially summer weekends. Bank holiday weekends are the work of the devil. The two in May, a torture device. Because what I envisaged about summer in London: Tooting Lido, picnics on Hampstead Heath, Shakespeare in Regent’s Park, didn’t hold that much appeal on my own and sometimes, although I hated to admit it, I would feel lonely. Panicky, even. And at times like that I’d start to think that maybe I’d made a huge mistake with Martin – well, actually, I still sometimes wonder if I’ve made a huge mistake with Martin. I kind of missed the ‘schedule’ after all. At least he was enthusiastic about doing stuff, even if it was Duxford Aerodrome. Also, Martin Squire is, quite simply, the nicest bloke in the world. Which is probably why he wasn’t the bloke for me.
I get out my mobile to call him. I miss ‘us’ most in the mornings, sitting here at Battersea Park station, the heady, oily smell of a London summer in the air, the sky already a brilliant blue. Maybe it’s because it reminds me of the summers we sat here together, Martin giving me one of his early morning pep talks: ‘Caro, nobody’s dying, you’ve still got me. What’s the worst than can happen?’ he’d say. ‘You lose a client. You fail.’
I’d go into voluntary spasm at the thought.
The phone rings and rings, which is strange, because Martin always picks up. I leave a message.
‘Hello you, it’s me. Why aren’t you answering your phone? Wanted to know if you fancied coming to see an exhibition with me on Saturday? Thought I’d get you early. It’s by a German artist, some sort of conceptual thing – I saw it in Time Out. Might be crap but it would just be nice to see you. As ever. Also, you’ll never believe this, but guess who just rocked up on my doorstop last night, announcing she’s staying for the whole summer? My bloody sister! As you can imagine, I’m freaking out. I need a Martin pep talk. Oh yeah, and the exhibition. You’ll probably want to know—’
‘Where it is,’ I’m about to say, but then a cargo train approaches and by the time it’s passed, the space on the answer machine has been used up and there’s just a flat tone ringing.
Shona’s the only person in the office when I arrive. She’s on the phone and I know exactly, by her straight, tense back and clipped voice, who to. She presses ‘hold', gives a little shudder and puts her fingers to her head, mimicking a trigger. Shona’s not one for hiding how she feels about people, especially how she feels about Darryl Schumacher.
