Weird Sister by Kate Pullinger Read Free Book Online Page A

circumstance that kept her ignorant of boy-bands, girl-bands, block-buster movies, the right kind of shoes to wear. But by the time Agnes arrived it had become more self-conscious, it was what marked her out, what made her different. Not different as a statement, like her friend Lolly who was Different with a capital ‘D’, but something more profound. Other.
    They were all like that. And Agnes fit right in. When she arrived none of that changed. She didn’t open the house out, she didn’t alter the family in any way, insist on television, videos, CDs. At first I think we were all relieved. It wasn’t until later that it began to seem strange.
    When Agnes arrived I myself had been back in the village for only six months. Since I returned I’d got used to dropping by the Throckmorton house to see Robert. We’d been friends for a long time, from the day we started school. We always got on well, Robert and I, I don’t know why. When we were kids it was unusual for a boy and girl to be friends, but our personalities suited. We were both a little shy, still are. I was an only child and so didn’t have a brother; Robert, at that time, didn’t have a sister, Jenny came along much later. We were like siblings.
    As we grew older, into our later teens and onward, our relationship became a little more incestuous. When we were sixteen we decided we were both tired of being virgins, as though virginity was yet another unnecessary burden, something our parents insisted upon. We did it in the yew hedge at the end of the lawn at the back of the Throckmorton house. I brought a blanket I borrowed from my mother’s airing cupboard. Robert brought a bottle of wine he said he’d stolen from the house. Even though it was a bright summer evening it was dark inside that hedge and, as always, a little scary. We drank the wine and had a snog. The act itself took rather longer than I’d thought it might and it felt absolutely fantastic. Afterwards we shook hands and congratulated each other on joining the human race.
    Over the years we continued to sleep together occasionally. We’d take advantage of each other when we were desperate or bored or drunk. ‘Freelance,’ was what Robert used to call our relationship. I think we found it consoling as well as convenient. But it never felt right for us to get together on a more permanent basis. I usually had a boyfriend when Robert was on his own; he usually had a girlfriend when I was single. But we endured. I used to tell myself when all is bleak at least there is Robert, and I imagine he had a similar mantra. It wasn’t until it was too late that I realized how much he meant to me.
    When we were still in school we saw each other once a week, on Wednesday evenings. Regardless of what else was going on in our lives, Wednesday evenings remained inviolate. We would get together at either his house or mine – usually his, mine was too small to find anywhere private to sit and talk. We’d drink tea, we were both big tea drinkers – PG Tips, we mocked herbal teas. Funny, I’m pretty much a herbal tea person these days. And we’d talk about everything. Serious teenage conversation, about our lives and our dreams. When Robert’s mother died while giving birth, we talked about that a lot. Robert was seventeen, Graeme nineteen. Mrs Throckmorton – I knew her as Mrs T – was in the house, Robert and Graeme heard the whole thing. He told me that as it became clear something was going wrong, he and Graeme went upstairs to the old disused part of the house and hid. They stayed in a room full of boxes and crates for a whole night and a day. They huddled together like puppies in one corner of the room, as though they were little boys and not big, nearly-men. No one came looking for them. When they emerged their mother was dead.
    We talked and talked after that, about death, about what a hideous thing childbirth must be. For a boy Robert was a very good talker, he would talk about anything. I was