You Must Be Sisters by Deborah Moggach Read Free Book Online

who’s in whose room in the block opposite.’
    ‘And your own snug armchair! It’s like a play set. Someone’s figured it all out; every need catered for.’
    ‘That’s right. Sometimes I feel each one of us in his little room is going through the identical sequence. It’s odd.’
    They went up the corridor and wandered through the drizzle to inspect the other blocks with their rows of identical windows. In the Common Room they could see a couple playing darts, another playing ping-pong, and in each armchair sat a figure rustling through the Sunday papers.
    ‘How obedient they look!’ exclaimed Claire. ‘Using the facilities, doing what the building tells them to do.’
    ‘That’s what I mean. We’re like ants in an anthill.’
    Claire looked at Laura. ‘That annoys you?’
    Just then a newspaper was lowered. Mike’s face appeared over the top, smiling. Laura, blush rising, said: ‘Hello. This is my sister Claire.’
    Mike looked at Claire with interest. What was he comparing? Claire’s calmer face and brushed hair?
    ‘Are there any more of you?’ he asked.
    ‘Only Holly. She’s our little sister but she’s only twelve.’
    ‘Sit down,’ said Mike, ‘and listen to this.’ He was still addressing his remarks to Claire. Could he possibly be selfconscious too? He must be, for he was avoiding Laura’s eye. She was avoiding his, too, of course. They’d both feel better when he’d read something out of the newspaper. Then they’d be able to talk about it and this blushful moment would be over.
    ‘Hang on,’ he said, shuffling through the pages. ‘Aha! Got it.’ He looked up – at Claire, of course. ‘Lend an ear.’ He started reading, boomingly.
    In one of Australia’s most remote areas, mining executives have discovered the richest uranium deposit in the world. Assuming that mining rights would be easily obtained from the aboriginal owners, the company quickly signed contracts to sell millions of dollars’ worth of ore. But what they failed to take into account was the aborigines’ refusal to disturb the Green Ants which live near the site. The place is called the Dreaming Place of the Green Ants, and is deeply holy
.
    Mike looked up, addressing Claire. ‘Listening?’
    ‘Yes’
    He was obviously moved by what he was reading. The grey ash lengthened on his forgotten cigarette. ‘
The executives have been offering them higher and higher sums for the mining rights. They started at $7,000: they have grown to $13,000,000. But
,’ he looked up at them; he even looked at Laura, so swept along was he, ‘
the aborigines refuse to sell at any price. Confronted by the wrath of the ants and poverty
… well, they’ve chosen the poverty.’ He put the paper down. The ash dropped to the floor.
    His audience sighed, for it had moved them too.
    Any further conversation was interrupted by the bell. Lunchtime.
    ‘We all troop down,’ Laura told Claire.
    ‘Sounds fun.’
    ‘Awfully regimented. I loathe doing things in the mass.’
    Claire smiled. ‘Do you?’ she asked, looking at Laura’s denim skirt, identical to countless denim skirts now passing them as they walked down the path.
    They sat down with Mike. Claire ate with relish.
    ‘A proper Sunday lunch!’ she said between mouthfuls. ‘With roast potatoes and all. I do envy you. I wish I could come to university. All the intriguing people, and everyone having their own lovely rooms …’ She broke off because she sounded too wistful and instead gazed around. Serious boys, laughing boys, round-shouldered, T-shirted ones – could the 1970’s be called the Decade of the Hollow Chest? – sombre, bespectacled boys who were probably doing Maths. When they went into digs their landladies would love them because they’d be tidy and roll their washing into a neat bundle. Plain girls, pretty ones, girls with certain make-up and uncertain eyes – clever, that – girls nobody would notice but who someone some day would want to marry more than