You Must Be Sisters by Deborah Moggach Read Free Book Online Page A

anyone else in the world … Claire wanted to speak to all of them.
    ‘Don’t they look young and callow,’ said Laura.
    ‘You’re very dismissive about everything,’ said Claire. Appreciate it! she wanted to shout.
    She didn’t shout it, but as they left the hall she said: ‘You’re jolly lucky, you know.’
    ‘Am I? You mean, it’s all more fun than your flat? What would Yvonne be doing now?’
    ‘Creeping into the kitchen and rustling through the Shortcake Fingers.’
    ‘And Nikki?’
    ‘Sticking on her eyelashes and dreaming about the strong brown thighs of her lover, and how he said her scent was as fresh as a meadow in spring.’
    ‘Oh yes, they’re all copywriters, aren’t they.’
    Nikki was a receptionist with J. Walter Thompson and bedded down with a succession of young executives known to Claire only by name and (in a whisper, because Yvonne disapproved) performance.
    ‘Yes, I must say, it’s nice to be here,’ said Claire.
    ‘Despite the rain.’ They had decided to explore Bristol by car and were now driving across the Downs. They were alone, as Mike had left to do some work. ‘I can see, looking at Mike, that you do lots of discussing and arguing. Things of the spirit.’
    ‘Hmm. Sometimes bodies do seem to get in the way.’
    At last Laura told her the episodes, John first, then Mike. When Claire had finished laughing she said: ‘Yes, I could see that Mike fancied you.’
    ‘What gave you that idea?’
    ‘By the way he kept avoiding your eye, yet couldn’t help himself looking whenever you shifted in your seat or scratched your leg. Everything you did, he noticed.’
    ‘The thing is, I don’t fancy him. He’s too nice.’ Too suitable, she thought.
    ‘Idiot!’ Claire laughed. She looked through the windscreen at the tall terraces, smudgy in the rain. People were always fancying Laura. She, Claire, had got used to it now. Laura’s hair, streaked with yellow, could easily be described as tumbling round her face. Her own hair, brown throughout, just hung. And there was an aliveness about Laura, a quickness in her movements, a grace, that arrested the eye. Often when she left a room there would be a pause, almost a sigh, amongst those that remained. Anyway, she had a straight nose and freckles, two things that Claire had always lacked and would always lack. Laura had simply been the prettiest, though when they were children, of course, they’d never known it. The turning point had come when she had been thirteen and some parental friend, forgotten but for this one dreadful remark, had said to their mother: ‘Claire’s got such a
nice
face, but of course Laura’s the beauty.’ Both Claire and Laura, needless to say, had pretended they hadn’t heard, but looking back Claire could identify that moment as a jolt into adulthood; one of those small shocks that take the facts you’ve always known, like prettiness, and suddenly shove them at you in a queasy, uncomfortably close way. Thud. Things won’t ever be quite the same again.
    The water was falling in steady drips through the roof, but from long practice they both knew how to tilt to one side so that it landed harmlessly between them. With all its leaks, they knew this car well. After nine weeks of
trying
, with everyone and everything, how nice it is, thought Laura, to settle down into the comfy, soggy car seat. How nice not to try to be clever or liberated or to know about films, but just to sit and chat to Claire. Claire’s mind and body, inner and outer workings, were as familiar to her as the dials on the dashboard and the petrol gauge, stuck since time inmemorial at well below ‘E’. Known and loved.
    With a creak and a rattle the Morris climbed, painfully, the hill into Clifton and turned into the street with the shops.
    ‘Everything’s so beautiful,’ said Claire. ‘Even in the rain.’
    The shops, being closed, faded into insignificance and allowed their lovely upper façades, tall windows and simple balconies,