The Ugly Sister Read online

  It wasn’t that Abigail wasn’t proud of her. She was the younger by three years – it was a given. Caroline had been her role model and brightly shining example since the day Abigail was old enough to toddle around behind her. She just found it hard to believe that the gorgeous enigmatic creature she saw in the magazines, so different from the gangly awkward sibling she had grown up with, shared her genetic material. She spent hours in front of the mirror trying to spot Cleo in her own less feline features. And sometimes she was there fleetingly, in an expression or a flick of the hair, but she never stayed for long.

  At first Cleo and Abigail used to write to each other quite often, although Abigail always struggled to find anything interesting to say – went to school, had the wart on my finger frozen off, George brought a frog in from the garden, that kind of thing. Cleo’s responses, which started off short and grew shorter with time, nevertheless glittered with the glamour of a world that was so alien to Abigail’s own that sometimes she wondered if her sister was making it all up. There were parties with celebrities, clubs, boys – no, make that men – hints of drugs. In the early days Abigail used to look forward to studying the letters on her walk to school but before long she barely recognized the person she found in them. It was only a matter of weeks before Caroline seemingly completely disappeared and Cleo was left in her place. And Abigail didn’t much like Cleo she had decided. Cleo was a show-off, full of stories of the hearts she was breaking and the fabulous doors her looks were opening. Abigail responded by never mentioning anything contained in the letters in her replies. If she acted like that person didn’t exist, then maybe she didn’t.

  One half-term Abigail went up to stay in the flat on Brompton Road but Cleo was always busy and the other girls seemed only to be interested in talking about themselves or how rich and successful their boyfriends were. She moped around London on her own for a couple of days, with no money to do anything and no one to do it with. On the third day she had asked Cleo if she could go along to her shoot with her – Cleo had recently snagged a contract with Miss Selfridge and was spending two days being photographed in the new autumn/winter collection for outsize posters that would adorn shopfronts everywhere from the following August onwards – and then had wished she hadn’t. Not only was the whole experience deathly boring after the first hour or so, but she felt in the way, the only person there without a seemingly life-threateningly important job to do. Cleo, surrounded by fawning stylists and make-up artists, spent the morning scowling and rolling her eyes whenever the photographer asked for her outfit to be tweaked or her hair teased.

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ she said when he called for a belt he had previously rejected to be returned. ‘Make up your mind.’

  Abigail, pre-programmed to be polite to adults and unused to hearing anyone swear in their company, waited for the explosion but none came. The photographer merely smiled indulgently and called out, ‘Sorry, love,’ apologetically. When Cleo snapped, ‘Ow. For god’s sake be careful,’ at the hairdresser in front of the whole crew, Abigail blushed. When she followed it by saying ‘silly bitch’ in an overly loud stage whisper as the hairdresser sloped off, tail between her legs, Abigail decided it was time to call it a day and took herself off to the National Gallery instead.

  The final straw came one night when she was in bed, having spent the evening alone while Cleo went to a party to which Abigail was firmly not invited, and she was woken up by her sister’s urgent insisting that she decamp next door to the sofa.

  ‘I need the room to myself,’ Cleo had hissed. She smelt of alcohol and cigarettes and something else – musty, musky, manly.

  ‘What? No. I’m asleep.’

  Cleo had pulled the covers off with a theatrical flourish, holding them out of Abigail’s reach.

  ‘Now.’

  Abigail, still befuddled with sleep, dragged herself out of bed.

  ‘Here,’ Cleo said, handing her the stiff scratchy bedspread and keeping the duvet for herself.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Abigail protested as Cleo bundled her towards the door. In the hall she was dimly aware of a man in an expensive-looking camel-coloured coat, a ring glinting on the third finger of his left hand as he swept his hair back from his face. In the half light he looked almost as old as their father.

  ‘Good girl,’ he said as she passed him, and Abigail shuddered. In the living room she lay on the sofa and pulled the bedspread up over her head, her hands over her ears. At about three o’clock she heard the bedroom door open and the man’s heavy footsteps as he gathered up his things and left.

  Next morning Cleo was full of ‘Geoff’ this and ‘Geoff’ that.

  ‘You do know he’s married?’ Abigail had said.

  Cleo laughed. ‘So? That’s his problem.’

  ‘Not to mention that he’s old. And gross.’

  ‘He’s only forty. And he’s very rich,’ Cleo said. ‘You’re just jealous.’

  Over time both Cleo’s letters and her visits home became increasingly rare. Every now and then she would telephone her mother and feed her enough titbits about her glorious life so that Philippa could pass them around town and have everyone believing that she and her famous daughter lived in each other’s pockets. The truth was that most of what the family came to know about Cleo’s new life came from what they would read in the papers.

  Abigail had left home herself eventually and gone to use the family brains – almost exclusively inherited by her – at Kent University in Canterbury. She became Abi to her friends although her parents never got used to the idea. She cut her hair and wore a lot of black and smoked foul-smelling French cigarettes. By then she had given up her teaching ambition – she never asked, but for some reason she suspected Cleo might have forgotten all about hairdressing too – and she had new dreams of having a glittering career in publishing, but then suddenly she was pregnant with Phoebe and that was that really. So she had replaced those dreams with visions of playing happy families with the baby and her boyfriend of not very long, Dave, but it turned out he had visions of being single and child-free for a few more years, so he ran a mile when Abi told him she was pregnant. She sent him a photo of Phoebe when the baby was born and he sent her a solicitor’s letter asking her to leave him alone.

  It’s hard to resurrect a non-existent career when you’re a single mum so eventually Abi gave up trying and got a part-time job in the local library. She’s still there. Eighteen years later. It suits her. The hours are flexible. The work unchallenging and pleasant enough. The library has its regulars, the old people, the nerdy kids, the homeless. Abi and her colleagues (a random collection of the most timid and unassuming members of society coupled with a smattering of part-timers who are more interested in the hours than the work) chat to them all and sometimes even offer them a cup of tea. Abi earns next to nothing, but she doesn’t really care. She gets by. Officially, of course, she is ‘a disappointment’. So much untapped potential. There was never anything Philippa could boast about: unwed single mum with badly paid part-time job not sounding quite so grandiose as international supermodel apparently.

  After her sister married Jonty – an advertising executive with his own agency, as she never tired of telling the family – Abigail saw her even less often. Once a year, if she was lucky. And then usually only for a day or two. Abi has never stopped missing Cleo, though – or, more specifically, Caroline. Abi and Cleo have never really been close. She has never grown out of that feeling of excitement whenever she gets a letter or an email or – very rarely – a phone call. There is always that moment, that split second, when she can allow herself to think that it might be Caroline and not Cleo getting in touch. Like they might fall back into their sixteen- and thirteen-year-old easy way of being. The running jokes and confidences. It hasn’t happened in a long time. Phoebe was Abi’s family now. But Phoebe was about to go off for her gap year, travelling around the world with her two best friends before she took up her place at the London College of Fashion, and Abi was at a lo
ose end. Single Mother, One Not-so-careful Owner. Anything Considered.

  The house is grandiose grey stucco, identical to its twin next door. The mouldings picked out in white give it the look of every little girl’s dream doll’s house. It sits right on the edge of the neat green rolling park that Abi presumes – from the large grassy mound rising up in the middle – is Primrose Hill itself. Dog walkers slog up the steep slope to the top where people flying kites rub shoulders with those who have made the climb just to admire the view. The house itself is picture perfect. At least five stories high and of giant proportions. There is only one bell; no one has attempted to destroy the eighteenth-century character by dividing it up into flats.

  Abi smoothes down her hair – grown long again since her rebellious student days and now fairer, streaked with a white blonde – as if her subconscious knows that she needs to smarten up to match her surroundings. She leans back, taking in the vast majesty of the place and her nerve leaves her. She suddenly has no idea why she had thought this would be a good idea. If she hotfoots it back to Charing Cross station now she could be back home in Deal in a couple of hours. Except, of course, that home is packed up in boxes and sitting in a dank musty-smelling storage facility in Dover.

  3

  The only thing that Abi knows about Primrose Hill beyond the fact that her sister lives here, is that it is – or, at least, once was – home to all sorts of glamorous celebrities who were famous for not very much other than thinking that they looked good and partying a lot. When Cleo had first said that she and Jonty were moving there, Abi had thought, Perfect. It made sense for them to live among the self-anointed beautiful people, all style over substance. She remembers thinking that Primrose Hill must be like a kind of Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills (not that she has ever been) with a bit of Footballers’ Wives Cheshire (again, ditto, but she has seen it on TV) thrown in. All McMansions and bling. In actual fact, Abi thinks, looking around now, it all looks rather pretty. The houses are stately and dripping with features that are both original and tasteful. The little shopping street is stuffed full of one-off shops and restaurants. There are normal-looking people walking their dogs and going about their non-celebrity business. She decides to have a look around the area and try again in a few minutes.

  She’s halfway down the steps when she hears someone walking across the hall. She freezes and stands rigidly to attention, waiting for the door to open. She has been assuming that one of Cleo’s staff would let her in. That’s right. Cleo has staff. ‘My people’ she calls them. As in ‘I’ll get one of my people to call you back’, which is what she said to Abi when Abi called to try to persuade her to go to their dad’s seventy-fifth birthday party a few years back: ‘I’m not sure where I’ll be.’ One of her people did indeed phone back and thanked Abi very formally for the invitation but unfortunately Cleo had a prior engagement and would not be able to attend. ‘Thank you for thinking of her,’ he’d added insincerely.

  ‘Do you know I’m her sister?’ Abi had said, not being able to hide her irritation. ‘Do you know that this is an invitation to our dad’s birthday party not some show-business lunch or the opening of a new art gallery?’ To be fair he had been very apologetic and had completely dropped the sanctimonious tone and Abi had known that this was in no way his fault. Cleo had obviously just given him a bunch of requests to turn down and hadn’t even thought it worthy of a mention that one of them was from family.

  Anyway, Abi is standing there rigid, holding her breath, still thinking of leaving rather than waiting for one of the ‘people’, when the door opens and there she is. Cleo. Abi’s big sister Caroline, aka Cleo the supermodel. Abi is momentarily dazzled by the five-thousand-watt welcoming smile. The smile that always makes you feel you’re the person Cleo most wants to see in the world. Until you know better, that is.

  ‘Abigail! Come in. It’s so good to see you.’

  Abi feels the breath squeezed out of her as Cleo sweeps her up in a big embrace. She savours the moment, hugging her sister back, which is a bit awkward what with the Debenhams bag and the champagne. She inhales Cleo’s signature ‘Exotica’ scent and marvels, as she always does, about the fact that Cleo still has some left, it having been discontinued years ago. Then she allows herself to be led inside and into the enormous hallway, which is easily twice as big as Abi’s whole house and probably four times as expensive. She has never been to this house before – even though Cleo, Jonty and their two girls have lived here for the best part of six years – and she struggles, trying to find the words in her head to describe it. Palatial, opulent, lavish, regal (although that last one is more or less covered by palatial and so doesn’t really count). Lush, Phoebe might say, Abi thinks fondly. Fierce.

  If the outside is intimidating, then the inside is its scarier bigger brother. All marble and dark wood and classic, ornately framed works of art and antique vases and that’s just the hallway. Abi doesn’t really have time to take it all in though because she is trying to take in her sister. Every time they see each other these days it has been so long since the last time, and Abi’s vision has been so clouded by the airbrushed images of Cleo that pop up in the most unlikely places (her face was on one of the best-selling posters of the 1980s, every boy student had it and you still see it for sale everywhere. A gaunt faun’s face peering out from under that fringe, her long hair just-got-out-of-bed sexy, endless bare legs emerging from the volume of her oversized thigh-skimming sweat top, which had cheekily slipped off one tanned shoulder; you know the one. That’s her. That’s Cleo) that she has to adjust her mental picture to take account of the real live woman. Cleo is still beautiful, there’s no doubt about that. Still tall (obviously, Abi doesn’t know why that one always surprises her), still slim although, thankfully, not the emaciated stick that she was in her twenties. Still groomed to within an inch of her life. Still, to be honest, scary.

  When she stopped modelling about five years ago, Cleo had allowed herself to relax just a little after an adult lifetime of a strict self-enforced dieting regime. To Abi’s eyes she looked even more beautiful, more natural, more like a real person, but some of the papers had been a little unkind. One of the glossy magazines printed a blow-up of a photo of Cleo on the beach with a red circle highlighting a microscopic area of cellulite. Several times journalists had insinuated that she didn’t quit of her own volition as she has always stated, but that her looks simply hadn’t stood the test of time like Naomi’s and Cindy’s had, and that she had pissed off so many people with her attitude on the way up that they were positively queuing to push her back down again and then stamp all over her when they got the chance. Abi has no idea what the true story is. It isn’t something she’s ever felt she can ask.

  Cleo’s trademark hair is still dark brown, nearly black, although she has grown out her thick fringe and trimmed the whole thing to a stylish shoulder length. The sleepy upward tilt of her eyes is as pronounced as ever. Maybe more pronounced – can that be possible? Her skin is ridiculous. Smooth and glowing and healthy. Actually, Abi thinks, maybe it’s a little too smooth. She catches herself wondering, not for the first time, if Cleo has had Botox. Or worse.

  ‘You look great,’ Cleo says, holding Abi at arm’s length. Her smile doesn’t quite meet her eyes. Not because it isn’t sincere necessarily, but because her face is refusing to move to accommodate it.

  ‘You too.’ Abi feels herself blush a little and realizes that she has come over all shy and clumsy. Straight back to adolescence. This happens to her pretty much every time she sees Cleo. It’s like their relationship, from Abi’s point of view, halted at the point where Cleo left home, and whenever they spend any time together she is instantly transported back to her awkward thirteen-year-old self, wanting approbation from her big sister.

  ‘This house is incredible.’

  Cleo smiles graciously again and says yes, they love it and that she’ll show Abigail straight up to her room if she’d like so that she can get settled in. Abi latches on to this as if it
is the most profound statement she’s ever heard.

  ‘Great. Perfect. How are you?’ she asks and even she is stunned by her own banality.

  ‘I’m well,’ Cleo says. ‘Busy.’

  Abi thinks about asking her what she is busy with since she no longer works, but that might sound rude so she says nothing. It’s always like this when they haven’t seen each other for a while. It takes a few minutes to warm up. They have to feel their way around each other, both conscious that their relationship is held together by a few fragile threads and neither wanting to be the one responsible for breaking them irreparably. She follows Cleo across the hall and up the stairs, looking around in awe. There are ornate mirrors and sculptures everywhere you look. Everything, right down to the handles on the doors, is exquisite. It’s like a show home, something from the pages of Country Life. There is no obvious evidence that a family lives here. It’s perfect. Sterile. Abi assumes that some of Cleo’s people, the ones who do the housekeeping, must spend all day tidying and polishing. It’s intimidating. Abi finds herself wondering all over again if this is such a good idea. She and Cleo hardly know each other. Caroline is long gone. Abi isn’t sure any longer what she was hoping to achieve by spending the next two months in a house of near strangers. Part of her, she knows, has been fantasizing that the sisters can somehow recapture some of what they once had. That Cleo’s mask will fall and there will be the old Caroline, funny and clumsy and, above all, Abi’s friend. But, actually, now that she’s here, she really isn’t sure Caroline could be alive and well living in a house like this.