15. Chapter 15
‘Not pass judge—’
Heather stopped and pressed her lips together so tightly they disappeared into a red seam in her face.
She hissed, ‘You know what would be great? It would have been great if you could have done anything—anything at all—to help with this event. All you’ve done is show up, and you can’t even be dressed properly for that.’
Lucy’s mouth fell open.
‘Help with this event? I offered, multiple times! I didn’t know you were all doing,’ she waved her hand to take in the room, ‘all of this.’
‘You don’t just ask and offer to help—get involved, Lucy! Involve yourself. Look at what needs doing. Mum and dad and I have worked tirelessly to make this special for Ollie and Sophie.’
Oh right,this was all about Heather.
‘Yes, because you wanted to! Because doing this makes mum and dad happy. Mum lives for this kind of event.’ Lucy looked over at her mum and dad, arms around each other, faces flushed with wine. ‘Mum seemed excited about the planning and happy to get on with it. I asked her repeatedly if there was anything I could do to help and she said no, she was enjoying it.’
‘Oh open your eyes, Lucy,’ Heather scoffed. ‘You take everything so literally. Of course mum said that, she doesn’t want to interrupt you in your job.”
Heather made air quotes again around ‘job.’
Lucy felt heat rise up her neck and her cheeks flushed.
‘There wouldn’t be anything left for me to do, anyway. You always take over.’
Lucy felt the words, long squashed down, finally spilling out.
‘You make all the decisions, Heather, you decide on everything. I don’t get involved because you make sure I can’t be. You make sure I don’t know about things, and you cut me out to try to make me look shitty because I didn’t know that…that...’ Lucy looked frantically around the room for inspiration. ‘That…that the centre pieces needed ordering, or that you were making a photographic display. I could have helped with that. But you deliberately kept it a secret until now.’
Heather’s face was grim but with a hint of a snark about her mouth.
‘And now you’re stressed, and you’re taking this out on me because, once again,’ Lucy stuck a finger up in the air, ‘you’ve taken on too much, and Mark won’t put up with you banging on about how stressed you are, and how many hours you’re working, and you don’t want mum and dad to think you aren’t practically perfect in every way.’ She used Heather’s air quotes back at her. ‘So I’m your nearest punching bag.’
Lucy’s voice faltered, and she felt tears prick her eyes. She could feel her face was hot, and her neck was flushed.
‘I’m always your punchbag, and I’ve had enough.’
Lucy was angry and could feel resolve strengthening within her.
Her gaze flicked towards the bar, and she locked eyes with Jack, who was looking at her questioningly.
‘Oh, Lucy,’ Heather said smoothly, a sudden horrifyingly cool and calm counterpoint to Lucy’s increasingly heightened reaction. ‘I’m not taking anything out on you. No one expects anything from you. That’s why I didn’t ask you. I knew you wouldn’t necessarily know what needed doing or,’ she lowered her voice imperceptibly, ‘be able to afford to contribute. It’s enough that you’ve managed to get here.’ She looked at Lucy. ‘With Jack.’
She gave a tiny smile as she sipped her drink.
Lucy’s brain dissolved into a red mist as she stared at her older sister.
In the blink of an eye, she felt fourteen years old again. Fourteen years old, when she attended another ceremony celebrating her sister, this one where her sister was awarded the school certificate for Outstanding Achievement in Academia, her grades topping everyone else’s in the year. All Heather’s friends cheered her, the boys coveting her long legs and thick glossy hair (which she spent more time grooming than she ever let on), and competitive parents jealously eyeballing Valerie and James. Lucy stood beside her parents for what felt like hours as other parents came up to gush. She listened to endless chants of, ‘You must be so proud.’ And jokey comments like, ‘I bet it’s you she takes after Valerie,’ at which her mother shook her own glossy locks, gave a strange bell-like laugh and preened.
Somewhere in the queue of parents lined up to pass on best wishes and ensure Heather was definitely attending their child’s birthday party/beach day/weekend away, one parent noticed Lucy standing there quietly, shifting her weight from foot to foot.
She bent down and said, ‘And who’s this? Do you think you’ll follow in your big sister’s footsteps one day?’
Lucy gave a shy smile and opened her mouth to reply when her mother spoke up for her.
‘Oh gosh no,’ Valerie laughed, ‘Lucy is arty.’ Valerie almost whispered arty. ‘I don’t imagine we’ll see her up there. But Ollie, well, he does excel at rugby and his academic scores…’ Valerie drifted off, leaving Lucy standing in the midst of the melee, the top of her head barely at shoulder height of most of the parents as they hurried about, hustling children out to cars.
Now, Lucy glared at her sister, her still-glossy-hair slicked back, a self-satisfied smirk on her face.
‘Well, I am sorry if I don’t fit into your idea of how I should be. If somehow I am different to you. If money and material success and…and what other people think of me isn’t important to me. I don’t want to work sixty hours a week and have a heart attack at fifty.’
Heather looked shocked. Standing up for herself was not Lucy’s forte. She usually did the proper British thing—she let people say whatever they wanted without arguing back, then quietly stewed on it in the middle of the night every night for a week, thinking of all the wonderful things she should have said at the time if only she had been brave enough and her brain hadn’t frozen over faster than a puddle in a January blizzard.
And now here she was—at the end of her tether and ready to say whatever words found their way out of the semi-frozen fog of her brain. Words tumbled out of her mouth faster than she could recognise them and her tongue was in danger of not keeping up. She took a breath and jumped right in.
‘This,’ Lucy pressed a hand to her chest, ‘is not your life. I don’t want your life. And you have made it very clear, at every opportunity, that you disapprove of me and my choices. And I—’ She hesitated. ‘I don’t care.’
As she spoke she felt two things to be true at once; she was tired of caring what her sister thought about her and her choices—but she still wished Heather cared enough to try to understand her and what was important to her.
Lucy struggled to compose herself as she shakily pushed her chair back and got to her feet on unsteady legs. She kept one hand on the table for support. The tears welling up in her eyes belied her words, but she kept her back ramrod straight.
‘And I am sorry,’ she swallowed hard, pushing down the lump in her throat, ‘if I am a disappointment. That I don’t have a corporate job, and I don’t play tennis or compete in—’ She paused as she tried to think of the word. ‘Triathlons or whatever. But maybe,’ she felt herself veer onto dangerous ground but didn’t hold herself back, ‘maybe if you were happier with your own life, you wouldn’t be so interested in mine.’
As the words left her mouth, she regretted them. Heather, who had been working to compose herself and give the impression of disinterested amusement, now went puce, her neck flushing with anger, her neatly manicured fingers gripping the edges of the table.
Valerie suddenly appeared at Lucy’s elbow. She smiled at them both, but her eyes were cold, and her voice was like thunder.
‘For goodness sake girls, what is going on here? People are staring, you’re showing me up.’
Heather sniffed and dabbed at her eyes.
Valerie turned to Lucy, hand on hip. ‘Lucy, what have you said to upset your sister?’
Lucy staggered and grasped at the chair.
‘What have I...? I haven’t done anything. I am simply standing up for myself.’
‘Please,’ Valerie’s lip curled in distaste. ‘Stop making a scene. This is hardly the time. We have guests.’
‘Oh, don’t bother, Mum,’ Heather said with a heavy sigh. ‘You know how she is.’
‘Heather, I am not sure this is helpful,’ Valerie murmured, as she pursed her lips and rested a hand on Heather’s shoulder.
Glancing around to see if there was still an audience for this little family conversation, Valerie visibly relaxed as she found no one seemed to notice their little drama. Heather, perched primly in her seat, neck still flushed, stared up at Lucy unblinking.
‘Mum,’ Lucy began.
Valerie held up a hand.
‘I think you’ve done quite enough. I won’t have any more of this nonsense. If you can’t pull yourself together and get along with everyone, perhaps you should remove yourself until you can.’
Lucy’s breath caught in her throat, her eyes were burning, and she swayed unsteadily on her feet. As she teetered on the edge of the table, wondering how she’d make it out of the restaurant without stumbling, she felt a warm arm slide around her waist and pull her close.
‘Hello, ladies,’ Jack said.
Lucy felt her knees tremble, and she leaned gratefully into the comforting, solid warmth.
‘Everything okay?’
Lucy assumed it was a rhetorical question. Her mother’s face was a mask of controlled annoyance, and Heather’s neck was flushed with anger.
‘Well,’ Heather cleared her throat and stood. Though she was only a couple of inches taller than Lucy, her towering spike heels set her almost a head above her younger sister. ‘I think we’re done here.’
‘Oh, we’re done.’ Lucy sniffed, forcing herself to her full height and glaring at her sister. ‘We’re done.’
Heather turned and opened her mouth, then Jack, in a deep, low growl that Lucy hadn’t heard before, said, ‘I don’t think you need to add anything further, do you?’
His arm was tight around Lucy, and she tipped her head back to look at him. His jaw was tight, his gaze fixed on Heather.
Heather looked stunned, and her mouth hung slackly open. She glared at Jack, her mouth working as she tried to decide how to respond to this new dynamic.
From across the room, there was a crash, and Lucy heard Mark exclaim, ‘Bloody hell!’
Peter had brought one of the tall flower stands down on himself and was now standing in a puddle awash with flower stems, looking at the blood dripping onto his shirt from a gash on his chin.
‘Heather! Heather!’ Mark beckoned frantically, holding Peter at arms-length. ‘Help,’ he mouthed.
Heather, looking relieved by the distraction, glared at Lucy and Jack and stalked off.
Jack guided Lucy from the restaurant, steering her by her elbow, deftly avoiding groups of people who might stop them to chat. There was a small snug off reception. It was empty, and Jack pulled Lucy inside and closed the door.