Chapter 18
As the evening goes on I feel worse and worse.
I’ve never spent any proper time with Fran before and it’s bizarre, like having a conversation with a mythical creature.
Usually, when Max and I spend time together it’s alone.
Our group events aren’t frequent, because it’s so difficult to get everyone together, so people don’t necessarily bring their partners.
Obviously we’ve met at the occasional party, exchanged a few words, but we usually end up sitting at opposite ends of a table or I get so upset by her presence that I become too drunk too quickly and go home.
She’s always felt more like a concept than an actual person. But now, sitting here in front of me talking about plummeting fertility rates and who was robbed on the Man Booker shortlist and how she desperately needs a haircut and the spa trip she’s going on with her auntie, she is unavoidably real.
Fran has an auntie. She didn’t just appear out of a vortex one day like a big, witless, life-ruining plankton. She lived in Hong Kong until the age of fourteen and she reads smart novels and has opinions about them and she cares about things in the news and she has split ends.
Fran has an AUNTIE.
I stare at her gormlessly as she talks, trying to put Fran back in her denial box.
But it’s too late: thanks to Leila, she’s escaped.
Several times I want to message Angie and Dami before remembering I can’t.
Several times I freak out about missing the last train back home or getting in before my curfew before remembering I don’t live there anymore.
By the time Fran decides to go to bed I’ve well and truly sobered up.
“Well, I should turn in—it’s been a long day,” she says, getting up. “But it’s been lovely.” She looks at Leila, not me. “Night, it was great to meet you. Night, Becky.” She finally looks at me and gives me a brief, shy smile.
It occurs to me that now she’s here she will obviously be getting the bed and Leila and I will be sharing the living room. Well, I know which one of us is sleeping on the floor.
Fran goes to find us the roll-up mattress, then retreats. I look daggers at Leila as Fran closes the bathroom door.
“I hope you’re happy.” I cross my arms.
“What? I thought that was nice.” Leila seems genuinely puzzled.
“Nice? Nice?”
“I mean, you were a bit weird.” Leila shrugs.
“Yes, because you invited my . . .” I try to think of an appropriate word for what Max is to me. There isn’t one. “Max’s girlfriend to spend the evening with us.”
“You’re in her house!” Leila presses her fingers together in disbelief.
“This is Max’s house,” I correct.
“It’s their house, Becky, she lives here. What were you going to do, banish her to her bedroom all night?”
She has a point and I know that logically she’s right.
I don’t know what I was intending to do.
Since the letters, I haven’t had a plan.
My plan was to get strangled by my own scarf or imploded by a stray firework before I had to deal with any of this.
But I don’t need some superior teenager telling me that.
This whole situation is farcical. I wrote those letters for closure with my dad and Max, and I’ve somehow ended up trapped in a confined space with my father’s daughter and Max’s girlfriend.
Getting to know them? Learning about their taste in books?
As if Leila popping up out of nowhere wasn’t bad enough, now she has me practically holding hands and skipping with Fran?
! Why doesn’t she just bust out the friendship bracelets and suggest we braid each other’s hair? !
Leila puts her hand on my arm. “Becky, Fran seems really nice. Do you think . . .”
The overfamiliarity of her gesture makes me feel like I can’t breathe. And whatever she’s about to say, I don’t want to hear.
“Look, I don’t even know what you’re still doing here,” I snap. “You’re getting on a train first thing in the morning.”
Leila seems taken aback. Good, I think. She finally gets the message. She doesn’t belong here. What was she thinking . . . that we were going to just be sisters now? It’s been nineteen years. We missed our window. We can’t ever get that time back. This whole evening was a delusion.
“I told you, I have nowhere to—”
“It’s not my problem,” I say. “I didn’t ask you to come here.”
Leila is silent. I sense I’ve said enough, but for some reason words keep coming out.
“I’m sure it was wonderful, growing up with a father who adores you. I’m sure you think that everyone in the world must feel the same. I’m sure you expect to have a warm welcome everywhere you show up. But guess what, the world doesn’t give a crap. Welcome to adulthood.”
I mean what I’m saying, in one way. But you know when despite meaning something, you also know it’s totally irrational bollocks, coming from a place of insecurity and wanting to hurt someone as much as you’re hurting, rather than actually meaning it?
The bathroom door opens and Fran steps out in her pajamas. “I’ve brushed my teeth, so the bathroom’s yours. Sleep well.”
Neither of us says anything.
“Night,” Leila whispers sadly.
Fran steps toward the bedroom, then turns around. “So rude of me, sorry, would you two like the bed? It would make more sense for me to sleep on the sofa.”
Fran seems to notice there’s something wrong and glances between us awkwardly.
Leila coughs. “That’s kind, Fran, but we’ll be OK out here.” Her voice is small.
“OK, well, see you in the morning.” Finally, Fran leaves.
Leila moves to the thin roll-out mattress on the floor and pulls a blanket over her shoulders.
She doesn’t say another word to me and I don’t to her.
For what feels like hours I lie awake listening to the sound of her breathing, feeling a mixture of emotions.
I still can’t quite accept I have a real-life flesh-and-blood relative, filling and emptying her lungs of oxygen right beside me.
For a while I continue to think, how dare she come here and barge her way into my life and make me think more about Dad deserting me than I have done in the past twenty years and acknowledge Fran as a real human being.
But a little while later, I mainly just feel awful for the way I spoke to her. It’s not her fault that she grew up with our dad and I didn’t. It’s not her fault that Max is with Fran.
I must eventually drift off, because the next thing I know there’s light creeping in through the windows. I pry my weary eyes apart and, for a moment, expect to wake up in my own bed. It takes a millisecond to remember where I am. Flashes of the previous night return to me. Oh God.
Did I really say I was applying to be a firefighter?
My head feels like it’s been repeatedly slammed against a brick wall and my mouth tastes like a badger took a shit in it. What strange concoctions were we consuming last night? Did I drink any water at all?!
I see the empty roll-up mattress next to me, and with an awful, gnawing lurch, I remember everything I said to Leila. I sit up on my elbow. “Leila?” I croak. “Leila?”
Fran emerges from the bedroom. “You’re up,” she says brightly, like she’s been awake for hours.
“Just about. Is Leila here?”
“She left this morning. I gave her some money for the train,” Fran says.
She left. She actually left. My little sister.
SHE’S ONLY WEE.
I’m older; I’m wiser . . . I should know better. I should look out for her. But I took my frustrations out on her. I feel hollow. Fran’s eyes search mine and I look away.
“Is everything OK with her, Becky?” She hesitates before she says “with her,” like she really means “with you” but doesn’t want to say it.
I think of her leaving the flat this morning. Putting on her stupid sparkly boots. Wiping her smudged eye makeup. Deciding not to say goodbye. Closing the door. Staring out the window on the train back to her own life, wondering why she ever came here.
“She’s fine,” I say. Of course she’s fine, probably.
That’s her whole thing, isn’t it? She’s a bit clueless and pretends to know everything because she’s nineteen and that’s what you do at nineteen, but ultimately, she’s OK.
She has her mum and dad to fall back on.
She’ll be a bit embarrassed when she admits she broke up with her girlfriend, but they’ll take her home with loving arms and spoil her.
She’ll lick her wounds and feel fine in no time.
I’ve never been a part of her life before, so why would she miss me now?
We never belonged in each other’s worlds.
She’ll forget about me, just like Dad did.
“How much was her train?” I ask.
“Don’t worry about it.” Fran waves her hand.
“No, really.” I can’t bear for Fran to be sweet to me. I can barely look her in the eye. “I’ll pay you back.”
Fran bites her lip. “It was eighty.”
I cringe. My money is dwindling fast. WHY did I order so much Chinese last night? And, God, all that extra booze on Deliveroo?! Payday is in ten days and I should still get paid for this month . . . But it won’t take me long to run out entirely.
“Cool, no problem,” I say unconvincingly. “Message me your deets.”
“OK.” Fran nods. She leans against the doorway, as if she’s too uncomfortable to come into the room. Which is stupid. It is technically her flat.
Oh God. I’m alone with Fran. No long table to sit at the other end of. No other people to duck behind. No booze to impair my capacity to connect. There’s no way I can hang out here all day.
“Anyway.” I scramble up from the sofa and start pulling on my socks. “I’d best be off. I’ve got lots to sort out.”
Not a lie. I just have no idea where to start.
“OK, cool.” Fran folds her arms like she’s hugging herself.
I grab my “Live, Laugh, Love” T-shirt and pull it over my head. I hastily grab all my belongings that are strewn across the room and start picking up stray bottles.
“Don’t worry, really.” Fran holds out her arm. “I’ll do that.”
“OK, sure,” I say cheerily. “All right, well, bye, then.”
“See you, Becky,” Fran says. “Good luck with your . . . various job applications.” The corner of her mouth curls in amusement, not unkindly.
“Thanks.” I grimace. Thank God she’s too polite to bring up the London Fire Brigade. “’K, bye.”
And with that, I am out the door.