‘What? When?’ Meg could hear Sarah taking a deep breath.
‘Now? This weekend?’
‘Why? For how long?’
‘Same as you, eight weeks,’ said Meg, tapping anxiously at the big toenail on her right foot to see if the polish was dry. ‘I’ve been signed off work – it’s nothing really, just a spot of hypertension, and nothing two months in the country wouldn’t cure, apparently. I’ve been told to get out of London and relax. A complete break,’ she added, and an idea came to her. A rather big, brilliant idea. It was genius, if Sarah would be up for it. ‘I’ve just thought – could we swap?’ she ventured.
‘Swap?’
‘Yes! Swap! You come to my flat; I come to Orchard Cottage.’
‘Well, how would that work?’ asked Sarah. Meg could hear the hesitation in Sarah’s voice. If they swapped, was her elder sister calculating how much time she’d have to spend with her little sister, when she returned to Tipperton Mallet from London at the weekends?
Luckily Meg’s brain was also calculating. ‘I’m thinking of a complete swap,’ she offered. ‘Maybe.’ Yes, this could work. If they swapped they wouldn’t have to be together at all. She was relieved at the thought of her sister not being there when she was, having the place to herself. Not having to share painful anecdotes, sad memories … The silly thought – the speck – of cosy chats at the kitchen table was flicked far, far away. ‘You could stay in London at the weekends, too. Think of all the art galleries, the museums … there’s no point trekking all the way back to the country every Friday night just to come back two days later. Not when there’s a summer of London to explore! And you’ll save a packet in train fares …’
‘I don’t know …’ Sarah hesitated. ‘There’s a lot of train strikes at the moment, so commuting back and forth could be a pain, but I was planning on the weekends to see the children, do things with them …’
‘Well, they can come up to you in London, trains permitting! Do some sightseeing. It could be a great opportunity for them.’
‘Maybe,’ said Sarah. ‘I would like to get to know London properly again … Show it to them, too. We never seemed to make it up there, in all these years …’
‘So, let’s do it!’ exclaimed Meg. ‘I think it’s a fabulous idea! Shall we?’
‘OK,’ said Sarah tentatively. ‘OK. It could maybe work.’
‘When would you like to come up?’ asked Meg. ‘Tomorrow? Today?’
‘Tomorrow would be better. Give me more time.’
‘Tomorrow’s fine with me. And don’t worry about paying me any rent and I won’t pay any to you. We’ll do it as a straight swap, and—’
‘Have you really got high blood pressure or are you running away from something?’
‘What?’ Meg was taken aback.
‘Are you running away?’
‘No!’ Meg did have form, she had to admit. Even before their parents died in the crash she used to do it; she’d assemble a little cardboard box of all her favourite possessions and march off down the road with it, to see how far she could get by teatime. When she and Sarah lived together she upped her game, although it was more running off than running away, and it usually occurred after half a bottle of vodka and sometimes some purloined Malibu. Her final running away had been when she fled to London at eighteen, but that had turned out to be a good thing, for all of them, hadn’t it? ‘I’m not running away. Why would I run away from a job that I love? The sooner I get back to it the better! No, this is a bona fide medical emergency. Hey, I could do things for you, at the cottage.’ Meg was already bored at the prospect of doing nothing in the country. She was just so busy in London – she couldn’t imagine not being so. It frightened her a little. ‘I could deep clean for you,’ she offered brightly. ‘Do some decorating?’
‘Deep clean!’ scoffed Sarah. ‘When have you ever cleaned anything?’
‘I’m pretty good now,’ Meg replied, in self-defence. ‘I’m tidy these days, too.’
‘Really?’ Sarah didn’t sound convinced. ‘And we haven’t seen each other for fifteen years, but you want to do some decorating for me?’
‘Well, it’s no weirder than us staying in each other’s houses!’ retorted Meg. Blimey, Sarah was snippy. Nothing much had changed with her then; she obviously still thought Meg was hopeless. Had she not been following Meg’s career at all? Didn’t she know how brilliant she was?
‘True,’ said Sarah. ‘Have you any decorating experience?’ She was scoffing again, wasn’t she? Meg felt quite angry.
‘That doll’s house,’ offered Meg.
‘The one you papered with toilet roll and tin foil?’
‘Tin foil makes excellent mirrors.’
Sarah made a sound that could have been a laugh, but Meg wasn’t sure. She felt glad her stubborn pride had got in the way of her getting in touch again with Sarah, after she had first moved up to London. That one month had eased into two, then three, then before she knew it, twenty years … The terse phone call they’d had ten years ago didn’t count; neither did Uncle Compton’s funeral when they’d said one ‘hello’, one ‘goodbye’ and that was it.
‘I don’t need any decorating doing,’ Sarah said, ‘but can you please just keep your eye out for Connor and Olivia? Your niece and nephew?’ Meg now detected a note of bitterness in her sister’s voice, but thought it unfair. Meg had never met them – they were too young to have been at that funeral – and why would Meg have been in contact with them when she wasn’t ever in contact with their mum, and vice versa? It worked both ways. ‘They’re nineteen, but if I’m going to be away for a whole two months I’ll be a lot happier if there’s someone else here—’
‘—that you can trust?’ offered Meg. ‘Aren’t I more likely to lead them astray?’
‘I’m hoping you’ve changed,’ said Sarah, with a great deal of sarcasm Meg didn’t like.
‘I have changed!’ she protested, indignant. She hated feeling like the naughty little sister again. ‘And I can keep an eye on them,’ she added quickly, but she wondered exactly what would be required. Would she have to fumigate rooms with air freshener, pick up socks, give advice on boyfriends, that sort of thing? She only ever had one piece of advice on relationships: keep things casual and always keep on walking …
‘OK. Thank you,’ said Sarah. ‘Oh, another thing. I’ve resigned from my part-time job in the village, but I’ve been running an art class and the local library here for a year or so. I was going to let the parish council know I can’t do them for two months, but if you get the urge …’
‘I don’t think so!’ Meg was mildly horrified.
‘And you can use my car if you like – it’s pretty terrible but it does start sometimes.’
‘I passed my test, but I don’t really drive,’ said Meg, ‘I live really close to the Tube. Where’s your new old job?’
‘Just off Tinder Street.’
‘Cool. I’m off Tottenham Court Road, that’s only four stops from there on the Central line.’
‘Yes, that’s right. I used to know the whole Tube map, once upon a time. So we’re really doing this? Tomorrow?’
Meg stretched out both legs straight in front of her and admired her jewelled toenails. If she had to get out of London, she would go to Tipperton Mallet and stay at her sister’s cottage. She would recharge, lower her sodding blood pressure and come back to be a better model agency