Read Online You Must Be Sisters by Deborah Moggach - Free Book Online
Authors: Deborah Moggach
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Amazing, isn’t it.’
Holly frowned. ‘What about our game?’ she asked.
‘We can look at those incredible stars,’ said Laura.
Holly treated that suggestion with the contempt it deserved. ‘You’re not saying the proper things.’ She looked from one to the other. ‘Anyway, if you two are so feeble I’m going off with Badger. First I’m going to explore. Then I’m going to see where those pipes go. Then I’m going to try and get down one of those window things.’
Claire, with the faintest sense of loss, sat down beside Laura.
‘Don’t go near the edge!’ she called to Holly, as boringly as an adult. Then she turned and stared down at the strings of street lamps.
‘I feel so stifled at home, Claire,’ said Laura. ‘They don’t realize I’ve grown up. All the nagging!
Why don’t you give just a little tidy to your room, darling, if you’ve nothing else to do, and couldn’t you possibly wear something a little more becoming, you know that Marion and her mother are coming for drinks and I do like you looking nice
. That sort of stuff.’ She threw her head back and gazed at the sky. ‘You know, even when I was younger my real reason for coming up here was to breathe.’ To illustrate this she breathed in, deeply. ‘You see, I needed space and freedom.’
Claire burst into laughter. ‘Laura! You were as ordinary as me! You came up here to play! To boss me around. Don’t you remember?’ She looked at Laura’s brooding profile against the night sky. Childhood was far away; it did seem a pity. ‘Really, you do seem muddled.’
‘I am muddled. And I analyse myself so endlessly I get into a worse muddle. I just think about what
I’m
doing all the time, how
I’m
reacting, what impression
I’m
giving. Very claustrophobic, it is. It’s only when I’m alone that I can really relax and breathe again.’
‘But don’t you feel free at Bristol, with your lovely independent room and all?’
‘Not really. It’s different pressures there.’
‘What like?’
‘Oh, pressures to look as if one’s got masses of friends and one’s doing no work and one’s sexy and careless. Insidious things, those.’
‘So at home it’s pressures to be tidy and in Bristol it’s pressures to be messy. So to speak.’
‘I never thought of it like that. And each is as bad as the other.’ She fell silent. How was it that Claire, with her cramped flat full of landladies’ cast-offs and Yvonne’s tapestry pictures, with the difficult pressures of her teaching job – how was it that Claire seemed curiously freer than she, Laura, felt? For, even in mid-grumble like this, she knew that if she were honest she had all the freedom in the world – time, liberty, her own room – heavens, poor Claire even had to share a bedroom! And yet Claire in her unobtrusive way had managed to become much more independent inside herself than she, Laura, with all her gesturings, had ever done. Somehow she’d never had to be the loud one; there was no need. She’d grown up without a fuss, leaving home as naturally as fruit falls from a branch. No traumas, no complexes, no knots that had to be tugged against, then examined at length.
‘Why were you always so reasonable at home?’ she asked peevishly. ‘Why did you never quarrel?’
‘I was just more boring and obedient than you.’
‘But you weren’t. Underneath it all you were doing your own thing. You just didn’t go on about it all the time. I make such a muddle of everything.’
‘Still talking?’ asked Holly, coming up and sitting down on the pipe next to Claire. ‘You missed lots.’
‘What sort of things?’ asked Claire. Badger poked his nose into her hair and licked her ear thoroughly, leaving it wet. ‘What did you find?’
‘I got one window thing open but I couldn’t get down, so I had a jumping competition with Badger over some pipes. They were very high, right up to my waist.’
‘Who won?’
‘Me, of course. He kept going under them
Holly frowned. ‘What about our game?’ she asked.
‘We can look at those incredible stars,’ said Laura.
Holly treated that suggestion with the contempt it deserved. ‘You’re not saying the proper things.’ She looked from one to the other. ‘Anyway, if you two are so feeble I’m going off with Badger. First I’m going to explore. Then I’m going to see where those pipes go. Then I’m going to try and get down one of those window things.’
Claire, with the faintest sense of loss, sat down beside Laura.
‘Don’t go near the edge!’ she called to Holly, as boringly as an adult. Then she turned and stared down at the strings of street lamps.
‘I feel so stifled at home, Claire,’ said Laura. ‘They don’t realize I’ve grown up. All the nagging!
Why don’t you give just a little tidy to your room, darling, if you’ve nothing else to do, and couldn’t you possibly wear something a little more becoming, you know that Marion and her mother are coming for drinks and I do like you looking nice
. That sort of stuff.’ She threw her head back and gazed at the sky. ‘You know, even when I was younger my real reason for coming up here was to breathe.’ To illustrate this she breathed in, deeply. ‘You see, I needed space and freedom.’
Claire burst into laughter. ‘Laura! You were as ordinary as me! You came up here to play! To boss me around. Don’t you remember?’ She looked at Laura’s brooding profile against the night sky. Childhood was far away; it did seem a pity. ‘Really, you do seem muddled.’
‘I am muddled. And I analyse myself so endlessly I get into a worse muddle. I just think about what
I’m
doing all the time, how
I’m
reacting, what impression
I’m
giving. Very claustrophobic, it is. It’s only when I’m alone that I can really relax and breathe again.’
‘But don’t you feel free at Bristol, with your lovely independent room and all?’
‘Not really. It’s different pressures there.’
‘What like?’
‘Oh, pressures to look as if one’s got masses of friends and one’s doing no work and one’s sexy and careless. Insidious things, those.’
‘So at home it’s pressures to be tidy and in Bristol it’s pressures to be messy. So to speak.’
‘I never thought of it like that. And each is as bad as the other.’ She fell silent. How was it that Claire, with her cramped flat full of landladies’ cast-offs and Yvonne’s tapestry pictures, with the difficult pressures of her teaching job – how was it that Claire seemed curiously freer than she, Laura, felt? For, even in mid-grumble like this, she knew that if she were honest she had all the freedom in the world – time, liberty, her own room – heavens, poor Claire even had to share a bedroom! And yet Claire in her unobtrusive way had managed to become much more independent inside herself than she, Laura, with all her gesturings, had ever done. Somehow she’d never had to be the loud one; there was no need. She’d grown up without a fuss, leaving home as naturally as fruit falls from a branch. No traumas, no complexes, no knots that had to be tugged against, then examined at length.
‘Why were you always so reasonable at home?’ she asked peevishly. ‘Why did you never quarrel?’
‘I was just more boring and obedient than you.’
‘But you weren’t. Underneath it all you were doing your own thing. You just didn’t go on about it all the time. I make such a muddle of everything.’
‘Still talking?’ asked Holly, coming up and sitting down on the pipe next to Claire. ‘You missed lots.’
‘What sort of things?’ asked Claire. Badger poked his nose into her hair and licked her ear thoroughly, leaving it wet. ‘What did you find?’
‘I got one window thing open but I couldn’t get down, so I had a jumping competition with Badger over some pipes. They were very high, right up to my waist.’
‘Who won?’
‘Me, of course. He kept going under them
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