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‘Beth is in the kitchen fixing some G and Ts.’
My heart sank. So she was here.
‘Just to warn you, you’ll need to tread carefully,’ my mother said in a confidential tone.
‘How come?’
‘Are you talking about me? I’m right here, you know,’ said a voice from behind my left shoulder. I slowly turned to see my sister, Beth, standing in the doorway. She was clutching an antique gilt tray with several glasses and a tall blue bottle of Bombay Sapphire.
Seeing her again after everything that had happened was shocking. She stalked into the lounge and tossed her long dark hair as she went past, almost smacking me in the face with it. I smelt her familiar lilac perfume—it smelt like betrayal.
‘You might as well sit down instead of standing there, gawking,’ she said, placing the tray on the oval coffee table and taking the other round-armed chair.
Thomas and I promptly sat on the couch opposite.
He looked at her and looked at me, his mouth slightly ajar. Beth was my spitting image; we were identical twins after all. We even dressed similarly. Today I was wearing black tailored pants and a cream silk top. She had on black tailored pants and a mauve silk top. Beth’s favourite colour was purple because she liked to think of herself as a spiritual person. Our long dark hair was long and loose, though she had a feathery side fringe. Her face and nose were slightly narrower.
She waved a hand at the tray of drinks. ‘Help yourselves. I brought out the bottle if you need it stronger. God knows I do.’ She collected a glass of G and T from the tray and sat back in the chair, crossing her legs. Then she eyed Thomas with interest. ‘Who’re you?’
Oh no, no way. She was not going to have him too! Wasn’t one boyfriend enough? And where the hell was Ben?
‘I’m Thomas, Anna’s boyfriend. And you are?’ he said politely, and I could’ve kissed him right there and then.
‘Beth,’ she said, sounding a bit rattled.
‘Where’s Ben?’ I asked. ‘Upstairs?’
My mother shook her head slightly at me as Beth sipped her drink, her forehead scrunching until her dark salon-shaped eyebrows almost met in the middle.
‘He’s only gone and dumped me,’ she spat.
I blew out my cheeks and grabbed the gin bottle. I was definitely going to need my G and T stronger.
***
‘Why didn’t you tell me they’d broken up?’ I whispered to my mother in the kitchen after we’d had our beef bourguignon. I’d reluctantly left Thomas with Beth in the dining room so I could help clear the dishes. I fervently hoped he’d still be there (and still mine) when I went back in.
‘Today was the first I’d heard of it. She turned up here alone and said he’d left her. It must’ve happened quite recently. Poor thing,’ my mother replied. ‘Thomas is nice, though. Where did you meet him?’
‘Er, on an Oxford Castle tour.’
Apparently, Beth had been asking Thomas the same thing as they were discussing it when I came back in with a plate of profiteroles.
Beth looked up at me with gin-soaked eyes and giggled. ‘Maybe I need to come to Oxford and go on this tour so I can meet a nice guy too,’ she slurred.
‘I think you’ve had enough,’ I said, removing the Bombay Sapphire out of her reach.
‘Aw, come on, Anna. Lighten up. Thomas has probably got a brother or a cousin I can hang out with.’
‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘He doesn’t.’
‘For God’s sake, don’t tell me you’re still angry about Ben? That was years ago.’ She pouted, biting delicately into a profiterole. ‘He’s dumped me too. That makes us even. So you can stop playing the moral high ground and bloody well forgive me.’
I was too stunned to say anything.
But Thomas wasn’t so speech-impaired. ‘Beth, I don’t know the exact details of what took place when Ben broke up with Anna and decided to go off with you. That’s because she’s polite and nice and doesn’t tell tales,’ he said evenly. ‘But I know what you did hurt her deeply, so deeply that she was dreading coming here tonight and seeing you. And now I know why.’
Beth didn’t say anything. She licked cream off her finger sullenly.
