Robin and her sister are staying at Callum’s house tonight for the very first time. Ever since their parents became friends with the Grangers—a chance meeting of the mums in the local hairdresser’s a few months ago tumbling into firm friendship—weekends have been turned on their heads. There are no more Saturday dinners on laps in front of the telly for the Marshall family. Saturday afternoons are for baths and hair washes; Saturday evenings are for sitting around a table while the adults talk about boring stuff and make jokes that seem designed—annoyingly—to deliberately exclude Robin, Sarah and Callum.
Hilary—Callum’s mum—cooks things she’s seen on Masterchef with Lloyd Grossman or Food and Drink with Michael Barry. There’s often a “coulis” or a “jus.” Robin misses having Saturday night fish and chips or pizza. Callum’s dad spends the evening talking about money—how much he has, how much he expects from his “bonus,” what he’s going to spend it on—and Robin’s mum does a really irritating loud laugh and then all the next morning she and Robin’s dad argue because he won’t—can’t—buy the stuff that Drew Granger buys.
Normally, the evening ends with a wobbly car ride home, the girls buckling up nervously, the air thick with warm, boozy breath from the front. But the police have been clamping down and using Breathalyzers more and their dad says it’s not worth it because if he loses his license, he can’t do his job. Robin’s suggestions to just stay at home were ignored, so instead they’re sleeping over.
Although Robin would always rather be in her own house, eating her own food and wearing jeans instead of the dresses she gets wrestled into, there is a frisson of excitement about the night. She and Sarah will be top and tailing in Callum’s room—he has a bed even bigger than Robin and Sarah’s parents’—and they’ve been promised a film before sleep. Robin’s hoping for Labyrinth but Sarah will probably stamp her feet for something like Grease 2 or Dirty Dancing, the three of them given a note of permission and a quid to go and rent something from the video section of the petrol station. Maybe an extra note of permission to get Robin’s dad some cigarettes too.
Callum is going to sleep on the floor next to them on a foldout bed, willingly giving up his usual digs for the girls he now spends much of his free time with. Listening to them talk, fascinated by the easy flow of conversion, in-jokes and bickering so abstract to an only child.
SARAH|1990
I’ve been so excited all week. I love going to the Grangers’ house. Everything is new and warm and soft to the touch. They have three toilets. One is downstairs and Hilary calls it “the cloakroom,” which makes us smirk a bit because a cloakroom is where you keep your coats and wellies. Sometimes Robin and I pretend that we’re going to wee in the cupboard at our house.
One of the toilets at the Grangers’ is in the main bathroom, which also has a shower and a bath—I’m gagging to have a go in the shower. I’ve only ever had one at the swimming pool in town and that’s like a dribble of spit. And then the last one is in Drew and Hilary’s bedroom. It’s called an “en suite” and our mum is desperate for Dad to put one in their room. “Where am I s’posed to put it?” Dad says, laughing at her. “In the wardrobe?”
I’m looking forward to spending time with Callum. Robin is always pretty good fun, not that I’d tell her that, but she’s a bit less manic and crazy with Callum. And she doesn’t show off by kicking me or doing disgusting things when he’s there.
At school, Callum circles Robin and me carefully in the same way we move around each other. There’s only one class in each year, so we’re all in the room together whether we like it or not, but it’s an unspoken truth that we’d have the Mickey taken if we played with one another. Boys don’t play with girls, and sisters don’t play with sisters. Almost right from the start of school, Robin and I acted like we had an invisible force field around each of us so we couldn’t get too close. It’s protection, I suppose. Some people think twins are weird, and some twins are weird. They close ranks, turn away from other people and make up their own language. We don’t do any of those things. Our mum says that when we were small, we used to sleep in the same cot. We’d be put down at opposite ends, but in the night we’d wiggle around until we were next to each other. And when we started school, it took us a week or so to realize the unspoken rules. So on the first day, we’d sat down together in the classroom that we’d gone into holding hands. I suppose it makes me sad that we’re not like that anymore. I don’t think Robin wants much to do with me, and I don’t really know how to tell her that I like being her sister and I enjoy it when we get along.
Perhaps it’s because we’re not identical twins. Quite the opposite. In fact, if someone looked in at us playing with Callum, they’d think he and I were related. We’re both tall and golden-haired. He carries himself upright like a dancer and I try to do that too. Robin is small and dark-haired. She’s bone-skinny and her clothes never seem to fit her right so she’s always tugging at them and yanking them up or down.
Callum is different at his house. When we’re playing in our respective groups on the playground, he’s at the quieter end of “normal” boy behavior, but he seems okay, unburdened. When we’re in the woods or a country park or the beach, pooling flasks and picnics, the mums rubbing sunscreen on whichever skin is nearest, he’s fun and playful. He freely does his funny little shoulder-shaking silent laugh. But when we’re in his house, Robin says he’s like an old woman. He fusses and flaps. If Robin picks something up, he goes red and hovers near her like he’ll have to rescue it. She is clumsy, but she’s not that bad. “You don’t understand,” he says. “Even if she drops it, it’ll be my fault.”
We arrive at the Grangers’ in our old Rover. The mums do this kind of stagey air kiss. It started as a joke but now it’s a habit. I notice that my dad has to gear himself up for the night. He sort of takes a breath and puffs his chest up as we knock on the door. His other friends aren’t like Drew Granger. They’re gardeners, like Dad, or bricklayers or thatchers. They don’t really talk; they just crack jokes and buy rounds in the local pub. Standing at the bar with their crusty work trousers on and tapping their cigarettes on chunky ashtrays. With Drew, it’s all talking and sort of jokes but not the same, nothing with a punch line. I think we’re here more for Mum. She and Hilary are the friends, and everyone else fits around that. He’d never say it, but Dad would do anything for Mum, and she seems to like this new life of cordon bleu food and wine that makes her chatty and shared days out. I like it too.
FIVE
ROBIN|PRESENT DAY