‘What have you been doing?!’ My voice comes out much higher than I’d intended. ‘You know we rent this place, Clara? We’re not allowed to paint or touch anything.Anything.The estate agents are absolutelygaggingfor an excuse to have a go at us and steal our deposit. You need to—’
Clara raises a hand and I shut up. ‘I’m not painting the walls!’ she laughs, and I feel silly until she adds, ‘I have been upcycling.’
I narrow my eyes. ‘What do you mean?’
She bounces across the room, excitedly waving a paintbrush in my face. ‘Upcycling is when you take some ugly old bit of furniture and make it modern and cool! I watched a whole bunch of videos about it and got inspired.’
I sigh. ‘I know what upcycling is, Clara. I also exist inthis world. I meant what exactly have you done?’ I don’t addinstead of looking for a job.
‘You had a rank old mirror in your bedroom that I have rescued and painted a gorgeous hot pink.’ She raises her eyebrows, grinning. ‘I justtripledits value – at least. And you’re welcome.’
I feel myself pale and then get hot. My lovely, antique, wooden mirror that I got at a charity shop a few years ago? It’s now… pink? I swallow hard, staring at her. She smiles widely, waiting for a delighted reaction. It doesn’t even occur to her that… oh my god she’s so… how could she think… RAAHHHHHH I AM SO ANGRY I CAN’T COME UP WITH WHOLE SENTENCES.
‘You’ve ruined my mirror?’ My voice is loud but I’m not shouting. I am not a shouter. I will not be reduced to being a shouter. Clara willnotturn me into an awful, shouting person. ‘YOU’VE RUINED MY LOVELY, LOVELY MIRRORANDMY JUMPER?’ I shout, gesturing wildly at my favourite Vinted find, smeared with pink paint.
Sure, I actually only bought it to wear around Salma because she disapproves of my Asos premium subscription and says I need to wear more second-hand – but that’s not the point.
Clara frowns. ‘Ruined your mirror? No, I’veupcycledit. I’ve made it amazing! I promise, Jim-Jems. I shared a TikTok of the whole thing and my thirty-four followers said it totally rocked.’ She pauses. ‘Well, obviously notallthirty-four of them, because my engagement is currentlyquite low. But that’s to be expected, and the two people who did comment both said it was awesome.’ She looks excited. ‘I’m thinking this could actually be my new career, Jem – making shit, old furniture totally cool and then selling it on for thousands.’
‘WHAT ABOUT MY JUMPER?!’ I yell, trying to bring her back to the issue at hand.
She glances down, looking surprised. ‘Oh!’ She picks at the stains. ‘It’s just a bit of paint, it’ll come off in the wash, I’m sure.’ She looks up sheepishly. ‘Actually, are you putting a wash on at all because I am completely out of stuff.’ She laughs. ‘That’s why I had to borrow this.’
I feel my rosacea flaring up, hot and uncomfortable, and she cocks her head, looking mildly confused. ‘Why are you annoyed, Jim-Jems? We always used to share clothes.’
‘Yes, because wehadto!’ I explode. ‘Because we were broke! And I hated it! I just wanted my own stuff. I hated sharing clothes. I hated getting joint birthday cards and joint birthday presents. I mean, how do yousharea Tamagotchi anyway? Especially when you hogged it ninety per cent of the time and killed it over and over!’
‘How can you say that?’ Clara trembles. ‘Ilovedour little Hikotchi and I did the very best I could for him.’
I sigh, trying to bring my volume down. ‘Just… just don’t take my stuff, OK, Clara? It’s bad enough that everyone else thinks we’re basically one person just because we’re twins, butyoushould know better.’
She puts both hands up in surrender. ‘OK! Jeez! Noproblem, I won’t take your stuff. But trust me, you’re going to love what I’ve done with the mirror.’
I turn back to the washing up, trying to steady my emotions. I have been trying really, really,reallyhard not to get wound up by Clara in the week since she’s been living here.
I have not succeeded.
It’s like she has been designed by the universe to annoy me. It’s like someone genetically engineered her to have all the traits that would most get under my skin. And I know it’s just me, because Salma and Harry seem to find herdelightful. They think she’s hilarious and cool. Which obviously makes it all ten times more infuriating.
I steady my breath, adopting a friendly tone. ‘I can show you how to use the washing machine, if you like?’ I offer as nicely as possible. ‘You said you’ve run out of stuff?’
‘Oh yes, totally!’ Clara sounds relieved at the overture. ‘I’ll go get my washing.’
She runs out of the room and I check the time. I have a meeting at the library in half an hour. It’s with the sexy mountaineer, Aarav, whose memoir my boss and I are currently ghostwriting. I do all the interviews with Aarav, make notes, write them up, come up with sample outlines and chapters, but my boss does the actual writing. The finessing. He’s the one who has the agent and publishers who love him. They throw more jobs at him than he can handle, which is why he needs me. It’s really fun and interesting, but I wish I could do more of the actual writing.
But maybe I’d be no good. I’d probably be no good.
Either way, I’m really enjoying this project. Aarav is so impressive and hot. He was born in Nepal but has lived in the UK most of his life. He’s broken all kinds of records with his climbing, and is just back from K2, where he and his team lost four toes between them.
I’ve been resisting the urge to tell him I’d scale his peaks any day.
I also need to return my library book – complete with a new reply for my pen pal Karen.
I feel a small thrill at my silly little secret. How long will we keep this up, I wonder, this fun, long-hand conversation? I hope at least a little longer. Yesterday, I bought a beautiful new letter writing set specially for our correspondence. It includes this elaborate blue hardback notebook with a floral border around the pages. I want to impress my bookish friend – but I also just bloody love stationery.
‘Here we go!’ Clara’s muffled voice is back, this time under a swaying pile of dirty clothing that reaches almost to the ceiling. Even Aarav would struggle to find the top.
‘Bloody hell,’ I mutter, before clearing my throat. ‘Right, er, OK, let’s do this.’
