‘Well, no. I mean, I realize I’m very lucky...’
‘Yep.’
‘But sometimes I feel like it’s such a contrast to what I was doing before, it feels odd. Alien.’ Ellie was silent and Abby knew she’d annoyed her. ‘I’m not complaining.’
‘Good.’
‘It’s just going from fourteen-hour days to nothing...’
‘You’re not alone, you know. With your fourteen-hour days. Lots of us work ridiculous hours. Many for less pay. Some of us can barely keep it together. Make ends meet.’
Abby’s skin prickled with irritation and the guilt resurfaced. So Ellie hadn’t got over it. She wondered about bringing it up but knew instantly it would kill this reunion stone dead and so she kept silent. When she’d received the email from her sister earlier in the year (after months of silence) she’d been rendered speechless. Ellie had written with a request for a loan so she could buy a place to live rather than rent. Abby had been astounded at the notion Ellie thought she could just lay her hands on a hundred and twenty thousand pounds for a deposit. Even if she could, she didn’t believe in paying through the nose for a tiny Victorian conversion flat just because it was in a ‘cool’ part of town.
‘I decided to save my money, not spend it. Foryears.’
‘If I had any left over to save, I would.’
Abby sighed. ‘You do, Ellie.’
‘I don’t.’
‘Still living in South Wimbledon?’ Her sister’s lack of response confirmed she was. ‘Why don’t you pack in the London rent and move further out – Coulsdon in Surrey, for example? It’ll probably cost you less than half.’
‘Never heard of it. And anyway, I need to be near school, especially with the hours I do.’
‘It’s in zone six. Still a doable commute. Look, I don’t want this to become an argument. Can’t we just try to get on? Put everything else aside and just enjoy some time together?’
Abby saw her sister shift on her towel, trying to get comfortable.
‘Bit hard, isn’t it?’ said Ellie.
‘You get used to it,’ replied Abby, clipped. She was not in the mood to hear her sister’s digs at the lack of sunbeds.
Matteo swam back up to the rock and pulled himself out of the water. He shook his head, sending sparkling drops flying into the air. Abby looked up at him towering over them both, the sun lighting the water droplets running down his body. What was it with Italian men and their insistence on wearing tight swimwear? Nice for her, but...She glanced over at Ellie in her yellow bikini and noticed, not for the first time, how it clung to the roundness of her perfect bottom and brushed against her pert breasts. She tried to see if her sister had noticed Matteo’s near-naked body, but Ellie was starting to get up.
‘I might just go back to the house,’ she said. ‘Get some more sun cream.’
As Abby watched Ellie stalk up the steps, in what she knew to be barely suppressed anger, she felt a pang of anxiety.
Damn her guilty conscience. Not for the first time since she’d sent it, Abby was regretting her invitation. She was beginning to think the next six weeks with her sister might be the longest of her life.
THREE
As Ellie reached the top of the steps and Abby’s modest house came back into view, she felt as if it were mocking her for her earlier dismissive thoughts. It wasn’t about the house at all; it was about the house’sposition, with its own goddamn path down to a private platform, from where you could swim in your own private bit of sea. Anytime you wanted. It was just another thing to add to Abby’s perfect, lucky life.
She stepped into the cool of the villa and took a long, deep breath. She had to stop letting everything that Abby had, and that she didn’t have, get to her. But it was hard when every day back home was a struggle, when she’d have to lug a bag full of marking home every evening – and, no, she couldn’t move to that place in Surrey that she’d already forgotten the name of, because the idea of carrying a ton of books back and forth on public transport made her want to cry. Even more so lately, after her recent bombshell. Something she hadn’t told anyone about yet. Truth was, she couldn’t bear to. She was always so tired, so very, very tired. And if she had to spend three hours a night marking essays written by teenagers who spent more time thinking up japes such as drawing a box halfway through their work with a ‘Tick here if read so far’ message, than they did putting any effort into theactualcontent, then why shouldn’t she treat herself to a nice bottle of wine to ease her through her evening? She deserved it. As she did the new yellow bikini for this much-needed holiday. And the gym membership so she could get out of the flat on the freezing, dark winter weekends, and the occasional massage to relieve the tension in her shoulders, and any of the other small treats she gave herself just to be able to get through the relentless uphill battle of the weeks.
Screw Abby and her judgemental attitude. It was easy to save if you could put enough away to actually make a difference; if you could envisage a goal that might be achieved within your own lifetime. It was even more galling that Abby was suggesting places she, Ellie, could live when Abby had refused to use some of her fortune to help her own sister get on the property ladder.
Ellie had been stunned when she’d received the point-blank refusal from Abby, without even a suggestion that they might discuss it. It had burned even more because Abby, being that bit older, had managed to get her own place over a decade ago. She’d had a decent job straight from graduation and during the recession of 2008, when prices had tumbled, she’d bought her first flat. At the time, Ellie had been earning next to nothing as a trainee teaching assistant and, even if she’d had a deposit saved, she wouldn’t have been given a mortgage on her tiny salary. Over the years Ellie had watched as the goal of being a homeowner had drifted ever further out of reach, with prices rising far higher than her pay. Of course, the value of Abby’s flat was also rising and Ellie had googled its worth one dark, miserable evening at home in her rented apartment. In two years it was worth over a hundred thousand pounds more than what Abby had paid for it.One hundred thousand pounds!Abby had acquired all that money by doing sweet nothing. Ellie had been so depressed at this sense of being left behind that she’d booked a weekend away in Istanbul to cheer herself up. It had been a much-longed-for dose of sunshine during a grey February half-term.
Ellie knew Abby still had that flat (now worth double what she’d paid for it), and she rented it out. To some poor mug just like herself, forced to line someone else’s pockets, as they couldn’t afford their own home.
Engulfed by resentment, Ellie poured herself a glass of cool water from the kitchen tap and drank half of it back. If she wasn’t going to go mad with envy during her stay with her sister she had to get a grip.
She placed the glass down on the worktop and climbed the stairs to go and get the sun cream. Then she would return to the swim platform, poised and calm. Dignified.
She paused outside the first room upstairs, which Abby had said was her and Matteo’s bedroom. She peeked inside, her eyes briefly lingering with curiosity over the light, airy room with its rustic furniture. Abby wouldn’t waste money on a decent dressing table or wardrobe. There was a simple wooden double bed with white covers and a chair with what looked like Matteo’s uniform tossed on it.
