3.My Sister
Do you remember my sister？ how many mistakes did she make with
those never blinking eyes？ i couldn't work it out. i swear she
could read your mind, your life, the depths of your soul at one
glan
Aybe she was stripping herself away, saying
Here i am, this is me
I am yours and everything about me, everything you see...
If only you look hard enough
I never could.
Our life was a pillow-fight. we'd stand there on the quilt, our
hands clenched ready. her with her milky teeth, so late for her
age, and a stanley knife in her hand. she sliced the tyres on my
b
Nd i couldn't forgive her.
She went blind at the age of five. we'd stand at the bedroom
window and she'd get me to tell her what i saw. i'd describe the
houses opposite, the little patch of grass next to the path, the
gat
H its rotten hinges forever wedged open that dad was always
going to fix. she'd stand there quiet for a moment. i thought
she was trying to develop the images in her own head. then she'd
say：
I can see little twinkly stars,
Like christmas tree lights in faraway windows.
Rings of brightly coloured rocks
Floating around orange and mustard planets.
I can see huge tiger striped fishes
Chasing tiny blue and yellow dashes,
All tails and fins and bubbles.
I'd look at the grey house opposite, and close the curtains.
She burned down the house when she was ten. i was away camping
with the scouts. the fireman said she'd been smoking in bed -
the old story, i thought. the cat and our mum died in the
flames, so
Ook us to stay with our aunt in the country. he went back to
london to find us a new house. we never saw him again.
On her thirteenth birthday she fell down the well in our aunt's
garden and broke her head. she'd been drinking heavily. on her
recovery her sight returned, a fluke of nature everyone said.
that'
N she said she'd never blink again. i would tell her when she
started at me, with her eyes wide and watery, that they reminded
me of the well she fell into. she liked this, it made her laugh.
She moved in with a gym teacher when she was fifteen, all
muscles he was. he lost his job when it all came out, and
couldn't get another one. not in that kind of small town.
everybody knew every
Lse's business. my sister would hold her head high, though. she
said she was in love. they were together for five years until
one day he lost his temper. he hit over the back of the neck
with hi
Lworker. she lost the use of the right side of her body. he got
three years and was out in fifteen months. we saw him a while
later, he was coaching a non-league football team in a cornwall
seas
Own. i don't think he recognized her. my sister had put on a lot
of weight from being in a chair all the time. she'd get me to
stick pins and stub out cigarettes in her right hand. she'd
laugh l
Ad because it didn't hurt. her left hand was pretty good though.
we'd have arm wrestling matches, i'd have to use both arms and
she'd still beat me.
We buried her when she was 32. me and my aunt, the vicar, and
the man who dug the hole. she said she didn't want to be
cremated and wanted a cheap coffin so the worms could get to her
quickly. s
Id she liked the idea of it, though i thought it was because of
what happened to the cat, and our mum.
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