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 glance. Maybe 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 bike and 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 gate with 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 Dad took 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's when 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 everyone else'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 his bullworker. 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 seaside town. 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 like mad 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. She said she liked the idea of it, though I
|
thought it was because of what happened to the cat, and our mum.
|
|
-----------------
|
My Sister
|
Tindersticks |