Page 27 of Annabel and Her Sisters

I agreed and sat down to work again. I tried to lose myself, but I kept glancing at my phone in case it was one of my sisters, or Mum, although the latter was unlikely.

This distraction was unusual; ordinarily, once I get going, nothing disturbs me.

I like to think I’m pretty maternal, but when the children were young and I was writing, I’d take them to school even when I knew they weren’t too bright, as I euphemistically put it, dropping them at the gates like unexploded bombs, before beetling away guiltily, then getting a call from the school nurse later.

‘Polly has a temperature, she’s in the medical room. I think she needs to come home.’ I’d feign surprise, but it would have given me a precious three hours of vital writing time.

When the children were older, they loved it.

In their teens they’d pop their heads round my door and whisper: ‘Just going to Leeds for a festival,’ or something similar.

‘Yes, yes, go!’ I’d mutter, tapping away furiously.

Only later would I look up and think… isn’t fifteen rather young to go to a festival?

And with whom, exactly? How are they getting there?

But they’d enjoyed the lack of vigilance and positively encouraged my work, and actually, I’m not sure children can withstand too much scrutiny.

Or so I’d tell myself guiltily when they eventually returned, looking pretty dishevelled and worse for wear.

Today, however, I kept looking at my phone.

When it pinged, I seized it. It was Ted, sending shot after shot of Ibiza.

He was grinning widely. ‘Look where I am!’ His arm was around a youthful-looking woman with a slim, tanned figure, in a bikini, no less.

I smiled in spite of myself, pleased for him.

And also pleased that when Ralph messaged me saying How about driving to a country pub on Saturday?

I could truthfully reply– feeling a bit sweaty, because I’d already been to a country pub with André– Sorry, I’m at my sister’s this weekend.

It would give me time to think. And likewise, I could say the same to André, when he came back from Barnes.

He popped his head round my door and said a friend was having a supper party in Clapham on Friday and did I fancy it?

‘I’d love to, but I’m going to my sister’s,’ I said with a smile. ‘For the weekend.’

‘OK, no worries.’ He nodded, and I wondered if he thought– indeed if they both thought– date four. An excuse.

According to Polly, date three was usually pivotal, although at my age, she’d conceded, probably date four. A backhanded compliment I took gratefully, wondering if I could scrape into date five?

‘Quite grey roots?’ I told her, parting my hair. ‘Really quite ancient?’

‘No,’ she told me firmly. ‘And get those roots done.’

Instead, I drove down the M4 on Friday evening feeling strangely liberated.

Indeed, I was delighted to roll up Ginnie’s front drive and see her pile glistening in the low summer light as I trundled over cattle grids, the sheep grazing peacefully to either side.

Hugo raised his hand from a far field as he chatted to one of his estate workers.

Everything was well tended, the grass edges neat, and bathed in glorious sunshine.

I loved coming here. In the sand school in the distance, Lara was trotting round on a stunning grey mare, head tucked right into its chest, firmly on the bit.

Mum loved it here, too– who wouldn’t? Yes, I thought, as I parked outside the front door and got out, if we could get her back here, all would be well.

I turned to look at Lara again. Hugo had sweetly put a white bench by the manège because Mum loved watching her granddaughter ride: she’d been a great horsewoman in her youth.

I imagined her sitting there with the dogs at her feet, smiling and nodding in encouragement.

Ginnie came out to greet me, all smiles. She was tanned from Positano and looking gorgeous: blonde and rested in a stunning cornflower-blue dress which matched her eyes.

‘Panic over,’ she told me joyfully. ‘Clarissa rang this morning– a first– and said Mum’s absolutely fine.

She’d taken her to Oxford for the day, which nearly knocked me for six– you know how she loathes that sort of thing– to the Museum of Natural History, which was why I couldn’t get hold of her yesterday.

She said they had a lovely lunch out in town. ’

‘Oh good .’ I felt a huge wave of relief wash over me.

Golly, Clarissa lunching in Oxford, what a thought.

But good for her. I blessed my sister, who I’d obviously demonized all the way down, wondering how she could even be related to me, but now I realized she genuinely had a kind heart, as Ginnie and I discussed happily on the way inside, linking arms.

‘I mean, she really is a good person,’ Ginnie insisted. ‘And just because she’s not like us, we must stop thinking she wouldn’t do the best for Mum in every single way.’

‘Exactly,’ I agreed vehemently. ‘And in fact, kindness is one of her very redeeming features. Behind the bluff exterior, she’s basically shy.’

‘And socially awkward.’

‘And covers it with weird man talk about widgets and gadgets. Remember Flora Milligan?’

‘Exactly. We always used to say.’

Flora had been Clarissa’s best friend at school, and was also Ted’s sister.

They used to sit and play with Ted’s Meccano and Action Man when we were all growing up together and Ginnie and I would giggle, rather unkindly, I now realized, as we played with our Sindy dolls.

Now, of course, it would probably be the other way round.

‘Yes, and don’t forget they did always laugh at us,’ Ginnie reminded me when I mentioned it. She put the kettle on the Aga. ‘Remember when they sabotaged that wonderful river picnic we gave our dolls? In Somerset? Threw mud pies from the other side of the river and sank your favourite one.’

‘Bessie. And all Clarissa had were those trolls.’

‘And then she went and got that ghastly tattoo.’ Ginnie shuddered.

Clarissa had a tiny troll in her armpit, her unshaved pit being the hair on the troll’s head.

She thought it was hilarious. In retrospect, it was.

Our parents never knew and Ginnie and I had been horrified, worried our school friends might find out, which I think is why she did it.

In later life, I’d wondered if mine and Ginnie’s closeness had somehow driven her further away.

Ginnie had wondered too, and we’d had long, guilty conversations on the phone when we were first married, ending up reassuring each other that of course it wasn’t our fault, we were just more similar, and Clarissa a bit different, that was all.

Our parents, though, were aware. Mum certainly was, and possibly overcompensated by excusing Clarissa’s behaviour more than she should.

Particularly when Clarissa showed off in front of our friends when we were younger, talking about sex at supper– she never wore a bra– and coming to the table holding her stomach, saying she had her period.

Not when Dad was there. If Dad was there she’d talk about the militant marches she’d been on, calling the police pigs.

She was progressive and anti-establishment.

Ginnie and I were mortified. Mum, less so.

Some of it, she knew, was for effect. I think she was just a bit sad Clarissa should feel the need.

She’d say: ‘Yes, your cause is important, but I think your banner could do without expletives. It doesn’t help your case.

’ She took it all in her stride, and my father even marched with Clarissa once.

‘Is Dad against Cruise missiles?’ I’d asked, astonished.

‘Well, we all are, darling, aren’t we?’ my mother replied calmly, making rock cakes in our Primrose Hill kitchen.

‘Yes, but…’ My father was more habitually at Lord’s, down the road. He was a member of the MCC and there was a match on today.

She’d paused, looked up from her floury fingers in the mixing bowl. ‘No, he wouldn’t normally go on a march. But it takes some of the heat out if he agrees and goes too.’

‘Oh. Quite brave? I mean, with his job.’

‘Your father has never cared what people think.’

And he didn’t. Even when there was a picture of him in the newspaper alongside a militant-looking Clarissa holding a CND banner.

He did, however, draw the line at Greenham Common.

He went to the camp and talked to her, asking her to come home.

He didn’t say that it was distressing our mother, which it was.

Instead, Clarissa later told me in a rare confiding moment– actually, she was pissed– he’d said he totally understood about nuclear disarmament, it was unarguable, but he loved her very much and did not want to see her caught up in any violence or unpleasantness.

The army had been sent in to help the police.

And for that reason, to please come home.

She was only eighteen at the time. She did come home.

And then she and my father went on a fishing trip together, to Scotland, which she loved.

Just the two of them. He taught her to cast properly.

She caught her first salmon. He was so good like that.

God, we missed him. Perhaps Clarissa even more than Ginnie and me, I realized.

I watched, perched at the island, as Ginnie took some delicious-looking meringues from the Aga and set them to cool on a rack.

He’d known how to handle her… moderated her.

I’d never had a challenging child, but I’d once overheard my mother, in a rare moment, say to Pammy: ‘Oh yes. Clarissa’s my challenge.

’ But very fondly. And perhaps Mum was still at it.

Taking on the challenge. Taking over where Dad had left off.

Going to the Natural History Museum with her– which left Ginnie and me cold– all those dinosaurs, fish skeletons, we’d much rather go to the Chanel exhibition at the V&A– and no doubt having lunch somewhere rustic and vegan.

I imagined my mother tucking into lentil soup, which she hated, with relish.

Yes, perhaps Dad was looking down and saying ‘vive la différence’.

And perhaps he’d say that spending singular time, with each daughter, in each daughter’s house, was no bad thing.

That in fact it was a very good thing. And perhaps it was all sort of, you know, pre-ordained.

If that doesn’t sound too heavy. That our arrangement had actually been a good solution.

I looked up through the window to the heavens: a bright blue sky beamed back.

It occurred to me that I felt more relieved about Mum than I had done for weeks.

Especially when Ginnie, having set a coffee in front of me, showed me some pictures on her phone which Clarissa had sent.

They were of a fossil, or frog skeleton, in the museum.

Ginnie and I turned the phone around but still couldn’t make it out.

We laughed and imagined Mum’s bemused smile.

Later still, we laughed with Hugo and Lara at supper.

Lara was still in her jodhpurs, and she mimicked her grandmother’s cut-glass accent:

‘Yes, it is rather lovely, isn’t it darling? Do look at its dear little prehistoric webbed feet.’

But so good of Clarissa to send them, nevertheless, we all agreed, passing around the meringues, the cream, the strawberries. And then we moved on, asking Lara about Piggy, her mare, who was coming on well, she said. Later we watched the news and polished off the wine.

It was something of a shock, therefore, the following morning, when Ginnie and I, in high spirits and summer dresses, arrived at Clarissa’s back door.

We got out of the car in the yard and saw our mother.

She’d clearly been at a window watching.

Waiting. She emerged from a side door, slowly, carefully– frailly, even.

She paused a moment, uncertain on the step, her hand on the frame.

Then she pottered towards us anxiously, her face grey and ashen.

What we could see of it. A huge pair of sunglasses covered most of it, hiding a myriad of emotions.