You Must Be Sisters Read Online Free PDF Page A

visit Laura. That was a thought.
    When Claire was entering the launderette, Laura was lighting a candle. Then she lit a joss stick. She put her Bach Violin Concertos on the record-player. Then she lay on the bed and tried to feel spiritual. Or, to be absolutely honest, to forget that it was Saturday night and nobody had asked her out.
    After all, what was so special about Saturday night? She decided that the charm of lying here gazing at the wreathing, curling smoke was actually increased by Hall being empty and everybody being out. She was unique, wasn’t she? Yes, of course she was.
    Her room helped to make her feel special. She liked doing things alone in it. Yesterday, realizing she’d be too late for Hall lunch, she’d bought brussels sprouts, spinach, salt and a saucepan. Alone at the gas-ring she’d cooked her first meal – amazingly enough, it was the first meal she’d ever made without witnesses or help. Its vegetarian quirkiness only made it more fascinatingly
hers
. She was beholden to no one, free to scrape it from the saucepan because there was nobody there to look pained. It was overcooked but lovely; a soggy green sacrament.
    Half an hour passed … three-quarters … Bach finished and Segovia began. When he finished it would have to be Bach again; the only other records she possessed were Beatles and Rolling Stones, definitely unsuitable for this soulful sort of evening. She got down her book of Dürer etchings and thumbed through the pages. Peace settled upon her. She could even, for quite long spells, forget that business with John.
    A knock on the door.
    ‘Hi!’ It was Mike, one of the jolly English gang. ‘I saw your light and I thought hey, poor Laura, she shouldn’t be in on a Saturday night. It’s immoral.’
    ‘Actually it’s rather nice.’
    ‘Well, nice or not, it’s not right and you’re coming to a party. I’ve heard of one and you’ve
got
to come. I insist.’
    ‘You needn’t feel sorry for me,’ she said with spirit. ‘I chose to stay in.’ She was enjoying her solitary evening so much that this was, she decided, only a half-lie.
    They crammed into a crowded car; they drove down into Bristol.
    Sights, sounds and smells were pretty standard. She was getting used to these sorts of festivities. There was a hallway blocked with bodies who pressed and shoved past her as she entered. She immediately lost sight of Mike.
    ‘You have
scrumptious
breasts,’ came a voice from the shadows; a cupped palm was stretched out. She lifted it off and pushed past to the kitchen where, behind the regiment of bottles, she could see the touching evidence of everyday masculine occupation – a greasy Formica shelf upon which stood a bottle of tomato sauce, a bottle of brown sauce and a packet of Alka-Seltzer. Nothing else.
    In glimpses she could see the floor, puddled with crimson wine. The lavatory, with Jane Fonda peeling off the wall, smelt unmistakably of vomit. Up the stairs she squeezed, up past entwined bodies, female stares over male shoulders. There was no one she recognized. At the topmost stair a shape stood up shakily and asked: ‘Do you come here often?’ then leant against the wall and giggled.
    Yet another figure confronted her. ‘Light of my life!’ it cried, and tried to disentangle itself from the other bodies. She ignored it and had a sudden vision of her charmed, candle-lit room, within which she felt so special. She didn’t feel at all special here. What a herd!
    The next room was equally crammed. Seeking a familiar face, she caught sight of a bottle on the mantelpiece containing a sprig of holly. Christmas, unbelievably, was in a month’s time. Christmas and home. It would be quite different at home after all this.
    She stepped over more bodies and looked out of the window. A dark tree faced her, its arms outstretched into the wild night sky. It was shockingly real, in contrast to what was going on behind her. The herd, the mass, roomfuls of students snogging like