I’ve never seen her look more delighted.
Sometimes when we think we know what we want but don’t get it, we look for something or someone else to fill the gap. Lily had always been jealous of Conor and Rose being together. Not because she really wanted to be with Conor, but because she always wanted whatever Rose had. Lily couldn’t stand being left out of anything. She marched around the fire and kissed him before he had a chance to protest – or run away – and I noticed Rose drink from her bottle of wine until it looked half empty.
‘Delicious,’ Lily said with a drunken smile as soon as their lips parted. That was the year she started smoking, so I imagine it wasn’t delicious for him at all. ‘Who wants to go skinny-dipping?’ she asked everyone and nobody in particular. Then she stood up and removed her witch’s hat, black dress and shoes, before running towards the sea in just her underwear. It looked whiter than white in the moonlight. Despite the cold, a few of the boys from around the fire followed her. Lily had made more than a bit of a name for herself by then. Her variety of fun was mostly harmless, and only ever born out of a desperate need for affection, but rumours ruin far more reputations than reality. Despite the unpleasant things that people sometimes said, in that moment I would have given anything to have been my sister. Everyone seemed to adore her. She was fun and beautiful, full of life and free. While I was only ever me.
Thirty-eight
SEAGLASS – 1988
Rose stormed off in the other direction, disappearing down the beach, her lion’s tail swinging as she walked. And Conor the pumpkin chased after her. If I didn’t feel so ill, I might have found the whole scene funny.
‘You’re the youngest Darker sister under there, aren’t you?’ asked a boy I recognized from Rose’s sixteenth birthday party at Seaglass. He sat down next to me, so close that I could smell the beer on his breath. The wine had made me very sleepy, and I didn’t try to stop him at first, as he attempted to remove the sheet from my head and peek underneath. I was tired of pretending to be a ghost and of being treated like one all my life, but part of me wanted to stay hidden. I pulled the sheet back down. ‘I wish it was Daisy Darker under there,’ he said, backing off a little. ‘I was hoping that the bottle might land on her if I spun it,’ he whispered, even though there was nobody else left by the fire to hear.
I didn’t know what to say to that, so said nothing.
‘Or maybe we could play a little game of trick-or-treat if you don’t like spin the bottle?’ he suggested innocently, as though we were discussing what board game to play on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
‘I don’t know how to play trick-or-treat,’ I replied.
‘It’s easy, I’ll teach you. But come a little closer first, you’re shivering. I’ll keep you warm.’
I looked around for my sisters, but they were nowhere to be seen. Everyone else had wandered away from the fire except the boy. And me. I shuffled an inch closer and he smiled.
‘First, the trick,’ he said. ‘If you can guess which hand I’m holding this chocolate coin in, you can eat the treat, but if you guess wrong, you have to take the sheet off your head.’
I looked at the chocolate in its shiny gold foil wrapping and nodded. The game seemed simple and harmless enough. He put his hands behind his back, then held two closed fists out in front of me to choose from. The hand I chose was empty, so I took off the sheet and he smiled.
‘That’s better, and look how beautiful you are. No wonder your sisters always want to leave you at home, you outshine them both. Play again?’
I think that was the first time a stranger had ever paid me a proper compliment. I knew I wasn’t really beautiful, not compared to Rose or Lily, but I confess that I liked someone saying that I was, even if it wasn’t true. I nodded a silent agreement to play again, and he held out two closed fists. I chose wrong a second time.
‘I’m afraid that means one of these comes undone,’ he said, unhooking one of the clips on my dungaree dress. When I lost again, he unhooked the other. Then he tried to kiss me and I tried to let him. I had never been kissed before. It was cold and wet, and I kept my mouth firmly closed as he tried to stick his tongue inside it. I closed my eyes too, as though I didn’t want to see what was happening.
I’d always dreamt of Conor being the first boy who I kissed, perhaps because he was the only boy I really knew. I’m sure I wasn’t the only girl in the world to fantasize about their sister’s boyfriend, and it was him I imagined as I let this eighteen-year-old stranger kiss thirteen-year-old me. I don’t expect people to understand, but according to all the doctors I spent my childhood visiting, I only had a couple of years left. I didn’t know then what the most recent doctor had said to Nancy, about a dramatic change in my life expectancy. And I didn’t want to die never having been kissed. When you know you can’t make long-term plans, it’s easy to let yourself make short-term mistakes.