I knew it was her in seconds. I didn’t spend years watching her grow up online without knowing innately what she looked like from every angle. What a depressing waste of brain space. ‘What did you spend your twenties doing, Grace?’ ‘Well I watched an entitled airhead make vlogs about lip balm and I learnt all about her top five sunglasses shapes.’ Maybe I should off myself too.
She was looking down and typing intently on her phone, with one hand stretched out in front of the manicurist as though she were giving her a gift. I wonder what the women who work in salons like this say about their clients at the end of the day. Do they rage about the rude customers who never make eye contact? Do they laugh at them? Or do they become so numb to it that it barely gets mentioned?
I leant over and asked to borrow the varnish colour wheel, and she handed it over without looking up. One headphone dangled from her ear, signalling that she wasn’t available for conversation, a tactic I won’t judge since I use it myself. God bless the man （I’m guessing） who designed headphones not imagining that women the world over would use them to signal that they were unavailable to men who would try to engage us. The salon was buzzy in the way that women-only spaces always are, but I blocked it out and focused entirely on her. Watching Bryony was easy, she was like a dog who slows down for every passing stranger they meet, expecting that they will want to pet them. She was used to people looking admiringly at her, expected it, welcomed it. To be ignored would have been more disconcerting, I imagine. That didn’t mean she would look back of course. It simply meant that I had carte blanche to observe without being noticed. The adrenaline was whooshing around my body at this opportunity. I felt like I was wasting every second, I had to make something happen. Soon she’d glide out of the salon and hop straight into a warm car, while I sat here waiting for my nails to dry.
This was my half-sister! What is meeting your long-lost sibling supposed to be like? I imagine you might examine each other nervously, make some stupid joke, tentatively reach for a hand. All preamble until you can eventually fall into each other’s arms – allowing yourself to acknowledge that this person’s existence was the missing piece of your life’s puzzle finally slotting into place.
‘OUCH!’ Bryony angrily pulled her hand away from the manicurist, looking down at her cuticle and rubbing it. ‘You’ve cut me, FFS. Can you be careful?’ The lady lowered her head and said sorry, though I couldn’t see any sign of blood. Bryony sighed and stretched out her hand again, as another lady hurried over from the reception desk. This woman, who I assume was the manager, bent over and looked at her fingers, examining the damage. ‘Sorry, miss, so sorry. I’ll get you some water, yes?’
My sister didn’t look up again, but nodded in assent. She was scrolling through her Instagram feed, hitting like on several photos of blonde girls standing on leather banquettes in darkened nightclubs. Then she opened up the camera app, raised it towards her face and arranged her features into an expression of composed disdain. I watched as she took photo after photo, before finally appearing to settle on one, her slim fingers quickly flicking and swiping. Bryony sighed again, and set her phone down. She didn’t stop though, using her free hand to refresh the app again and again. I pulled my own phone out and opened up my own Instagram app. I use a pseudonym on it, a generic photo of a youngish mum with two small boys. My bio reads, ‘Wifey of one big fella and mum of two small terrors, living in Hertfordshire and always up for a （insert banal wine emoji here）。’ I was fairly proud of the base level I got to here. Nobody will ever notice Jane Field watching their live videos more than once. Nobody will ever want to follow her back. I click on Bryony’s Instagram stories and it loads to reveal the photo I just watched her take – eyebrow raised in disgust, lip curled, heavily filtered to make her skin look almost shimmery. The message written over the top of the image reads, when you go for a much-needed relaxing manicure and the clumsy woman nearly slices your finger off. #badservice #moron.
I tell you this just so it’s more obvious why the falling into each other’s arms reunion scenario was never going to be likely. I didn’t have any feelings towards her other than a complete, but detached, fascination. Would I have been like her had I grown up within the monied bosom of her family? Probably. How many fantastically rich people do you know that you admire? I mean the ones born into it, not Oprah. I don’t kid myself that I’d have done anything differently. Her cousin tried, bless him, but he wasn’t really carving out his own life with those frogs. He was just rejecting the life that he was given, a life that was powerful and all encompassing – one that he’d have had to battle to stave off for the rest of his life. And that fight would have been exhausting. One day, when he was tired of living in a series of grim flat-shares and helping hideous animals that showed him no thanks, his father would have asked him for dinner. And worn down, he’d have revealed a chink in the armour he’d developed to protect him from the evils of his previous life. A little help would’ve been offered – nothing too much you understand – his family would have known how far they could push it. Perhaps just covering the rent that month, for example. And he’d have taken it, wrestling with it but just wanting a break. From there, the door would have been opened. The Artemis family would have pulled him back in – his chosen path was an affront to theirs after all – and he’d have given up his resistance. Maybe he wouldn’t have sworn at staff and dated a succession of younger and younger models – he’d developed some moral compass despite his background – but he’d have ended up running an arm of the company, perhaps throwing regular charity fundraisers to make the process less crushing.