Karen McCombie - In Sarah’s Shadow

Now, recite the thing you most want to change in your life.

Wow. How do I choose? Ever since I got the book home and studied this particular spell at close range, it’s all I’ve been able to think about. All through tea tonight, all through Mum and Dad twittering on to Sarah about her day’s rehearsal, I just drifted away, trying to figure out my options. And out of a long list of changeable situations (stuff like teachers realising I’m a shy genius rather than an underachieving loser), I settled on the main contenders, which just happened to be…

1 Boobs. Boobs would be good. Two of those – matching, please.

2 Sarah vanishing into thin air – that’d be nice.

3 My parents noticing I exist would be quite a novelty.

4 Conor. Just…Conor.

So how can I choose just one out of all of those? I stare hard at the cinnamon candle, the scent of which – even unlit – mingles headily with the lavender I’m wafting, hug hard on my CD, and whisper…

“Can you please let me in there?”

See? This is what it’s like. I’ve only been in the bath five minutes – a bath I announced to everyone that I was having, so no one could complain about no warning and full bladders – and now here’s Sarah, banging on the door with yet another loud, bleating demand for me to get out, to make way for her Royal Highness to get in here and floss her Royal Teeth, or whatever, before she goes out for the night. It’s not enough for her to rub my nose in it about the great Saturday night she’s got planned (some amazing party, I bet, in someone’s amazingly huge house in the west end, with the amazingly beautiful Conor to keep her company). Oh no, it doesn’t matter that the only thing I’ve got planned for tonight is a long, lazy bath, with Jim Carrey – courtesy of a DVD – for afters. Sarah has to edge her way into my privacy just that little bit more, making out like I’m selfish or obstructive or something, lying here among the steamy bubbles. It’s got to be for Conor’s benefit; Dad’s still roaring at the never-ending football match and I can hear Mum cackling away with Auntie Kelly on the phone.

Conor is in Sarah’s room right now…when I first ran the bath, I heard them chatting as she let him in the front door and led him up to her room. After that, I turned the taps off and had a deliberately shallow bath, just so I could listen through the walls as Conor began to sing along to the track Sarah was strumming on the guitar.

But now, shallow bath or not, I have to get out of it. I can’t relax with her hammering on the door every ten seconds.

“OK, so you’ve got your way! Satisfied?” I blink at her, hauling open the door and shivering as the chilly January air seeps in through the gaps around the front door and slithers up the stairs to slap my bare, wet skin. Against that, no amount of towelling fabric can keep you warm.

“Yeah, yeah! I just need in for two minutes!” Sarah glares at me, all pretence of niceness gone – as usual – when Mum and Dad aren’t around.

Yeah, yeah. Two minutes, two hours…it doesn’t make much difference. Sarah’s point was to get me out, to ruin my moment, and she’s done it. She wins again, as usual.

The bathroom door slams shut behind me and I find myself shivering miserably on the spot, too cold and dejected to move, suddenly too weary of waiting for my ‘life change’ to do anything but stare off into space, zombie-ing out to the background soundtrack of Dad and the telly roaring, Mum yackety-yacking, and…and…a soft, comforting voice.

“Megan? Are you OK?”

In my frozen moment, I turn my head (a mistake – rapidly cooling beads of water trickle uncomfortably from my wet hair to my goose-pimpling back).

But my bones warm up to centre-of-the-Earth temperatures when I see Conor, perched on the edge of Sarah’s bed, arms resting on his knees, those soulful brown eyes staring right at me, reducing me to the shivering, vulnerable mass of jelly I am underneath.

“Yeah…” I nod, feeling my teeth start to chatter in time to my head-nodding.

“C’mere,” he motions to me, leaning over to switch on the small convector heater in Sarah’s room.

Instant warmth – in two ways. How can I refuse? Even if shyness is practically paralysing every stilted step I take towards him.

“You and Sarah,” he smiles at me as I crouch down in front of the heater and, coincidentally, at his feet, “do you always bicker like that?”

He’s got a very fine silver chain around his neck, I notice. Whatever’s on the end of it is unseen, hidden behind the neck of his dark-blue top. Has Sarah seen it at close quarters…?

“Hey, what can I say?” I shrug, not looking him in the eye.

And what can I say? “See that beautiful, talented, exciting girl you’re going out with? Well, you do realise she’s a manipulating bitch, don’t you?” Hey, it may be the truth, but while his vision is currently (unfortunately) clouded by the rose petals of romance when it comes to my sister, it’s easier to be vague.

“I know what it’s like. Me and my big brother fought like crazy till he went away to university. Best thing that ever happened to us – now I have a great time when I go to visit him, and we always go out together when he’s home. Before last summer, we’d have been more likely to kick each other’s heads in than go for a pint together!”

I realise what he’s trying to do; he’s trying to comfort me. Big wow. And I don’t mean that sarcastically: no one in my family – Mum, Dad, Sarah – has ever tried to rationalise it; none of them has ever suggested that what goes on between me and Sarah is normal and will pass. That’s because Mum and Dad keep their heads in the sand, and because what goes on between me and Sarah is anything but normal, even if it does seem like harmless bickering on the surface. Oh, no – I don’t expect any cosy chats over a few glasses of wine in some student union in the future. The sooner me and Sarah have enough independence and money, I can guarantee that the two of us will keep as far apart from each other as the occasional enforced family get-together will allow.

“How old’s your brother?” I ask, flicking a shy look Conor’s way.

Worn, grey cord jeans, Kicker boots, fleece-lined denim jacket, dark-blue top, that glint of a chain at his neck, the floppy, slightly unwashed hair, a grin that brings his whole face to life, big, brown eyes with a fluttering of sandy lashes all around them. In the computerised filing section of my brain, it’s all noted, all bookmarked.

“Twenty-one. Three years older than me. He’s aiming to do a Masters degree in Financial Regulation and Compliance Management.”

“Whatever that is,” I hear myself saying as I start to thaw out in front of the heater.

“Exactly!” I hear Conor laughing and, self-consciously, I start laughing too, feeling slightly hysterical that I’ve inadvertently cracked a joke with the one person I’d wanted to make an impression on since the moment – freeze-framed forever in my memory – that I saw him.

Of course it all gets ruined. It has to, doesn’t it? Knowing my luck?

“Ready already?” Conor smiles at something over my shoulder. That something being Sarah. I turn and see she has red-rimmed eyes, probably from ramming her contact lenses in too quickly in her rush to get back here once she heard me and Conor talking.

Filthy.

That’s the only word to describe the look Sarah gives me with her reddened eyes. But hey, what’s new?

I stumble to my feet, and with a quick wave ‘bye in Conor’s direction, pad barefoot across the hall towards my own room, feeling the warmth of the heater and Conor’s friendliness being replaced by icy prickles on my skin, courtesy of the wisps of draughts in our house and the frosty glare I can still feel emanating from my ice queen of a sister.