The Sister Swap: the laugh-out-loud romantic comedy of the year!

She checked her phone, her emails. There were loads, all being forwarded to Lilith. It made her blood boil to think of Lilith sitting at her desk, doing her work. Actually, it made her heart race. Palpitations, oh god. She took one of her tablets and forced herself to calm down and breathe. She was here to get better, not worked up, and once she was better she could get back to London. She sent silent pleas to her blood pressure to lower. And then she texted Clarissa.

Hi, lovely, all OK for the Rome job today?

Yes, Lilith already called me. Everything all arranged.

Great. Meg texted this with her teeth firmly gritted. Don’t forget we need to get you a new passport at the end of August.

Yes, I know. Guess what? I met your sister.

Already? Obviously, they might bump into each other, in the lift or something, but Meg hadn’t thought it would be so soon.

Really? How was she? It was strange that after fifteen years, Clarissa had seen Sarah and she hadn’t.

Nice. Nothing like you.

Charming!

I mean looks wise. You’re tiny, she’s tall.

The genetic lottery. She got Dad’s, I got Mum’s. What did you think of her?

She was nice. Friendly. How come you never told me you had a sister? That was a difficult question for Meg to answer. Because she found it easier to not mention Sarah, to not explain why she didn’t see her. Because she was happier trying to breeze through life without thinking about her. Clarissa liked her sister, though. Interesting. Although first impressions did have the tricky habit of being deceiving.

It just never came up, texted Meg, lamely.

OK, replied Clarissa. She was a smart girl; she knew when to let things go. I invited her for coffee sometime.

Oh, not so smart. Why?

I don’t know, I just felt sorry for her. She seems … vulnerable.

I doubt it, responded Meg. When had Sarah ever been vulnerable? Controlling, condescending, strict, and implacable, yes. Vulnerable, no. So, have a great time in Rome. I’ll speak to you soon x

Will do. Hope you’ll be ok down there. Don’t break any farmers’ hearts!

I’ll try not to x

Meg got out of bed. She hadn’t brought her white waffle dressing gown as there hadn’t been room in her bag, but the bathroom was down on the landing and she was wearing her short cotton nightie, the one with the straps that kept falling down, so her eyes darted round the room for something she could put on. Oh, there, on the hook on the back of the door was Sarah’s old faithful – that yellow dressing gown Meg used to hate. Sarah had worn it more than once picking Meg up from various pubs. It was fluffy and made Sarah look like Big Bird; Big Bird had usually sat in the driver’s seat, looking highly disapproving and sour faced. Meg couldn’t believe Sarah still had it.

After a quick shower and a good old nose at Sarah’s toiletries (all supermarket brand and totally uninspiring), Meg, dressed in designer jeans and an old Gentlemen Prefer Blondes T-shirt, walked down to the kitchen. All was quiet – except for the sound of gentle snoring coming from Connor’s room upstairs. Meg opened the fridge, took the plastic milk carton out of the door by the lid and the whole thing fell on the floor, splattering milk everywhere. What the hell? She grabbed a cloth from the side of the sink and quickly cleared it up. Teenagers! She would have to get used to living with them, and living with people in general again. She hadn’t shared anything much with anyone for a long time.

Meg poked about in the fridge and the cupboards and was not surprised to see them all groaning with food. Sarah had always been good at keeping groceries stocked up. When she came back to Tipperton Mallet to be Meg’s guardian she’d primly said, on the very first night, that Meg had always been very well fed when their parents were alive, and she was going to have to keep that up. Meg had been served ‘proper’ home-cooked meals by Sarah – martyring around the kitchen in Mum’s ‘cat’ apron – for two whole years, which Meg still felt resentful about. Every dinner in their mother’s repertoire had been replicated: spaghetti Bolognaise, cottage pie, smoked haddock and cheese sauce, endless casseroles … Each recipe had been un-deviated from. Except nothing had been the same. All those meals had done was make Meg feel sad and angry. Every mouthful had just filled her with further bitterness and grief.

Meg slammed shut the door of the last cupboard, which was stuffed with different types of pasta. She made herself a quick piece of toast and Marmite, then called up the stairs to any teenager who might be listening. ‘I’m just going out!’ She would go for a walk, lower the blood pressure, follow the doctor’s bloody orders … see if, miraculously, there was anything interesting going on around here these days.

From upstairs came the sound of a door opening. ‘Are you going to Binty’s?’ grunted an almost indecipherable Morgan Freeman. Bloody hell, Binty’s, thought Meg – was that still there?

‘I don’t know,’ shouted up Meg. ‘Why?’

‘I fancy some doughnuts,’ grunted Connor. ‘Please.’

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Meg called up. ‘What time are you going to work?’

‘Not ’til tonight. I’m on shifts. Thaaanks.’ The door banged shut again.

‘OK,’ muttered Meg to herself. ‘Doughnuts.’

She pulled on a pair of Sarah’s wellies that were in the tiny boot room by the back door – she may have to have a sort out at some stage; it was as messy as the porch – adding a thick pair of socks she managed to extract from the huge pile of footwear and miscellaneous items there, as the wellies were too big. And she stepped out of the back door.

‘Bloody Nora!’ A thick, pungent pong of manure slapped her right in the face and nearly knocked her for six. ‘Muck spreading’, that’s what her parents called it; Dad sometimes used to put a comical washing line peg on his nose as he mowed the lawn. Mum used to laugh and say it was good for clearing the sinuses. Meg shook her head and tried to zone out the stench – she preferred Eau de London: traffic fumes, food of every denomination, the occasional drain – and stomped down the stony path that wove through the overgrown back garden to the low hedge and wooden gate at the end. Beyond, all she could see were fields. Fields and yet more fields. Ugh. Meg prayed for an oasis of a Starbucks or a Costa on reaching the village. Maybe one had sprung up since she was last here. She could lounge on a sofa with a latte, read the emails she wasn’t allowed to reply to and pretend she was back in London.

The field was on a slight incline and furrowed, so Meg followed the lines. If she went straight up this field and right along the next two she would reach the village. Not that she was in any rush. She, sadly, had all the time in the world. It was a hot morning – she should have worn flip-flops not wellies – and she tried to make the effort to appreciate it. Not that she ever had – this walk across the fields to the village had only ever been highly dull. Birds were chirping overhead, bees hummed in the hedgerows, there was the distant sound of shots … Shots? Meg ducked automatically, going into a kind of comedy walking squat, peering around her. Then she remembered. Mad people in green tweedy jackets liked to shoot pheasants around these here parts. She straightened up again.

Meg was on the second field now. There was a bull in the neighbouring one, trumpeting and looking angry about something. The third was planted with some kind of shaggy grass – she remembered, with a giant yawn, that each field had something different every year – and sloped downwards. Finally, she came to the road. It looked exactly the same as it had twenty years ago: dead boring. To get on to it she had to climb the old stile set into the thick, dense hedge. She’d done it a million times before, to be picked up seconds later by some rusty old banger with an unsuitable boyfriend in it, who would take her to pubs in various neighbouring towns and villages, or, sometimes, to Ipswich, for a night of usually underwhelming underage clubbing. There was a huge cowpat on the road, the other side of the stile, but she wouldn’t be falling for that one. She was an old hat at climbing stiles; she used to live here.

The beam that crossed the middle of the stile was worn and a little slippery. The further two steps to the top were rough and sturdy. Once up there, Meg looked over to the village. She could see The Duke of Wellington, her local old stomping ground, where so many hilarious and terrible nights had taken place. The awful hairdresser’s, old-fashioned even back then. The ancient village green, looking just the same. No Starbucks, no Costa. Oh well, what did she expect? Covent Garden? A life-size replica of the London Eye?

Meg stepped down onto the beam the other side. She was still looking over at the village, wondering what time the pub opened, when her foot, sliding around in the too-big welly, made slippery contact with the edge of the beam and skidded off. It flailed, trying but failing to land, and, before she knew it, she was crashing through the air and landing right on her backside in the enormous cowpat. Oh god! She was hapless City Girl, wasn’t she, she thought, as she landed – like in books – who falls into a cowpat only to be rescued by the handsome local vet, whom, after a few chapters of resistance, she marries on the village green with all the locals cheering and waving bunting … Yuk.

‘Oh, sh—’ she was about to say, but before she could get the very apt words out or even begin to struggle to get up, she was highly surprised to be suddenly and forcefully flattened into said cowpat by a steamrollering, rushing grey hulk of taut muscle and tickly, silky fur.

‘Oof! What the bloody hell?’ Meg, with a very soggy bottom and shocked limbs, was prone, on the ground, and something was licking her face with a very large, wet tongue. ‘Get off me!’

There was a whistle, from somewhere in the distance, and the thing that was licking Meg stopped licking her and raised its head away, tilted in curiosity. It had huge, floppy, silky ears, jowly chops and eyes that said ‘I wish I could lick you again.’ Then there was another whistle and the creature bounded up and galloped over to a man who was walking swiftly up the road.

‘Come on, boy! Good boy, Garfield. Oh god, I’m so, so sorry.’

Meg slowly picked herself up off the ground. She checked herself out for physical damage – none, apparently, apart from a sore arse and – sartorial disaster – oh, not good, designer jeans probably ruined. Still, at least she was alive. Miraculously, she had survived being rugby tackled by the biggest dog in the world.

‘I’m so sorry,’ repeated the man. He now had the enormous beast on some kind of lead and had almost reached Meg. She recognized him, didn’t she? He was the man from the field outside the train station. The one with the horse. She’d been right – he was handsome. He looked thirty-something, tall, floppy brown hair, brown eyes, wearing jeans and a checked blue shirt. Very good-looking, for a country sort, she acknowledged. Shame his dog was an absolute animal.

‘That’s one big dog,’ she commented dryly, checking her elbows for grazes. ‘And isn’t Garfield a cat?’

‘Sorry he’s such a brute,’ said the man. ‘And he’s named after Andrew Garfield, from the Spiderman movies. I’m a Marvel fan.’

‘Marvellous,’ she retorted.

‘I’m sure he’s very sorry, too.’ The man gave a sheepish grin; it would have been quite cute had he not indirectly tried to kill her. ‘I guess he saw you and just had to come and make friends.’ He patted Garfield the dog, who snuffled his wet nose into the man’s hand.

‘Some way to make friends.’ Meg sniffed. ‘Knock a person to the ground and then lick them half to death!’ She looked at the dog suspiciously. It was staring at her with love in its eyes and an overactive tongue. Meg was not a dog person; never had been. They were smelly, they needed walking all the time, they ambushed people on the street and their not-sorry-enough owners had to apologize for them … She was really glad Sarah only had a cat, not that she’d seen hide nor tail of him yet.

‘I really am very sorry.’ The man ran a hand through a head of floppy hair; it had a slight wave and looked overdue for a cut. ‘He has form for this, I admit. Great Danes do get very excitable, I’m afraid.’

‘Fabulous, I’ve been mauled by Scooby-Doo,’ said Meg. ‘I guess that makes you Shaggy?’ She glanced at him, from under her stripy side-sweep fringe. He was really rather good-looking, she had to admit. Not her usual type, but definitely flirtable with. She smiled a wide, slow smile and ran her fingers through her tousled hair, a couple of classic ‘pulling’ gestures of hers. This man could be a fun, no-strings-attached dalliance, like the ones she had in London – a ‘thing’ to stop her being bored, and it was not like she was going to fall in love with him or anything. She knew better than to fall in love. People you loved left you; any fool knew that. Her parents, the two men she was foolish enough to have serious love affairs with in her early years in London … The first had left her for a revoltingly talented opera singer; the second had been cruel throughout and then had broken her heart by simply falling out of love with her in the most devastating way. She was not stupid enough to go anywhere again where she might get hurt.

The man responded to her two shameless classic pulling gestures with a look of suspicion. ‘I’m not sure I possess the Seventies slacker clothing or the gormless expression,’ he replied, his voice suddenly gruff. Oh. He patted Scooby-Doo on his silky back and looked at her ruefully. Moody type, despite the initial bonhomie, she surmised. Oh well. Trying to lighten him up might be entertaining; she had nothing else to do.

‘Well, you’d look cute with both,’ she said. ‘Shaggy could do with a re-boot.’ She gave him a slight wink, for good measure and her own amusement. Surely he would go back to smiling, nice country-person now and start flirting with her back.

‘Where are you headed?’ he asked; his expression still guarded. ‘Are you going into the village?’

‘Yes, I’m off to have a little look around,’ she said.

‘I’m going that way,’ he said brusquely. ‘I’ll walk with you.’

They walked for a while in silence. He had wellies on, too. Those posh ones with the band of leather round the top. Garfield the Great Dane trotted next to them. That dog really was enormous, thought Meg. If he stood up on his hind legs you could do the foxtrot with him. There was more silence: this man was certainly not the chatty type. Funny, thought Meg; he’d seemed exactly that when he’d first approached.

‘What’s your name?’ Meg asked him.

‘Jamie Chase.’

‘I’m Meg.’

‘Nice to meet you, Meg.’ He said it without looking at her. He didn’t sound like it was ‘nice’ at all.

‘What do you do?’

‘I’m a vet.’

Meg threw her head back and laughed.

‘What’s so funny,’ he asked crossly.

‘Nothing, honestly.’

‘You think everyone in the country is a farmer or a vet?’

‘Well, you could include doctors – with their own country practice, a view of the fields and a stream of genial patients with minor and satisfying-to-treat ailments.’

‘Very good.’ He still sounded sour.

‘I read a lot of books,’ she offered, still teasing.

‘I see.’

Oh, she gave up! Perhaps he was busy, distracted, on his way to somewhere, she decided. He probably had a hamster to put down, or something, or somewhere unmentionable he needed to stick a Marigold-gloved hand. Shame, really. She switched tack and opted for polite small talk.

‘I’m staying here, at my sister’s cottage. Well, it used to be mine, too – once upon a time. Sarah Oxbury. Do you know her?’

‘You’re Sarah’s sister?’ He turned to her, surprised. ‘I never would have guessed that!’

What did he mean? Looks wise, probably, like Clarissa had said. Or did he mean Sarah was all grown-up and sensible, whilst she was all ridiculous and prone to falling in cowpats? She gingerly tugged at the wet backside of the jeans to temporarily release their vacuum suction from her knickers. Ugh.

‘Well, I am,’ she said defiantly. She wasn’t sure if she was defending her sister, or herself. ‘I used to live here. I left when I was eighteen. I work in London. I run my own mo—’ She stopped herself; he looked like he wasn’t interested. His mouth was set like one of those presidents on Mount Rushmore. Only Garfield looked animated. He was all bouncy, like he might leap up at her at any moment and have another go. ‘So, you know Sarah?’ she said instead.

‘I know Monty, mainly,’ said Jamie. ‘Her cat? But Sarah’s very nice.’ A car passed them, its windows down.

‘All right, Jamie?’ came a voice.

‘All right, Trevor!’ Jamie waved, a huge grin on his face suddenly, and he gave another cheery wave as the car’s horn made a jaunty beep. Oh. He was friendly to other people, noted Meg. Maybe it was just her. ‘That cat certainly makes its presence known. Last time it came into the surgery it knocked over a week’s supply of prescriptions.’ He chuckled to himself. They were at the village now. One final corner to turn and before them was a tiny circular village green, raised and bordered by a low wall and surrounded by a circumference of lopsided pastel-painted houses, wedged tight and leaning on each other and all characterized by flinty, weather-beaten roofs, sunken skew-whiff doors and weeny small-paned windows. To the left of the houses was a timbered peach and black pub with a swinging sign – The Duke of Wellington. A ginger cat stretched itself full-length on a solitary picnic table outside, basking in the early-morning sun.

It was all the same as it ever was. How very disappointing.

‘One of your charges?’ asked Meg, referring to the cat.

‘Lord Hamish the Third, yes. So, see you around,’ said Jamie and he turned and headed off down the lane to the left of the green which promised the village hall, according to an old-fashioned sign. The ginger cat looked up from its slumber.

‘Bye, then,’ said Meg, somewhat petulantly. Her charms were clearly deserting her. Or he was simply a moody git, even if he was annoyingly handsome. She hoped she wouldn’t see Jamie or Garfield again. Especially Jamie, and she’d prefer Garfield, actually. A close eye would have to be kept on this Monty, she realized, when he showed up – no skirmishes with other cats, no eating things he shouldn’t … absolutely no trips to the vet.

Once Moody Jamie had disappeared off down the lane, Meg looked around her. Yep, there was Binty’s – a Wall’s Ice Cream metal sign gently swinging next to a wooden stool with a cardboard tray of eggs on the top; a brown stone front, brown tinted glass in the window and a brown painted door. And there was Les Metcalfe Hair, the near-fossilized hairdresser’s with a faded poster of Farah Fawcett in the window. Shiny Metropolitan London could not feel further away.

The door to Binty’s opened with the familiar clang of an ancient bell. Brown uneven oak floorboards? Check. Scowly ancient person behind counter in brown jumper, despite the heat outside? Check, although Meg noticed it was a new ancient person. Not Scowly Steven, who always used to tell her off for being too loud. There were shelves of old-fashioned sweet jars behind the new old scowly person, a basket full of freshly baked bread and doughnuts on the counter and shelves all around filled with approximately one of everything – a tin of beans, a packet of jelly, a tin box of teabags, reminding Meg of when she and Sarah used to play ‘shops’. She wondered if Binty’s still had one of those old-fashioned cash registers, with the ping.

‘Morning,’ said a scowly voice.

‘Good morning!’ said Meg brightly. ‘How much are the doughnuts?’

‘Five for two pound.’ Oh, they were cheap! She’d get a magazine and a bar of chocolate as well. ‘I’ve never seen you before,’ said the woman peering over the top of horn-rimmed glasses and stroking her beard. ‘Are you a tourist?’

‘No. I used to live here.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Er … Meg Oxbury.’

‘The hooligan? Oh, I’ve heard about you! Your poor sister!’

‘Oh. Right.’ Meg was taken aback. ‘Well … er, five doughnuts please?’

Meg hurriedly paid for her purchases and dashed out of the shop as quickly as she could. Hooligan! What an exaggeration! She hadn’t been that bad. Clutching her brown paper bag of doughnuts, Meg strode round the path which circled the green.

‘Morning.’ An old man in a flat cap greeted her as he walked past. This was better; someone who actually looked pleased to see her.

‘Morning!’ she replied chirpily. She’d forgotten everyone greeted everyone else in the country. No one said ‘Morning!’ in London – people avoided each other at all cost. Woe betide you if you caught someone’s eye on the Tube, and if you dared say ‘hello’ to anyone, they called the police.

She walked the perimeter of the green, perched on the village’s Witching Stone outside the pub, and munched on one of the doughnuts. She supposed she should find ‘hooligan’ funny. Silly old bat. How did she even know about Meg? And Meg had just enjoyed some drunken skirmishes, that was all. Teenage shenanigans. Some people liked to make a big old fuss about nothing. Including Sarah. Especially Sarah.

It was only eleven o’clock; the whole rest of the day to fill. Perhaps Meg would have a mosey down to the village hall, see if anything exciting was happening there; there certainly never used to be. That’s where Sarah had said she held the art class, wasn’t it? And the library used to be there. She’d go and have a look. Perhaps she’d soon be bored enough of Tipperton Mallet to actually take both of them on. Lord knows she needed something to do. God, she missed London.

Back Lane, which ran down to the village hall, was flanked by slightly larger cottages than those on the green and set back on the right-hand side, on a raised grassy knoll, was an old red phone box. It had been there for donkey’s years. She peered in as she passed. It was always nice to see one; the ones remaining in London absolutely thrilled the foreign tourists. Meg expected to see a broken receiver dangling from a battered cradle; some dog-eared cards offering dubious services; at least one shattered pane of glass; and possibly an old phonebook, yellowed apart from the blackened corner where it had been set alight by bored teenagers. Just like it had been when she’d last stepped a scuffed Adidas trainer inside.

‘Oh, wow!’ she exclaimed out loud. Why this was delightful, and so, so cute. The phone box was a library. The whole back panel had been fitted with wooden shelves and was floor-to-ceiling crammed with books. A small sign hung from the top shelf with string saying, ‘Please help yourself and donate your old books. Thank you.’ Sarah’s familiar handwriting.

This was the library her sister ran; the big one in the village hall must have closed.

Meg pulled open the door and stepped inside. She adored the smell of books – sometimes she went into London City Library, if she was near, just to breathe in that gorgeous library smell – and it was not what these phone boxes used to smell of, that was for sure. It was lovely in there; there was also a tiny white table and chair, suitable for a toddler – Meg may have sat down on it were it not for her cowpat-splattered rear.

She had a browse. There were self-help books and non-fiction on the top two shelves, children’s books at the bottom and general fiction in the middle. Meg’s eyes scanned along. Modern chick lit, thrillers, historical romances; quite the little goldmine. She might take something out – Lord knows she had plenty of time on her hands. Her eyes alighted on a very familiar title. Little Women. One of those old navy bound classics, with the gold-embossed writing. Funny, it looked like Sarah’s old copy. Meg pulled it out. Oh my goodness, it was Sarah’s old copy. She opened the dust cover. Yes, inside in neat, childish handwriting, ‘This book belongs to Sarah Oxbury’. It had probably been doing the rounds of village readers for years. Meg smiled. Sarah had read Little Women to Meg when she was, what, six and Sarah had been sixteen? They’d loved that one of the sisters was called Meg; they’d laughed at the funny bits and been sad at the sad bits. Sarah had sat on the end of Meg’s bed and had read a chapter a night in a soothing, steady voice. What a different sixteen-year-old Sarah had been to Meg’s. Sensible, careful, quiet and organized. Then again, the sixteen-year-old Sarah didn’t have dead parents.