You Must Be Sisters Read Free Page A

you’re so lucky being
slim
. I wish I was like you. Oh dear, and I forgot to buy some saccharine, so I’ll just
have
to have a spoonful of sugar. I can’t bear tea without sugar. Do you think that’s all right, Claire, just this once?’
    ‘Just a small one.’
    ‘But even if I have a teensy-weensy one that’ll make a difference, won’t it?’ Yvonne looked plaintive. ‘I mean, every little bit counts, doesn’t it? But don’t mind me; go on with your letter.’
    Bristol is rather romantic, and Clifton is the oldest and most beautiful bit, just near the university. It’s all elegant but tatty terraces , most of them Georgian. But Addison Hall is right away on the other side of the Downs in suburbia. It’s glassy and modern, 4 men’s blocks, 4 women’s, a dining block where we work our way through mounds of chips, and a common room. The Hall stalwarts, like pub regulars, are making themselves clearer now, what with committees being set up and jolly functions to get us all to know each other. After this first year nearly everyone will move out into flats or digs
.
    My early days were spent – still are – in an agony of not letting myself be seen alone and wistful-looking. I mean, I like being alone, but it’s difficult to show that one’s liking it and not just being left out. I met a frightfully boring girl from school and we fell into each other’s arms with wild relieved cries of recognition, and neither of us had the slightest thing to say to each other when we were in the same classroom all those years
–
    ‘I say, Claire!’ cried Yvonne. ‘Look at this.’ She held out a printed form. ‘It came through the post this morning and it says they’ll send us this super series called “The Miracle of Your Body”. And if we send off now, we can have the first book free! Look, all we have to do is send off this stamp they’ve given us –’
    ‘The big red one,’ said Claire, ‘with the YES PLEASE on it.’
    ‘That’s right. It’s very simple.’
    ‘And if you don’t want it you send the narrow grey one that just says NO.’
    ‘That’s right. Oh Clary, it’s got such lovely-sounding things in it.
Some of the Most Moving Photographs ever Taken of the Miracle of Childhood
…’
    ‘No, Yvonne.’
    Anyway, enough for now. Please come down as soon as you can so I can show you everything. I’m making my room so special. But wait until I know more than about two people so I can introduce you to a nice lot. I’m buried in Freud who becomes more and more fascinating
.
    Love
,
    Laura
    ‘Finished?’ asked Yvonne. ‘Tell me all about it. I bet she’s got all the Men hanging on her little finger already. She’s so nice-looking and so brainy too! That’s what they like – not just a pretty face. Oh, I do envy her.’
    ‘So do I. I’ll show it to you tonight. Must dash now.’
    Claire got into the Morris Minor that she shared with Laura and drove through the streets towards her school where 1,300 tough and restless pupils waited for her.
    Those first weeks of autumn, Laura did the same things as everybody else. She walked across the Downs and into town for her lectures, none of which she had started skipping. She took painstaking notes. She rewrote her notes when she got back to her room. She sat long hours in the library working or, when the hot-pipe against her back seeped too deliciously through her skin, slumped asleep over her scattered textbooks, a real student.
    She bought mugs for her room and, to be extra-special, real coffee instead of Nescafé. At first it was just the troll girl and the others who dropped in to gossip and speculate about everyone else. But soon they drifted their separate ways, and Laura found herself drawn into a group of English Literature students who did boisterous studenty things, like taking her out to a scrumpy pub where she drank two pints, cloudy and with lemon slices floating on the top. They sat in a swaying row, making up limericks. At closing time they