Читать книгу The Lost Sister - Laura Elliot - Страница 17

They use a language I can’t decode. Even Lauren with her lost eyes is part of it. Silent and subtle, implicate in the twist of a lip, the lift of an eyebrow, the flash of their eyes meeting. Even the way they hold their shoulders sends out signals that can change their mood, avert an argument, turn a serious discussion into a joke from which I always feel excluded. I can’t remember when I first noticed that it had become Me and Them…Us and Her. I know why they resent me. I’m to blame for trying to replace the irreplaceable…but what is there to do?

Julie escapes into her music. There’s been complaints from the neighbours about the noise from the garden shed but she yawns and sighs and heaves her shoulders when I try and talk to her. I hear my voice, shrill, bad-tempered, bossy, and find it hard to recognise myself. I hate what they’ve turned me into. Lydia is the only one who understands.

I never thought I’d have anything in common with a woman in her forties but she’s been a brick. I talked to her about Jeremy and how he never bothered phoning to tell me he was moving to New York. I had to hear it from Sheila. Rose Moore looked terrible when I saw her in Malahide Village last week. I probably looked the same after he dumped me. I told her it would pass but she took it the wrong way and said she was the one who dumped him and good riddance. She’s such a liar.