I think it was then – then amidst the bag hooks in the lino-ed corridor of the infants school block – that I realised my sister and I were for each other in this life. Entering the world minutes apart, was seven years a little late to feel for the first time the invisible pull of family, of siblings? But family bonds are not made according to milestones you can point to like “when she learns to whistle” (which for me, by the way, came before this story), or “once she can write her name”.
Family loyalty makes me think of Vito Corleone and horse heads, but this is not about messed up, pride-driven territory control. It’s when I realised that being in a family gave me a kind of responsibility to care. I think what I’m actually remembering is the first glimmer of unconditional love, like a glimpse of sunlight appearing through a slit in the dark curtain of my young subconscious.
I knew then that my sister and I were the same age. I knew that I had double-jointed fingers and she didn’t. I knew that she wanted to be a horse rider and I wanted to be a teacher. That we both liked The Famous Five. But this was the first time I knew we were responsible, somehow, for each other.
It was the beginning of a new school year, the beginning of a new school for us, and the beginning of new school bags that fastened with the kind of square, plastic snap-lock clips that you had to press and pull simultaneously, so that they not only pinched your fingers but proved impenetrable. Ideal as a high-level security device but not for seven-year olds who want their lunch boxes.
At training, on the living room floor the night before the start of school, I had mastered the technique of squeezing the clips open. My sister had not and, being gifted with foresight even at an early age, had come to a roadblock, namely recess the next day, and she had baulked at the impasse. Going to school would be useless.
My mother had instigated training. She said, “Try it again, darling. Press here. Now pull. Now press. Now pull.”
Neither practice nor entreaty prevailed and I was instructed to help. I became the taskforce that made school possible and recess plausible.
So, at the bag wall at recess outside the second grade classrooms, I wore new black polished shoes and new pigtails. My new teacher had paired me up with another girl from my class who was told to look after me at the break and show me the new toilets, the new grass and the new play equipment.
“I can’t,” I said. “I have to help my sister”.
Today she is a dental nurse who likes fast cars; and I am a fundraiser who likes Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1. She has a cat and I never will. We both grow veggies and we both like Downton Abbey. She reminded me the other day about the time I helped her open her bag and I remembered too.
No Comments