KINGDOM 1 ‘It’ll be like old times,’ she says. ‘You can brush my hair.’


She has developed an English accent, which Betty doesn’t care for. Betty does not want Louisa in her bed. She likes being sprawled out on her double mattress, waking and sleeping when she feels like it, but she can’t say no. She puts Edward in her father’s room and Ruth in the other and helps Louisa drag her luggage up the stairs.


Louisa pours two measures of duty-free vodka into glasses and talks about the improvements she has made to the house in England Betty has never seen. She describes the satin fl oor- length curtains in the living room, which cost £25 a yard, the velvet headboards, the dishwasher that sterilises the dishes and the tumble dryer that means she doesn’t have to race out to the line every time a drop of rain falls.


‘No wonder Stanley’s working,’ Betty says, and sips the vodka. She doesn’t care for the taste; it reminds her of the holy water she drank as a child, thinking it would cure her stomach aches.


‘Don’t you miss Daddy?’ Louisa says suddenly. ‘He always had such a warm welcome for us.’ Betty gives her a straight look, feels the ache in her arms after the four days’ work. ‘Oh. I don’t mean you –’


‘I know what you mean,’ Betty says. ‘No, I don’t really miss him. He was so contrary towards the end. Going out to the fi elds and talking about death. But then, you brought out the sweeter side of him.’


Her father used to hold Louisa in a tight embrace when she arrived home, then stood back to look at her. He used to tell Betty to keep fi g rolls in the house because she had a taste for fi gs. Nothing was ever too good for Louisa.


Now she unpacks her clothes, holding them up for Betty to admire. There’s a linen dress with pink butterfl ies swooping towards the tail, a glittery scarf, a burgundy lace slip, a cashmere jacket, leather peep-toe shoes. She takes the cap off a bottle of American perfume and holds it out for Betty to sniff, but she does not spray a sample on her wrist. Louisa’s clothes have the luxurious feel of money. The hems are deep, the linings satin, her shoes have leather insoles. She takes a covetous pride in her belongings, but then Louisa has always been the fashionable one.


Before she went to England Louisa got a job housekeeping for a rich woman in Killiney. Once, Betty took the train to Dublin to spend a day with her. When Louisa saw her at Heuston station with her country suit and her brown handbag, she whipped the handbag from her hands, fast as greased lightning, and said ‘Where do you think you’re going with that old thing?’ and pushed it down in her shopping bag.


Now she sits at the dressing table, singing an old Latin hymn while Betty brushes her hair. Betty listens to her girlish voice and, catching a glimpse of their refl ection in the mirror, realises that nobody would ever suspect they were sisters. Louisa with her gold hair and emerald earrings, looking so much younger than her years: Betty with her brown hair and her man’s hands and the age showing so plainly on her face.


‘Chalk and cheese’ was the phrase their mother used.


162


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