The Traitors
I taught your little Tommy how to play cards! Granny Polly announced cheerfully.
Why? Exhausted from her shift, Marianne frownedTommy had only just turned six.
Well, you know how it is! Hell visit someone, theyll sit down for a game, and hell join in! Good for socialising, as they say!
It made sense in a way. Granny Polly had been raised in the heyday of socialism, where cards and dominoes were considered fine pastimes. And this wasnt happening nowit was the middle of the last century, the so-called «stagnant era.» So, bring on the knock-out whist and the penny games!
Granny Polly had come to babysit her great-grandson, baby Alfie. Tommy, who despised nursery, was always underfoot. The boy was independenta latchkey kid with a thermos of soup for lunch. Back then, that was normal. Nowadays, some couldnt wean their children off them till they were forty.
The estate wasnt bad eithercosy, enclosed on all sides by blocks of flats. There was even a ping-pong table and a decent playground with a sandpit and swings.
One of the buildings housed a shop called Brightlight, which, for some reason, sold furniture alongside lamps and wall lights.
And furniture was heavy. Unloading it didnt exactly inspire joy.
So, the kids often came home with new vocabularywords starting with B, P, SMum, what does mean?
They called them brightlight words.
But those were minor flaws in an otherwise safe place. If you let your child out to play, you didnt have to worrythe deliverymen even kept an eye on them!
Marianne had married firstfalling for a classmate and getting pregnant. Later, her mother-in-law, who worked at a nursery, took the boy during the week so Marianne could finish medical school.
After that, both she and her husband became GPsback when job placements were still assigned.
Pretty Lily didnt marry till she was twenty-fivelate by the standards of the time.
The sisters were nothing alike. Quick, slender, dark-haired Marianne was the polar opposite of slow, plump, fair Lily.
But both were strikingly beautifulblack and white, not just a contrast but two halves of a whole.
Looking at them, people couldnt help but ask: Are you *sure* you have the same father?
Not sure at all! the sisters would snap, though they got on famously.
Their dad had died long ago. Their mother had moved on, leaving the flat to her grown daughters while she started a new family elsewhere. She dodged questions with practised ease: Why does it matter? Of course, youve got the same father! Just the one!
Till twenty-four, Lily played men like a fiddleher heart wasnt in it, though she had her flings.
She met her future husband at a party a few years after leaving schoolPeter was a friend of her old classmate, Alex.
She even agreed to a date. But came back disgusted.
You wont *believe* how dull he is! Lily fumed. Guess what he asked me?
What? Marianne held her breathit must have been something awful for Lily to be this outraged.
He asked if Id worn *thermal knickers*! Can you imagine? Ugh, so *common*!
The manthree years older and smittenhad simply shown concern. It was freezing, after all, and everyone wore fleece-lined underwear. But youth is unforgiving. So, sensitive Peter was dismissed, knickers and all.
He didnt reappear in Lilys life for seven years. By then, shed picked through admirers like a child with sweets, yet still lived with Marianne in their mums old two-bed.
Suddenly, the suitors had dried up. After New Years, Lily found herself at homeno invitations.
Then Marianne discovered a needle hidden in her sisters blanket. Someone had cursed hera love spell, a hex, something darker.
Lilys friends often stayed overthe flat was near the Tube, handy for uni and work.
Once the needle was gone, Lily bumped into Peterfate, surely. And this time, when he asked about *thermal knickers*, she sighed: Isnt he *thoughtful*?
She married him. By then, he was a maths PhD.
He moved in at once, marking his arrival with a new enamel kettle and a sofa.
But weve already got a kettle! Marianne said.
This ones *yours*, Peter explained. The new ones *ours*.
For the first time, tension flickered between the sistersPeters kettle was nicer. *More expensive.*
His parents were well-off, unlike Mariannes husband, whom her mother privately called that wastrel.
They planned to swap the two-bed for two one-bedsimpossible without extra cash. Peters parents promised to help.
Time passed. Alfie arrived. Lily went back to work, and clever Peter recruited his granGranny Pollyto babysit.
One day, Marianne came home early, feverishprobably caught something from patients.
The flat was dark. Probably asleep.
Inside was a sickbayLily off work with Alfie, and John, Mariannes husband, running a slight fever. Tommy, of course, was always home.
Quietly, Marianne turned her key. Then frozestrange noises. *Please, let the children be okay.*
Still in her coat, she peeked into the living room. In the fading light, six-year-old Tommy and drooling Alfie sat on the rug, cards in handTommy teaching his brother to play for socialising.
Wheres Dad? Marianne asked.
In the bath with Aunt Lily, doing laundry! Tommy said, then turned back to Alfie, who could barely hold his cards: Your turncover it!
Granny Pollys lessons had borne fruit.
How long have they been washing? Mariannes heart pounded.
The big hand was on six, now its on nine!
*Fifteen minutes.* With *her*, John never took that long.
She felt sick. *So this is why she wont move out.* Lily had always found excusesthe door was wrong, the Tube too far. *Now we know.*
Did *Peter* know? Unlikely. If he did, his parents wouldve tanned Lilys hide. Yet they were happy to pay extrano, he didnt know.
Still in her coat, Marianne waited outside the bathroom. Soon, flushed John and Lily emergedand froze.
Youre supposed to be on call! What are you doing here?
Came to help with the *laundry*thought you might be struggling! Marianne said coldly. Done already? Quick work. Hang it up, then.
Its not what you think! John stammered. What *could* he say?
Fine, Marianne said. Show me the laundry. Maybe you can talk your way out.
*Go on, geniusthink of something. Say you had a fever, delirious, and Lily was cooling you with compresses!*
*No contingency plan, you idiots?*
They just stood there, silent. It *had* been going so well
Get out. Both of you.
Lily snatched Alfie and fled. John sent Tommy out to playstill lightthen begged forgiveness: *It meant nothing, darling! She came onto me!*
*The Italian Job* had been out for years. Everyone knew the lines.
But Marianne, icy, wasnt moved. Shed been *betrayed*. Probably for ages.
Later, she learned laundry days were frequent. *How tidy.*
Soon, Johnfever now a dramatic 99°Fwas kicked out. Contact with Lily dwindled.
Marianne said nothing to Peter. If she told him, hed divorce Lily, trapping them together in the two-bed indefinitely.
Instead, Lily agreed at once to the first flat offertwo one-beds, extra cash paid.
Divorced Marianne ended up in a tiny flatfour-square-metre kitchen, hovel bathroom (as the cramped toilet-shower was known).
But it was *hers*.
John crawled back to his parents, clinging, pleading. But the divorce went through.
One evening, Marianne returned from her new clinic. QuietTommy playing.
He was self-sufficient, her Tommy. Though he missed Alfie.
Now he sat on the rug. Propped against a chair leg was a giant teddy, cards fanned before itTommy teaching his plush friend to play for socialising.
Then Marianne heard him murmur: *Come on, Teddy, you muppet, whyd you lead with trumps?*
*Hello, Granny Polly. And cheers to the brightlight deliverymen. He dealt another hand with solemn focus, the ghost of a grin on his lips. «You’re getting better, Teddy. Soon you’ll be ready for Peters parents. He dealt another hand with solemn focus, the ghost of a grin on his lips. «You’re getting better, Teddy. Soon you’ll be ready for Peters parents.»
