She must have past. Please, please, please she whispered as she
gingerly got out of bed and went over to the computer.
She deliberately
hadn’t set her alarm hoping to sleep in until 9am when the exam results would
be posted on the web. But as usual she woke
up 6am on the dot and couldn’t get back to sleep. She lay there, trying to think of anything
but her exams results. She must have
past, surely. The professor had told her
that she would sail through. She had got
top marks in all her papers so far.
Things to think about to
pass the time:
What
to do on the weekend? Maybe give Hayley
a call and see if she wanted to go the lounge bar for some cocktails and
dancing.
Or
maybe go to a Zumba class on Saturday morning, or maybe both.
Or
maybe a bit of shopping, Fiona and Trisha go shopping every minute they had
spare. Lisa couldn’t stand it. She never forgot the time when her mum had
taken them all shopping in Oxford
Street. Supposedly
it was a treat and her mum built up the occasion for weeks. But trudging up and
down until all their feet were sore was not what any sane person would call a
treat. Come to think about it -
definitely no shopping.
7.39
am precisely. One hour, 21 minutes and
20 seconds to go precisely.
Lisa
clearly remembers the day she waited for the post man to arrive with her
A-Level results. In those days you had
to send a stamped addressed envelope to the examination centre or they wouldn’t
send them to you. Everything was so
different now.
8.55
am, it was now or never. She could feel
her pulse beating faster as the computer screen lit up and she typed in her
password.
“PASS” !!!!! Lisa screamed out loud. She wanted to give someone a hug; what a
relief! Pass didn’t sound much, but it was enough.
“Mum,
I passed!!!!” Lisa almost shouted down the phone.
“Oh
congratulations, darling; I told you not to worry”. Her mum had told her all her life not to
worry, but it was just something that Lisa seemed to be very good at.
“Do
you know how Vanessa did?” Lisa waited with bated breath. It was hard enough being a twin sister, but
to have one who always seemed to do better
at everything had frustrated Lisa her whole life.
“I
don’t know”, her mum replied, “but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that you passed. How are you going to celebrate?”
Her
mum often tactfully changed the subject.
From the moment the twins were born Patricia had watched the girls
compete endlessly at everything. Who
could walk first, talk first, hold their knife and folk first; even as babies although they were too young
to remember it, Patricia watched them competing against one another for her
affection. Vanessa especially never seemed happy when she gave Lisa a hug and
certainly wouldn’t accept a joint hug.
Lisa
hadn’t planned any celebrations. She had
been so worried that she hadn’t passed.
“I’ll give Polly a ring and see if she wants to go out. I’ve got a big party on the weekend so need
to reserve my energy for that”. Lisa didn’t
go into detail about her social life when she talked to her mum.
“Well
go out and treat yourself. You deserve
it”. On the other end of the phone
Patricia imagined Lisa going out for afternoon tea with her city friends; maybe
to the Ritz in Green
Park or the café at
Selfridges. Patricia had never lived in London, but loved getting
dressed up for those special occasions - the theatre or a walk down Regent Street to
browse around the shops. Patricia never
worried about Lisa. She seemed to have
endless friends and constantly be out partying or going away for the weekend. It was Vanessa she worried about.
Vanessa
had always been the biggest of the twins, from birth right up to when they
stopped growing. Although Vanessa had
been the first to talk, Lisa had been the first to walk. Lisa appeared keen to explore everything she
saw, whereas Vanessa always appeared more interested in food. She would sit at the high chair with her
mouth open, slowing munching through her food.
Lisa on the other hand hated sitting still. She learnt to gobble her food down as quickly
as possible and immediately raise her arms, showing that she wanted to get
down. Only a few minutes later the food would
be vomited all over the floor. Patricia
tried everything to try and make Lisa eat more slowly, but she refused to be
fed, always wanting to feed herself. If
Patricia put small amounts of food in the bowl at different stages, Lisa would
again scream until more food appeared in the bowl, which would then be
swallowed in a couple of seconds. Lisa
often totally refused to eat, but Vanessa never pushed any food away.
“I’d
better go” Lisa said quickly. “I’ll give
Vanessa a call later, but if you speak to her before me say
congratulations”. Lisa had no intentions
of calling her sister. Recently they
only kept in touch via mum.
“Ok
darling. That would be nice if you could
call your sister”. Patricia sighed as
she spoke as she knew that she would end up being the one passing the messages
between the girls. They only lived an
hour away by train from each other but hadn’t seen each other for over a year
now. Even at Christmas time Lisa always
seemed to be too busy to come home.
Vanessa on the other hand had never missed a Christmas at home.
Patricia
would never have imagined the girls ending up following the same career
path. When they were young Vanessa had
been the creative one. At any
opportunity she would be drawing or reading.
On family walks Vanessa would walk slowly, as if in a daydream. She would then stop and pick up a leaf or a
stone and put it in her pocket or her special bag. Patricia seemed to endlessly be emptying out
the ruck-sac only to find bits of dried up, broken leaf or a shrivelled acorn
tucked away at the bottom.
It
had been a total coincidence that they had ended up taking the same exam at the
same time. Going to completely different
colleges at least meant that they didn’t have to be in the same class,
again. Lisa deliberately tried to forget
her years at school. As she would say to
her friends, “don’t get me wrong, I loved school, I just hated having a twin
sister in the same class as me.” Lisa
went on to explain that the main irritation was that Vanessa did so much better
than her at school, always getting better grades and always being the one to
answer the teacher’s questions. She was
the real pet of the class. In truth Lisa
never wanted to be the teacher’s pet anyway and much preferred sitting at the
back of the class so all she could make out was the back of her sister’s
head. She certainly didn’t want to see
Vanessa’s smug smile every time she got a question right, which was all time.
Before
their final exams at school both Vanessa and Lisa decided to take a year out
before applying for a place at University; Lisa’s choice hadn’t surprised
Patricia, but she had been certain that Vanessa would want to carry on her
studies immediately. “Are you sure you want to take a year out?” Patricia asked
Vanessa, not meaning to sound pushy or surprised. “I thought you were going to apply for
Biology at Exeter.” When the girls were only six the family had
taken a day out to London to visit the National Science Museum;
Vanessa had been totally enchanted. The
whole time they were there Vanessa rushed around in excitement, continually
asking questions, most of which neither Patricia or Mike could answer. Lisa on the other hand had trudged along
behind them, continually complaining that she was bored, and “when are we going
home”, or “where is the playground?”
Throughout
her time at school every biology teacher had always praised Vanessa for her
knowledge and enthusiasm on the subject.
“You’ve certainly got a clever one here”, Patricia remembers Vanessa’s
first biology teacher saying, “definitely going to be a vet or a doctor.” Patricia had been especially excited to be
told that. She had always admired her
doctor when she was a kid and when she had been giving birth to the girls in
hospital she had enjoyed lying back watching all the smart looking doctors in
the white jackets walking between the patients, politely speaking to each one
in person.
“I
feel I need to discover a bit more about myself before I decide what career I
want to go into” Vanessa explained.
Vanessa was the one who always sounded so serious. “It’s not a laughing matter” was a phrase
that Vanessa used almost since she had started talking at the age of 2. “I have enrolled in to a couple of career
courses in the local college”, Vanessa continued to explain. “It lasts for 6
months and during that time you go out to at least ten different work places
for a week at a time and find out about how they generally work and their work
ethics.”
Lisa
on the other hand never seemed to know exactly what she wanted to do when she
grew up. “I’m going to travel the world” seemed to be her most popular choice,
but as Patricia and Mike continually reminded her she would need to earn money
to be able to do that. Lisa would then
say that she would get a job that sent her around the world, “I’ll be a
journalist or a travel agent or I will write my own travel guides.” Again, Lisa had to be reminded that she would
have to earn money before she could afford to travel to the places she wanted
to write about. When Lisa said she
wanted to take a year out before going to university it made total sense to
Patricia and Mike. “I want to really
discover myself”, Lisa explained, “travel the world and meet different tribes
who can help me choose what direction I should take in my life.”
WORD COUNT: 1,815
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