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my sister
Tindersticks
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Do you remember my sister?
How many mistakes did she make with those never blinking eyes?
I couldn't work it out
I swear she could read your mind
Your life, the depths of your soul at one glance
Maybe she was stripping herself away
Saying, here I am, this is me
I am yours and everything about me, everything you see
If only you look hard enough
I never could
Our life was a pillow-fight
We'd stand there on the quilt
Our hands clenched ready
Her with her milky teeth, so late for her age
And a Stanley knife in her hand
She sliced the tires on my bike and I couldn't forgive her
She went blind at the age of five
We'd stand at the bedroom window, and she'd get me to tell her what I saw
I'd describe the houses opposite, the little patch of grass next to the path
The gate with its rotten hinges forever wedged open
That dad was always going to fix
She'd stand there quiet for a moment
I thought she was trying to develop the images in her own head
Then she'd say
"I can see little twinkly stars
Like Christmas tree lights in faraway windows
Rings of brightly colored rocks
Floating around orange and mustard planets
I can see huge tiger striped fishes
Chasing tiny blue and yellow dashes
All tails and fins and bubbles"
I'd look at the gray house opposite, and close the curtains
She burned down the house when she was ten
I was away camping with the scouts
The fireman said she'd been smoking in bed
The old story, I thought
The cat and our mum died in the flames
So dad took us to stay with our aunt in the country
He went back to London to find us a new house
We never saw him again
On her 13th birthday, she fell down the well in our aunt's garden and broke her head
She'd been drinking heavily
On her recovery, her sight returned
A fluke of nature, everyone said
That's when she said she'd never blink again
I would tell her when she started at me
With her eyes wide and watery
That they reminded me of the well she fell into
She liked this, it made her laugh
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She moved in with a gym teacher when she was 15
All muscles he was
He lost his job when it all came out and couldn't get another one
Not in that kind of small town
Everybody knew everyone else's business
My sister would hold her head high, though
She said she was in love
They were together for five years until one day he lost his temper
He hit over the back of the neck with his bull worker
She lost the use of the right side of her body
He got three years and was out in 15 months
We saw him a while later
He was coaching a non-league football team in a Cornwall seaside town
I don't think he recognized her
My sister had put on a lot of weight from being in a chair all the time
She'd get me to stick pins and stub out cigarettes in her right hand
She'd laugh like mad because it didn't hurt
Her left hand was pretty good though
We'd have arm wrestling matches
I'd have to use both arms and she'd still beat me
We buried her when she was 32
Me and my aunt, the vicar, and the man who dug the hole
She said she didn't want to be cremated
And wanted a cheap coffin, so the worms could get to her quickly
She said she liked the idea of it
Though I thought it was because of what happened to the cat, and our mum
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