Blue, deep blue, my sister's eyes. I stare down into them, anxious for a glimmer of recognition.  
       "Beatrice?" I say. "It's me. Maria."
       She gazes up at me from the hospital bed. I squeeze her hand. And remember.
       Blue, deep blue, my sister's eyes. Her eighteen-year-old face, reflected in her dressing-table mirror, rapt in concentration as she leans forward, applying mascara. A tumble of Titian curls framing a long Modigliani face. There's something haughty about her as she pouts her lips to receive their offering of lipstick. Imperious beauty. Golden girl. Fallen angel.
       "Beatrice...?" I say.
       "Mmmm?" she answers, as she zips up her mid-thigh-length skirt.
       "Is it Dave?"
       "Yeah, it's Dave." Her answer is offhand, as if she knows already that Dave, her latest boyfriend, will be a minor character in the drama of her life. 
       Blue, deep blue, my sister's eyes. And beside them my own, nondescript brown. We're twins, but there's no resemblance. She's some maverick dredged up from our family's gene pool; one might suspect she isn't my father's child. But I am her twin, and clearly of my father's stock. Age me thirty years and I could be my aunt Celia, flat-faced plain, greying hair scraped back from her forehead, fumbling with rosary beads. Years of marital domination left a void behind at her husband's death. A worst-case scenario made flesh.
       Now I sit by Beatrice's bed, holding her hand. Her skin is naturally fair, paled further by the greenish fluorescent lights. Her hair is shorter now, collar-length. When she was younger it went down to the middle of her back, devil may care; now, at age thirty, it denotes maturity, responsibility.               She squeezes my hand.
      "Oh, thank God," I say.

I spend the night at Beatrice's flat and the following morning, Friday, I discharge her from hospital. We take the Tube first back to her flat to pack her overnight bag and then on to Paddington.
       She shields her eyes from the sun with her hand. A bright day, and her eyes, even behind glasses, can't take the onslaught. Slender, deceptively frail-looking in a plain pale yellow top and long flimsy floral-print skirt, she seems very vulnerable, holding on to me as we're buffeted by the aimless crush of the crowd.
       Questions hang in the air. No doubt she'll answer them as best she can. I know facts if not reasons. First there was the phone call, first thing Thursday morning.
       "Could I speak to Mrs Maria Grant, please?" A distant male voice crackling at the end of the line.
       "Speaking."
       "I've, er, got bad news about your sister."
       I go cold. "What is it? What's happened?"
       "Yes, er... Miss Andrews was admitted to hospital this morning. She took some sleeping pills. Her condition is stable. As the next of kin, we had to let you know."
       "Thank you. I'll come immediately."
       I take the day off work and make quick arrangements for a friend to collect and look after James, my son, then I drive to Bodmin and take the Intercity to London. It's a journey of nearly four hours and I spend it gazing out of the window, unable to read my newspaper or the Mary Wesley novel or the magazines I brought along. I can only think of what Beatrice has done. As I get off at Paddington I'm at first disorientated - a mass of people milling about, held in by the walls, the high arched roof - that I clutch my handbag to myself, holding myself in, protecting. The sheer noise - a thousand people talking, shouting, the booming announcements - overwhelms my eardrums. It's years since I've been to London, first time since I moved to Cornwall, that I feel like a little girl again, alone, lost and afraid.
       I discover a little more at the hospital. It was Beatrice herself who dialled 999, and gave her name and address before losing consciousness. The ambulance staff arrived to find the door unlocked.
       Facts. As to reasons, only Beatrice can tell me.

Blue, deep blue, my sister's eyes. Often they flash with contempt, an implacable no. Everything she does is in reaction to me. If not to me, then to our father. I'm the studious one, she the rebel; I'm the kind of pupil the teachers take pride in while despairing of her. And of course the comparisons exacerbate the tension. Were we not conceived at the same time, carried in the same womb, born within minutes of each other, there wouldn't be that incessant making of examples.
       And over the years her reaction against me continues. I'm the one who married, settled down, had a child: the fact that I'm divorced is irrelevant. On the other hand, she's never married, just had a succession of lovers, none of them long-lasting.
       Eighteen years old, I lie on my bed, listening to Beatrice and my father argue. Their voices are low, but they carry through the ceiling to my room above.
       "You are not to stay out till all hours," says our father. "You're far too young."
       "I'm old enough. I can do what I like."
       "When you're living in my house, young lady, you'll do as I say. When you're living on your own I don't give a damn what you do. Are you sleeping with this boy?"
       "What's it to you?"
       "I'm not having my daughter sleeping around."
       "I do not sleep around!"
       "Why can't you be more like your sister?"
       That question. Asked many times, in many forms. And when not asked out loud, tacit.

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