My Sister
(专辑: Tindersticks - 1993)
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 looked 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. And then she'd say: "I can see little twinkly stars Like Christmas tree lights in faraway windows Rings of brightly coloured 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
grey 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 thirteenth 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 stared 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 She moved in with a
gym teacher when she was fifteen, 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 every one 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 fifteen 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