Living The High Life
Perhaps the chic flat in an up-and-coming part of the city was just the project that the sisters needed
Lindsay opened the door to the new apartment with a sense of anticipation.
Sunshine rippled off the bright walls and dappled reflections danced softly on the freshly painted ceiling.
Leather sofas and bold, comfortable cushions lent the open-plan sitting room an air of homeliness. In the kitchen the surfaces gleamed and crockery sat in neat piles of duck-egg blue on the shelves.
Lindsay drew in a sigh of pleasure and relief. It was perfect. All the hard work that she and Sarah had put into redecorating the flat had definitely paid off.
They were ready to receive their first holidaymakers!
Lindsay had been sceptical when her older sister, Sarah, suggested that the pair of them should invest the small legacy, left to them by their grandmother, in a city apartment to rent out.
Sarah had always been the risk-taker in the family and sometimes Lindsay envied her unshakeable confidence.
As a child, she had often found herself in Sarah’s shadow. But these days it was Lindsay who had the high-flying management role in an Edinburgh tech firm.
Sarah had flitted from job to job, never quite finding the one to suit her.
Now that both of her children had started school, her older sister was desperate to find a new project to manage from home.
“An Edinburgh flat with a good location is a goldmine these days,” Sarah had assured Lindsay. “Staycations are back in fashion, and just think of the fun we could have doing it up together. I could handle the bookings and you could design the website.”
Her sister’s enthusiasm was infectious.
During the following months, Sarah had bombarded Lindsay’s email inbox with links to glossy advertisements for parts of the city she had never explored. It was the apartment block in an old whisky distillery in Leith which finally wore down her resistance.
Close to all the vibrant pavement cafés and fashionable bars by the riverside, the warehouse under renovation was shouting potential.
It even had parking with easy access to the Leith Walk, which meandered through the suburbs to the city centre.
“You just need a bit of vision,” Sarah declared as they made their way through the dim heart of the building, down lofty industrial staircases and corridors. “This area is transforming itself, like the ugly duckling into a swan,” she teased.
Lindsay raised a cynical eyebrow.
But the figures she examined later supported Sarah’s argument. They put in an offer on a fourth floor apartment and it was accepted.
That winter, the two sisters had devoted all their spare evenings and weekends to the decorating.
Clad in their oldest jeans and T-shirts, with their hair tied up in scarves, they sanded and painted for hours.
The project brought them closer as they rediscovered each other’s sense of humour and caught up on years of missing gossip.
When had they drifted apart? Lindsay found herself wondering.
Her sister was painting carefully, deep in concentration, more lines on her forehead than Lindsay remembered. There were even a few threads of grey now in her brunette curls.
When their mother died while Lindsay was still a teenager, she had needed her sister so badly. It was Sarah who mopped her tears after broken dates and urged her to apply for university, though her self-esteem had hit rock bottom.
They shared a room and so many confidences.
Then their father remarried and moved south, selling their family home, just as his daughters started their own independent careers in the city.
They had each gone their own way, without the ties of regular visits to their old house to bind them.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Sarah’s voice interrupted, her mouth crinkling up into its old familiar smile. It took years off her, Lindsay reflected, as she returned the cheeky grin.
“Just feeling lucky,” Lindsay replied affectionately.
“I like spending time together again, even if we both reek of turpentine and have plaster in our hair.”
“Perhaps we should go out for a proper drink and a meal? Away from my stroppy teenagers,” Sarah suggested. “I’d like to treat you after all your hard work!”
That was how they found themselves strolling through Holyrood Park in the summer, deep in conversation. Skirting the cliffs of Salisbury Crags, they made their way past Duddingston Loch to their favourite village pub.
They chose a table in the courtyard, in the shadow of the ancient volcano that towered over the Edinburgh skyline.
“Here’s to our first visitors!” Sarah declared, raising her glass.
“Just in time for the Festival. Let’s hope they write us a good review.”
“And here’s to sisters,” Lindsay replied with a smile, as the prosecco bubbles glinted in the sunshine.
Our My Weekly Favourites series of feel-good fiction from our archives continues on Mondays and Thursdays. Look out for the next one.
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