A Reunion

As twins, their lives had sometimes been fraught... could they find a new way forward as sisters?

- GEORGINA MOORE

Not many people understand what it is like to have a twin. For the first ten years of our lives Lucy and I were inseparable. Our mother loved to buy two of everything. She even put us in matching peacock green coats, as if we were royal children. I remember mittens on a string that hung like puppet hands. We had curls the colour of vanilla ice cream, in pigtails. When snow came to London one magical Christmas, we both had little red sleighs. How happily we went up and down the slope in Hyde Park, that seemed like a mountain to us then. Our parents only had us, and when they called for us, they called "Twins!" It was rare and strange for me to hear my own name. We shared a room, two single beds facing each other, but we rarely slept apart, ending up in one bed, curled around each other. Lucy was the first person I saw in the morning and the last person I saw at night. I fell asleep to the sound of her breathing.

Lucy was born two minutes before me. As we got older this became a big thing, her the older sister, always one step ahead. It was expected that we would go to the same secondary school, but Lucy put her foot down. She wanted to go to a different school, be separate, her own person. She didn't want to be one of the twins anymore. She wanted to be cool, not held back by a sister who was always reading. My mother had to give in because even at eleven Lucy was the kind of person who did not stop until she had her own way.

She went to a local school where all her dance friends went, friends she didn't want to share with me. I was shipped off on a bus every day to a school that cost money, that had huge playing fields. It felt like each exam, each A grade I achieved, I was being asked to achieve for both of us. For a long time I was lonely, looking for Lucy, hoping to hear her laugh across the courtyard. I felt lost, timid and shy. It had always been as if Lucy had all the bravery and spirit for both of us.