#bridgetandbess

My maternal grandfather, a very serious man whose mind left our earthly plane long before his physical form ever did, named her Snickles. Its a name that evokes her very specific brand of laughter; a smile that crinkles her eyes and nose, a giggle that leaves her mouth in staccato, a happiness that you definitely observed, but could only ever hear in short, sparkling bursts. #champagnegiggles

Her daughter Squeal, the micro-doppelganger, calls her Mama. Have you ever met a 3 year old that can describe colours as either dark or light? A toddler that knows the difference between lilac and purple? An infant that articulates texture and form and shade with the same facility as she identifies the different personages in the latest series of My Little Pony? She can also point out agapanthus, frangipani and kangaroo paw; she’ll also remind you which is your favourite. A little rainbow unicorn fairy that sees the world through her mothers’ kaleidoscope eyes. #lucyintheskywithdiamonds

Our mother calls her Lizard. They spend hours in each other’s company, living as they do, a handful of metres from each other. She is anything but cold-blooded, though much like her reptilian namesake, she is a woman of few and selected sounds, preferring as she does, to express herself in pictures and images and abstracts and colours. One might argue that her taciturn nature results from being born cadet into our cacaphonic house; her elder sibling had exhausted all the available words (and decibels) before Lizard ever had a chance to learn them.

I call her Lou, a shortened version of her childhood moniker, LuLuBear, but only on those all too rare occasions that I am actually, physically with her. Here in print, many years ago, I ordained her the Art-sist-ologer. She’s an Artist, of the very talented, schooled and prizewinning kind. She’s an Astrologer; Squeal’s chart was written mere hours after she exited the womb. But before all that, she was, is, and always will be, my sister.

Bess and I have had more adventures (and wine) together than your typical university sorority. Starting in the early nineties with our exchange years abroad in France and Sweden, for decades now we’ve been two, somewhat large heads of bumbling, bouncing, brown curls rambling their unique route across Europe. We’ve partied in Paris, we’ve snow-walked in Sweden, we’ve eaten in England and dined in Denmark, and on one truly awful day, we brawled in Berlin. #itwasmyfault

The good times have certainly trumped the bad. We’ve spent eons on trains together, slept in the tiniest cabin for 11 hours from Paris to Hamburg, laughing hysterically for much of the way. Pre-Smartphone, she drew out, on a piece of paper, the route from our tiny garrotte in Paris’s St Germain to Les Puces (the flea markets); a walk that would take us over two hours, one of dozens she traced so we would discover our new home on foot. #shehatedthemetro

I’ve seen more lauded paintings than you have; we’ve wandered the corridors of galleries in Berlin, in Stockholm, in London, in Bilbao and bien sûr all the French ones. Not only did I see them, I can also interpret them. I had my very own real life personal audio (and visual) guide. She explained Raphael’s obsession with light and the significance of Manet’s naked (not nude) picnic. Her lessons were heard and understood, lessons I’ve since remembered when I visited other galleries alone. I know that it is nigh on impossible to make money from just knowing about paintings, but she has enriched my life, and many others’. No one can place a value on that. #ormaybetheycan?

Years before we embarked on our global adventures, Bess and I shared a little flat in Glebe. I say we shared it but actually we rented it from a large colony of ever-present huntsman spiders. We would take it in turns to kill them. We took it in turns to wake each other up to go for breakfast in the café downstairs. We took it in turns to fetch the wet washing from the Laundromat. We took it in turns to prepare our favourite meal; a variety of cheeses and antipasti spread on a board with a bottle of wine. #lesscookingmoredrinking

It was when we lived in Glebe that one of my favourite treasures was taken from me.

When we were still adolescents, Bess sketched a coffee and a cigarette onto a bus ticket and titled it ‘the best things in life’. It was a tiny masterpiece I kept in my wallet for over ten years. That picture was stolen, along with my wallet, when I was pick-pocketed one night in a pub. I cared less about losing the cards or the money than I cared about losing that little picture. It was so well imprinted on my memory; I could most likely draw it for you now. #myprecious

Today she is a budding textile designer. The next Cath Kidston? Marimekko? Orla Kiely? House of Hackney? Who knows? If talent and determination can make a million, I look forward to a very comfortable retirement. If lifestyle acrobatics juggling a tiny person, a neurotic cattledog, a job and a passion could be remunerated at an hourly rate, she would die richer than us all. Unfortunately for those creative types, reluctantly joining us in the rat race around our world of salaries and timecards and meetings and video conferencing, self-expression and paying for handmade work is out of fashion and out of favour. If it isn’t made in Bangladesh, it is an extravagance not an investment.

But enough already, she is my bloody sister, not a bloomin’ saint.

After reading this, you’ll suspect I’m exaggerating, that no two sisters can genuinely have that much fun together, or be so close. Sure, we’re sisters; we fight, we disagree, we argue and we drive each other batshit crazy. I make her out to be some kind of superhuman Amazonian Goddess; she is beautiful, she is radiant, but she has one tiny flaw (actually two). Bess has miniature gecko hands that can stick to a ceiling. She has two mini-mitts framed by two beautiful brachydachtyly thumbs. They are bespoke knobbly nodules that in their minuscule perfection echo her brachyskelic physiognomy.

Very good things do indeed come in small packages.