Chloe Hamilton reflects on her intense relationship with Lydia, her twin sister
My birthday in 2016 was a bit bleak. The paper I was working for had announced a tranche of redundancies and as a result I had to cancel a skiing holiday with my identical twin and our friends, so I could stay at home and fight for my job. At 8am, while Lydia was whizzing down pristine white slopes in Val d’Isère, I was sitting in front of my editor, an expanse of pristine white desk between us, trying to convince him to keep me on. It was the first birthday my twin and I had spent apart. Through 25 years of twinhood – even when studying at opposite ends of the country – we had always blown out our candles together.
I can’t remember whose idea it was for my sister’s new boyfriend to take me out that evening, but I’m pretty sure it was his. They’d only been seeing each other for a couple of months and I’d met him just once, briefly, at a local pub. But that night, my birthday night, we went to a restaurant in Soho in London and he bought me dinner and drinks. We talked about my job interview; our experiences of living in London; his love of football; my feelings about the gender pay gap; and, of course, our shared interest – my sister. I got home at 1am. I was tipsy, happy and convinced Lydia should marry him. Five years later, she did.
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