It Would Be Wrong to Steal My Sister's Boyfriend (7 page)

Of course at the time I was just another teenager, happy enough if isolated at the local grammar school, studying hard and getting the results that would eventually win me a place at UCL to read English Lit. It didn’t occur to me that my sister was working towards a different goal. I’m not even sure if she knew it herself at the
time, but Rose was aiming high, above where she perceived Dad and me to be, and if she left us behind she would be sad, but not regret it.

Anyway as I said, Dad was really noble and dedicated himself full-time to us. I don’t know if he had any girlfriends – if he did he certainly kept them away from his daughters. I suppose he felt that we were bound to resent any woman who aspired to take Mum’s place. It was only after we’d both gone to university and Dad had plunged back into the world of work (he started writing software for web-based interactive war games as a hobby and predictably he’s been hugely successful at it; for a man who genuinely couldn’t care less about money, Dad has an unfair share of the Midas touch) that Serena came on the scene.

She’s a graphics animator and she and Dad met when she pitched for the design of his latest game – apparently when the fire-breathing dragon she’d created burst on to the screen Dad literally screamed with fright. Anyway, Serena’s great. She’s quite a bit younger than Dad, when they got married she was thirty-four, the same age Mum was when she died (make of that what you will, Freudians), and Dad turned fifty last year so there’s twelve or thirteen years between them, but Dad is so young in every important way it really doesn’t matter. Serena is tiny and dark with close-cropped hair that she styles into artful disarray with wax or pomade or something, and designer steel-framed glasses. She’s never attempted to mother Rose and me, instead approaching us with calm friendliness, presumably hoping we’ll see how happy she makes Dad and accept her for that if not on her own merits. This has never been a problem for me – I think she’s fab and really, although we miss Mum, it would have been mad to expect Dad to have stayed single for ever. It’s been a bit more of an adjustment for Rose, though, and sometimes she makes things very difficult for poor Serena.

I was musing on all this whilst I unpacked my little wheelie case of four days’ worth of clothes and folded everything carefully away in the cupboard – Rose goes a bit
mental if I’m messy when we’re sharing a room – but mostly I was just excited. All the traditions started by Mum, faithfully continued by Dad and sensibly left unchanged by Serena were set to unfold over the next few days. There would be the spag bol supper on Christmas Eve followed by a walk to the pub. The midnight service in the village church for those who wanted to go, which means Granny and Grandpa and occasionally Rose or me, but never Dad. The Christmas stockings that Dad still makes for me and Rose although we really, truly are too old for them now (and the bits of lovely Benefit make-up, cashmere mittens and the like that have started appearing in them in recent years lead me to suspect that the responsibility for assembling them has been passed to Serena). The turkey and bread sauce and the special nut roast Granny makes for Dad and me, and the Christmas punch that Grandpa mixes up. Every year it’s the same and every year from about the first of December I can feel a warm, fizzy excitement building in me as I think about it. I know it’s a bit tragic and I ought to have grown out of it by now, but I love Christmas, and although she’d never admit to something so uncool I know Rose does too. When I was putting my stuff away in the drawer Serena had carefully lined with white tissue paper, I saw she’d brought her special knickers that have little reindeer and sprigs of holly on them.

I was woken the next morning by bright light flooding into the room through the filmy white curtains, and realised the snow, which had been beginning to fall as we walked home from the Rose and Crown after last orders, had settled. I turned over and lay quietly for a while, enjoying the peculiar silence a blanket of snow brings with it, looking at the enticing lumpiness of my Christmas stocking, and wondering whether it would be safe to wake Rose. It wasn’t long before the anticipation got too much for me and I got up, showered and dressed, by which time she was awake.

“Happy Christmas,” I said, and she said happy Christmas, grinning cheesily and doing a little bounce on her bed.

“Shall we open them?” she asked.

“Let’s,” I said, “And then let’s do the noble thing and take some coffee up to the olds.”

We ripped the wrapping paper off a wonderful haul of Burt’s Bees lip salve, Urban Decay eyeshadow, stripy wooly tights, chocolate seashells, a bottle of truffle oil for Rose and a giant jar of Marmite for me, paperback books and iPod socks, taking as much pleasure in the opening as we did when we were kids unveiling new clothes for our Sindy dolls and boxes of crayons. Finally everything was unwrapped, and the chocolate oranges unearthed from the stockings’ toes, and our beds were littered with shiny paper.

“Good loot,” I said.

“Good loot,” agreed Rose. “You go on down, I’ll get myself ready and be there in a sec.”

When I went into the kitchen Serena was already there, wearing rather racy red satin pyjamas and manhandling a massive turkey into the oven.

“Christ, what was I thinking when I bought this monster?” she said. “It only needs to feed seven and it’s the size of a hippo. I’ll be eating leftovers for months. Happy Christmas, Ellie.”

“Happy Christmas,” I said, and once she’d parked the turkey I kissed her smooth, honey-coloured cheek. “We’ve just opened our stockings. Gorgeous stuff. I never knew Dad had discovered Burt’s Bees.”

Serena laughed. “I’d tell you I’m trying to turn him into a metrosexual but you’d never buy it,” she said. “Although of course it’s not Luke who’s the metrosexual, it’s Father
Christmas. Maybe it’s one of Rudolph’s jobs to get him
Grazia
every week.”

I started singing to the tune of Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, “You know
Grazia
and
Cosmo
and
Tatler
and
Stylist
,
Harpers
and… No, it’s no good. I can’t think of any more.”

“
Vogue
wouldn’t fit the meter,” mused Serena, “And
Marie-Claire’s
no good either, nor
Elle
.
InStyle
doesn’t quite scan.” She tried singing it, and it sounded so daft the two of us were leaning against the kitchen counter giggling like loons when Rose walked in, looking absolutely radiant and appropriate in that way Rose has, in a cream-coloured silk wrap dress with her hair piled up on top of her head with a couple of lovely sparkly combs, and caramel-coloured slouchy boots and the chunky outsize pearl beads that she’d had in her stocking, which I took as a sign that she wanted to make Serena happy, and made me feel a bit relieved.

Once all the food had been prepared to Rose’s standards, Dad, Rose and I bundled up in layers and layers of scarves and coats and mittens and went outside and built a snowman, finishing it off with a carrot for a nose and the battered tweed cap Grandpa wears when he’s out walking in the Lake District, where they live. I made a mental note to retrieve it before the end of the day because Grandpa really is quite bizarrely fond of it. We were all glowing and warm with laughter despite the freezing day, and I looked at the snowman and thought how excited it would make Pers, and I wondered if Claire had taken her down to the park to build a snowman of their own, and just fleetingly I thought that there was something a bit sad and empty about a Christmas with no children. I haven’t been hit with the broody stick or anything – I adore Pers and I expect I’ll have kids of my own one day, but for the moment I simply can’t imagine the responsibility.

Perhaps Rose would marry Oliver, I thought, and in a couple of years’ time there would be a tiny child trotting around Dad’s garden in the snow
and sitting down suddenly on its bottom and looking startled in that cute way they have. Then I wondered what it would be like living on my own in the flat in Battersea with Rose and Oliver living somewhere else – I think he’d mentioned that he had an apartment in the Barbican – and I suddenly felt cold again. By that stage Stu, Dad’s old business partner, and Serena’s parents Gill and Michael had arrived so we all trooped back inside and shed our layers and opened some champagne.

Eventually – late as it always is on Christmas day – lunch was ready and we all filed through to the dining room and watched Dad carve the turkey, and then embarked on a very civilised feeding frenzy. After the main course but before the pudding, once everyone had said no, they couldn’t possibly manage another chipolata sausage or Brussels sprout and then had three, and Rose and I had carried the plates through to the kitchen and stacked them next to, but not in, the dishwasher, because a job postponed is a job halved, and Dad had filled everyone’s glasses, Grandpa stood up and tinged his glass with the mustard spoon.

He made the little speech he’d made every year for the past thirteen Christmases. I suppose he used to do it before then too, but I’d dismissed it as one of those random things grown-ups did that had no real meaning for me, but since then, obviously, it had become a bit of a big deal. He talked quickly and sweetly about how Christmas is a time for family and friends – sending a warm smile in the direction of Stu, who was looking borderline comatose from punch – and that, at this time of year, we think most fondly and most sadly about those who we would love to be here, but who aren’t.

Then he said, “So I will propose my usual Christmas toast, to absent friends,” and everyone murmured, “Absent friends,” and took a grateful glug of their drink, and Dad reached over to Serena and gave her hand a squeeze to let her know that although he and everyone else was thinking of Mum, she was the one who was there and the one he loved the
most right then. And Serena squeezed his hand back and then Dad gave a little cough, and half stood up too, but thought better of it and stayed sat down.

“I’ve got something to say too,” he said, “and today, with all of us here together, seems like the right time and place to say it.”

I looked at his face, all sort of pleased and shy, and at Serena’s expression of glowy excitement, and the glass of fizzy water she was holding in her hand that wore the titanium wedding band matching Dad’s, and of course I knew exactly what he was going to say. But Rose didn’t. She was half-turned towards Granny, impatient to continue their conversation, and she just looked perplexed and a bit annoyed. I wanted to stop Dad and tell him this was a really bad idea, and to save it for another day, but there was no way I could. Dad is crap at speaking in public at the best of times, but in this setting, facing his daughters and his in-laws (two sets of them, how harsh is that?) and his best mate, he became positively loquacious.

“Family is enormously important to me and Serena,” he said. “She’s become a wonderful and close friend to Ellie” – true, she has – “and Rose” – steady on, Dad – “and Gill and Michael have welcomed me as a son, albeit an ageing, crusty one.” He was really getting into his stride. I dug my fingernails into my palms and willed him to wrap it up. Or better still shut up, but it was too late for that.

“And we’re so excited that we are going to be adding a new generation to the family,” Dad blurted out in a rush. “Serena’s going to have a baby in June. Actually she’s going to have twins, and we’re both so delighted and proud.”

The crowd, as they say, went wild. Granny and Grandpa pushed back their chairs and went over to Dad and were careful to tell him how happy they were for him and Serena, and Granny wiped away a tear and said it felt as if Elizabeth were in the room giving them
her blessing. I got up, wanting to give Serena a proper squeezy hug so she’d know I was genuinely pleased and didn’t mind and wasn’t in the least bit upset or jealous. Gill and Michael were holding hands, looking terribly chuffed with each other and their daughter who, at the ripe old age of thirty nine, was going to present them with not one grandchild but two. Stu stood to go and congratulate God knows who, and caught his foot in the legs of his chair and went flying, taking the jug of punch with him. I rapidly changed direction and went to see if he was okay, because nothing would fuck Christmas up like a guest with concussion.

Only Rose stayed in her place. She sat there, immobile, for a few long moments while the drink Stu had spilled cascaded over the crimson tablecloth and soaked into her cream dress. Then she stood up very, very slowly, holding on to the edge of the table as if she needed it to balance by, which perhaps she did, she’d had an awful lot of champagne.

“How fucking dare you?” she said quietly, yet amidst the mayhem we all heard every word. “How fucking dare you do that to Mum?” And she turned around and left the room, dripping punch off her lap all over the beautiful wool rug that Serena had bought on her travels in Tibet, of which she was immensely proud, and walked slowly and gracefully up the stairs, her piled-up golden hair and her long neck and her straight slim back gradually disappearing as she reached the landing. Then the glasses and dishes on the table and the baubles on the Christmas tree shuddered with the force of our bedroom door slamming against its frame.

There was a moment of total silence. Then Stu scrambled to his feet and started apologising for the mess and Serena and I rallied round and fetched cloths and sponges and Serena told him it didn’t matter, and Granny suggested to Gill and Michael that they all go
through to the sitting room and she would take the Christmas pudding and mince pies out there on a tray with some coffee and port, and really it would be best to leave the two of us to get on with clearing up.

Dad sighed heavily and said, “I suppose I’d better go up and have a word with Rose.”

I didn’t say anything. I carried on sponging the carpet with stain remover, and feeling a bubble of resentment gradually building inside me. I was furious with Rose – not just for hurting Dad and being a bitch to Serena, but for taking the role of the sister who was special, who was different and sensitive and needed to be treated as such, otherwise she would withdraw herself and her affection from the family. Where did that leave me, I fumed? Being the one who cleaned up the mess and didn’t get the rich handsome men and smoothed over the hurt feelings, all my life for ever and ever, like some kind of latter-day Cinderella?