‘All the best hospital shows are set in A & E,’ Suzanne said knowledgeably. ‘He must have some great stories.’
‘If he does, I never hear them,’ I said. ‘He works a lot. Like, night shifts and stuff? So I don’t really see him much.’
Suzanne made a face, no doubt because she had no response to this as much as out of sympathy. There was another awkward pause, at which point Rosie finally took pity on us both and spoke up. ‘Caddy’s parents are great.’ I looked at her, surprised. ‘You know those people and you’re like, oh yeah, you’ve got how to be human figured out.’
I laughed. ‘Um, OK.’
‘Seriously.’ Rosie raised her eyebrows at me. ‘I hope you’re grateful.’ She turned to Suzanne. ‘When I was eleven, my baby sister Tansy died –’ Suzanne’s eyes went wide at this – ‘and my mum had trouble coping, so I came to live with Caddy for a few weeks. So I know.’
‘Rosie,’ I said, ‘that’s very heavy information to just drop into a sentence.’ Suzanne was still looking stunned.
‘Your baby sister died?’ she echoed. ‘That’s horrible.’
‘Yeah, it was,’ Rosie said, and even though her voice was casual I saw her shoulders square and her jaw tighten. These are things you only notice on a best friend. ‘But the point of the story was Caddy’s parents.’
‘Roz,’ I said.
‘That’s horrible,’ Suzanne said again, her voice quiet. She was looking at the floor.
‘Do you have any horrible life stories to tell?’ Rosie asked. Her voice was cheerful, but it had a definite edge. For all her deliberate nonchalance, I knew she didn’t like talking about Tansy. ‘Caddy calls them Significant Life Events.’
‘Roz.’ My voice was sharper this time. She looked at me, pulling a deliberate innocent face. Sometimes I felt like I was her parent. Reining in Rosie.
Suzanne looked from me to Rosie, clearly wondering if she should speak. Finally she said, ‘What counts as significant?’
‘Moving house probably counts,’ I said, trying to be generous. ‘Nothing significant has ever happened to me. I’m dull.’
Suzanne looked at me a little oddly, and I realized too late that describing myself as dull on first meeting probably wasn’t a good way to make friends. I opened my mouth to try to redeem myself, but my mind had gone blank. Oh well, I thought, resigning myself to her inevitable opinion of me. She’s only Rosie’s school friend. Who cares what she thinks?
‘So. Got a boyfriend yet?’
Tarin arrived home on Sunday evening, tanned and beaming, sporting presents and a new tattoo (three birds in flight on the side of her left wrist). She’d been on a last-minute holiday with her own boyfriend, Adam, in Turkey and so had missed both my birthday and my first week of school.
‘No,’ I said flatly. ‘I promise that I will text you if that happens.’
‘When,’ Tarin corrected promptly. ‘When it happens.’
I rolled my eyes, but I was smiling. It was hard not to smile around my sister when she was in a good mood. Erratic and vibrant, Tarin filled any room she was in. My most vivid memories of her from my childhood were whirlwinds of colour and excitement, punctured by impenetrable clouds of darkness, when nothing would bring her out of herself. She was calmer and more stable now, six years on from her diagnosis, but she was still Tarin, sister extraordinaire.
‘Here,’ she said, holding out a bag to me. ‘It’s not wrapped, sorry. Happy birthday.’
The bag contained a scarf: purple and silver, soft, beautiful. I pulled the material gently through my fingers. ‘It’s gorgeous. Thanks.’ I lifted the scarf to my neck and tried to figure out how to wind it the way she always wore hers.
‘Sixteen’s a big one,’ Tarin said. ‘I can’t believe you’re sixteen. In my head you’re still five years old.’
‘Oh, great, thanks.’ I had no idea what I was doing with the scarf. I leaned back to check my reflection to see if my attempt looked as stupid as it felt. My whole head seemed to have suddenly ballooned as my hair – a constant source of frustration – had bunched up underneath it. Said hair, of the slightly bushy variety, was artificially brightened with highlights, from the mousy colour it had dulled to from the blonde I was born with. No length seemed to distract from the bushiness; short made me look like I had a mane (and not in a good way), while long just gave me more to try and tame. As with so much else in my life, I’d settled for the that’ll-do end of the spectrum and kept it shoulder-length. Usually I tied it back from my face and tried to forget about it.
I sighed. After I’d pulled my hair from under it, the scarf had become lopsided. I flicked it in annoyance and Tarin leaned across to adjust it for me. Tarin had a tendency to act more like a parent than a sister, given the eight-year age difference and my general lack of worldliness.
‘Has Rosie got a boyfriend?’
‘Not a proper one. She had a thing with some guy in her form, but that was only a few weeks.’
‘I guess she’s got more options than you.’ She made a mock-sympathetic face. ‘You poor thing, all cooped up in that oestrogen prison.’