“Fancy making me some breakfast?” Drew said when he trudged into the kitchen this morning. “Angela’s on strike.”
“Passionate” is the word Mum always uses to describe their relationship. I’d say “volatile.”
When I handed over the toast and eggs, Drew snatched the plate and ate so fast the yolk burst. I’d only ever seen him eat with restaurant manners, but as he leaned in to kiss me on the cheek—“Thank you, angel”—a strong sour smell hit the back of my throat and I realized he must have been drinking the night before. That maybe he was still drunk.
Mum waited for him to leave, blazed into the kitchen a smear of bright Lycra and makeup. “He gone?” she asked, knowing the answer.
“Yes,” I said, loading the breakfast things into the dishwasher.
“Did you make him breakfast?” she asked, and I knew that “yes” was the wrong answer.
“No,” I said, concentrating on the plates I was stacking in and the cutlery I was rinsing in bunches.
“Don’t lie for him, Sarah.”
I do lie for him. It’s just easier. It nips things in the bud. And the thing is, Mum wouldn’t actually want me to tell the truth.
“What time did you come in last night?” she’ll ask him over breakfast. Choosing to make the question communal when she could have asked him in their shared bed first thing.
“Just before eleven,” he’ll say, sipping his coffee and holding her eye like a poker player. “I slept in the spare room so I wouldn’t wake you.”
“Liar,” she’ll say, standing up without eating her breakfast, yet again.
“He did,” I’ll say breezily. “I heard him.”
Afterward, when she’s gone to the gym with the answer she wanted, not the answer she suspected, he’ll squeeze my knee. “My angel, you got me out of a fix. I went for a few drinks with the guys from my department, but you know what your mum’s like. I owe you one.”
I’ve been saving up the I-owe-yous over the months, tending to them, counting them, until I decide it’s been long enough.
He’s home from work now, sitting in the den watching a recorded game of American football. His tie is off and there’s a heavy tumbler of whiskey in his hand.
“Drew?” I say, as gently as I can. He pats the couch next to him and I slide onto it, tucking my knees under me and—at his suggestion—leaning onto him awkwardly.
“I have something to ask.” As I say it, I study my hands, my long fingers and neatly clipped nails. I’d put Mum’s varnish on them once, but Drew hated it.
“Anything, angel,” he murmurs, his eyes and mind on the game.
“It’s just…” I deliberately falter, to get his attention. “I miss my sister,” I say, “and I want to show her my new life here.” He doesn’t look around but sits up a little straighter, listening. “You’ve given us such a brilliant life,” I add, trying to get some warmth going before I take things further. “I want to show it off.”
“Hmn,” he says, taking a thick sip of his liquor. “I suppose it’s been a while since you saw her. But do you think she’d want to come here?”
“Who wouldn’t?”
I’m not used to him asking questions he wants answers to—normally he just talks into my silence—but he seems to like this.
“And I’m sure she’d come if Callum came.” He likes this less. It’s something I’ve never understood and never dared ask. If I ever have kids when I’m older—and I hope I do—I’ll never let anything or anyone keep them away from me. But for some reason, Drew and Callum don’t see eye to eye. Callum says Drew was cruel to him when he was little, but I never saw it, and Callum is incredibly sensitive. I’ve heard Drew refer to him as a “Nancy” before.
“Let me talk to your mum, see what she says, okay?”
“Thank you, Drew,” I say, knowing my time is up. I kiss his cheek and leave him to it.
ROBIN|1994
Robin had swiped a bottle of Mad Dog 20/20 from the shop in the next village a few hours earlier. She’d wedged it between her belly and her waistband and walked carefully out. She and Callum sat on the swings in the playground and took furtive swigs as the light faded. They talked about a boy at school that Robin liked. “Well, I like him when he’s by himself, but he’s a dick when he’s with his friends.”
“Most people are,” Callum said, in such a sage voice that they’d both folded into hysterical laughter.
“Who do you like?” Robin asked, still chuckling a bit.
“No one,” Callum said cautiously.
They swung side by side in silence, until Callum said, “You know I like boys too, right?”
She’d pumped her legs to go higher and lied. “Yeah, of course.”
Robin bit her lip as she swung. She could not let Callum see her disappointment. Not that he fancied boys—she didn’t like him like that—but disappointment that she hadn’t realized. She’d even thought about fixing him up with a few girls in her class. She hadn’t gone through with it, because she didn’t want to be left out if he got a girlfriend, and because there was simply no one good enough.
But, okay, he was gay. Her brother was gay. This was unexpected. Gay people on the telly were flamboyant and camp, but Callum was neither. Gay people liked disco music and Europop, didn’t they? But Callum liked Manic Street Preachers, Alice in Chains and Nine Inch Nails. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of rock and its various subgenres. He could play guitar like the devil.
All Robin understood in that moment, as she pumped her legs as hard as she could, was that she’d have to pretend to understand a lot more than she really did. The questions she was desperate to ask were stuck in her throat. Robin decided that it was enough that he’d told her.
They’d swung until they got sick, then lay on the musky evening grass drinking the dregs from the bottle and talking in tones that suggested important discussions were taking place, when, in reality, they were talking nonsense.
When they got home, lurching from side to side and giggling, they were asked to come into the living room.
“Shit,” they whispered to each other.
Hilary and Jack chose to ignore the obvious inebriation of their underage children and asked them to sit down.
“Your mum rang,” Jack said.
“So?” snorted Robin, a little too indignantly.
“She wants you to fly out to visit.”
Robin said nothing, glanced at Callum out of the side of her eye. He looked nervous.
“And your dad would like to see you too, Cal,” Hilary added, avoiding his eyes. He said nothing. “You’d be with Robin,” Hilary added.
“And Sarah would be there,” Jack said.
Robin sat back heavily on the sofa, let her eyelids slide slowly down and tried to swallow away the queasiness and the taste of sour orange.
“My dad wants to see me?” Callum said, as Hilary stood up to go back out into the kitchen for no real reason. “Why?”
“What do you mean?” Hilary looked nervous.
“You know what I mean.”
The alcohol in his system seemed to be stirring him up; even Robin felt rattled by it. He stared at his mum until she looked away.