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  ‘Convinced about what?’

  ‘Sadie. Come on, Goat Boy, keep up.’

  ‘I thought we’d dropped that. And anyway, you said she was lovely.’

  Bianca shrugs. ‘She’s your girlfriend – was – what else am I going to say?’

  ‘Well, now’s your chance,’ I tell her. ‘What, in your opinion, was wrong with her?’

  ‘It’s not so much that there was anything wrong, I suppose. I just didn’t really reckon she was “The One”, you know.’

  ‘Oh, you didn’t?’

  ‘Feminine intuition, innit.’

  ‘Well, it looks like you were right, doesn’t it? Bravo.’

  Bianca cocks her head immodestly and sips her sherry.

  ‘Anyway,’ she says, ‘you’re too pretty for her.’

  ‘Sod off.’

  ‘Well, you are. I’d kill for those eyelashes.’

  The toast pops, and I spread one piece with peanut butter and one with jam before sandwiching them together. Bea washes her face in the sink and dries it on the front of her pyjama top. I cut the toast into four triangles, like I have done since she was a toddler.

  ‘Here.’

  Bea tuts, but she takes the toast. Mum’s wedding ring hangs on a chain around her neck, and as Bea eats and stares out of the window, she worries the gold band. Mum got the diagnosis when Bianca was five and I was in my second year at university. A tumour in her right breast, and she fought the cancer for three years before it finally beat her in the summer just a few months before her forty-ninth birthday. To some extent, a gradual decline prepares you for death – you begin the process of grieving early, easing into your bereavement and moving towards acceptance. For Bianca, though, the three years in which Mum lost her hair, during which her skin sagged and darkened, those years simply gave her the time to learn and understand what death is and what it means. It was harder for Bea, and I think it still is. I had Mum for my entire childhood, but Bea had her for only eight short years – and at only sixteen now, a difficult and confusing time as she transitions into womanhood, I imagine she feels Mum’s absence keenly.

  Tears move slowly down my sister’s cheeks; they hang and drop from either side of her jaw.

  ‘You okay?’

  ‘Silly,’ she says. ‘You’d think I’d be over it by now.’

  ‘Christmas,’ I say. ‘I miss her, too.’

  Bianca nods, wipes her eyes on her sleeve. ‘Well, I don’t know about you, Goat Boy, but I am going to get shedded.’

  ‘Now?’

  Bianca pulls a face designed to reflect the depths of my stupidity. ‘Later. There’s a thing at the Tivoli.’

  ‘Thing?’

  ‘Band. DJ.’

  ‘On Christmas sodding Day?’

  Bea rolls her eyes. ‘Night actually. You sound like Dad.’

  ‘And he’s okay with this?’

  In a single lazy blink, Bea slips from derision to solicitation. ‘Actually, I was wondering if you might have a word.’

  ‘Bea, don’t put me in the middle.’

  She shrugs. ‘You kind of already are. Right then, Goat Boy, get the spuds on while I take a shower.’

  Bea clumps upstairs, leaving me to clean up the kitchen and figure out how I’m going to mediate a resolution between my hormonal sister and fretful father. The problem is, I can see both of their positions – her need for independence and his compulsion to protect – and whether I like it or not, Bea’s right, I am stuck slap bang in the middle.

  Mum invented ‘play for your presents’ at around the time she started wearing a headscarf. At a time when her children were more amenable to that kind of nonsense.

  ‘The minister’s cat is delightful,’ says Dad.

  ‘Diabolical,’ I say.

  ‘Diarrhetic,’ says Bea, rounding off the ‘D’s.

  We would play Charades, Twenty Questions, Elephant’s Foot Umbrella Stand and – the English teacher’s favourite – The Minister’s Cat. Dad keeps the tradition alive, and the romantic in me hopes generations of Fergusons will do the same. If nothing else, we’ll acquire a formidable arsenal of adjectives.

  ‘The minister’s cat is energetic.’

  ‘Euphoric.’

  ‘Eviscerated.’

  Presents are awarded arbitrarily throughout play, not so much as a reward, more as a means of pacing out what would have been a paper-tearing frenzy when Bea was six and halfway through her Cadbury’s selection pack.

  ‘Good one,’ says Dad. ‘Shall we?’

  We each take a wrapped parcel from our own pile. Dad unwraps a jumper from Bianca, Bianca opens perfume from me, I open snowboard goggles from Bianca. Everyone seems genuinely pleased; we hug, kiss, clink our glasses.

  ‘The minister’s cat is . . . flatulent,’ says Dad, and we all smile ruefully at this old favourite of Mum’s.

  ‘Frisky,’ I say.

  ‘Fidgety,’ says Bianca, giving me a sideways glance.

  ‘The minister’s cat is—’

  ‘Going out?’ interrupts Bianca.

  Dad looks at Bea, looks at me. I shrug.

  ‘Bianca,’ he says, ‘we’ve had this. You’re sixteen.’

  ‘Nearly seventeen.’

  ‘Well, nearly isn’t actually, is it?’

  Bea juts her chin at me, demanding my input.

  ‘I . . . I went when I was . . . sixteen?’

  ‘Not with my permission,’ says Dad.

  ‘I came back, though.’

  Dad inhales deeply, holds the breath for a count before releasing it. It’s hard to decipher the gesture, but I sense he is beginning to yield. Some people harden with age, but Dad has gone the other way. He’s softened a lot since his book-burning days, maybe due to age and perspective, maybe in response to my mother’s passing, probably in part due to both. And the truth is, in most matters (excluding those concerning erotic lit), he has always been reasonably permissive. Even so, protocol demands he doesn’t make it too easy.

  ‘Sharon’s going,’ says Bea. ‘And Kelly.’

  ‘Well, if they were going to jump—’

  ‘Do not,’ says Bea, ‘do the cliff thing. Or the hand-in-the-fire thing. It’s so predictable.’

  Dad looks at me to confirm this, and I nod, mime putting my hand in a fire and flinching, in the hopes it will lighten the mood.

  ‘It’s a club, Dad, not a . . .’ Bea throws her hands in the air, ‘. . . a war zone. ’s not even a good club.’

  ‘Then why d’you want to go?’

  ‘Because’ – as if explaining to a person with severely limited comprehension – ‘everyone else is.’

  ‘Perx, I suppose.’

  ‘What’s Perx?’ I ask.

  ‘My boyfriend, if you must know.’

  ‘I thought he was called David.’

  ‘It’s short for percussion,’ says Bianca, again with the defiance. ‘He’s a drummer.’

  ‘He’s a plonker,’ Dad mutters under his breath.

  Bianca grabs two fistfuls of her hair. ‘God! It’s so unf—’

  ‘Fine,’ says Dad.

  ‘What?’ Me and Bianca in unison.

  ‘Thomas will pick you up at midnight.’

  ‘But—’ Again from both brother and sister.

  ‘Well, someone has to collect her,’ Dad says, choosing to answer me first.

  Bianca widens her eyes at me: Pleeeaaase.

  So much for the nice bottle of red that’s breathing in the kitchen. ‘Fine. Of course.’

  ‘Midnight,’ reiterates Dad. ‘And if you get legless, you get grounded.’

  Bea pretends to sulk about this but she can’t maintain the act. ‘The minister’s cat is gratified.’

  Under the pretence of making myself a drink, I sneak up to my black bedroom and check my phone for messages.

  There are none.

  How I feel about that – disappointed or relieved – I honestly don’t know. And I don’t know if it’s possible to experience both at the same time but, if it is, then that woul
d explain the knot in my stomach. After several seconds weighing the pros and cons, I call Sadie but her phone goes straight to voicemail. I get stage fright, hang up and text instead: Happy Xmas Xx. And I regret the second ‘x’ the minute I hit the send button. Three kisses would be overdoing it, obviously; three is a romantic volley and our days of romantic volleys are, if not behind us, then definitely on hold. One kiss, on the other hand, would be only slightly more personal than a full stop – you see it sitting there at the end of the sentence but it doesn’t register on the emotional scale. No kisses would appear plain sulky. Which is why I opted for one and a half kisses – ‘Xx’, one upper- and one lower-case kiss. But what I ended up with, of course, was two kisses. Kiss kiss. Which is a tad too cute for our current situation. Particularly when you consider the pivotal role kissing played in our break-up. Why didn’t I go the whole hog roast and text Happy kissmas, with a smiley face and giant kiss made up of two-dozen smaller kisses? At least that might have been perceived as ironic.

  And does it really matter one way or the other?

  Bianca said Sadie wasn’t ‘The One’ for me. But should this come as any kind of surprise?

  Of the seven billion – 7,000,000,000! – humans out there, how likely is it that your One works in your office, drinks in your local, goes to your school, turns up at your Halloween party? You’ve got more chance of winning the lottery with a found ticket. Of course Sadie wasn’t The One. A better question would be: is there a One?

  I sincerely hope not. I mean, what kind of cruel trick would that be? How could you ever rest, ever be happy, knowing that somewhere – in some house, high-rise, hovel, hut, shack, castle, tower, palace or frigging igloo – your One, your only, is patiently waiting for you to arrive and sweep her clean off her snowshoes. And it’s not that I’m some hopeless unromantic. Love, monogamy, happily ever after – I believe in all of those things, want all of those things, really I do. But I don’t believe they’re going to arrive on the end of a lightning bolt. I don’t believe that capital ‘O’ comes fully formed. Rather, there are various, potential, lowercase ‘ones’ – the few, the several, the many – but not ‘The One’. And with patience, perseverance and an open mind, maybe, if you’re lucky, one of those ones will turn into a . . . fuck, what do I know?

  My mobile chirrups the arrival of a new text message and I wince reflexively.

  Sadie: Ho Ho Ho.

  No kisses.

  And if it’s funny or not, I really can’t tell.

  The predictable news is that teenage girls will be teenage girls. Whether or not my little sister qualifies as legless would depend on the extent of your literalism. While Bea has retained possession of her lower limbs, neither of them is of any use beyond filling out a pair of tight jeans. Right now they are folded beneath her as she slumps in front of the upstairs toilet. The good news is – and the irony has not escaped me – Dad is passed out drunk in his armchair, so Bea can retch, puke and cry with impunity.

  ‘Your sick is blue,’ I tell her.

  ‘Wicked.’

  ‘It’s nothing to be proud of, Bea.’

  ‘The drink,’ she says, around a mouthful of spittle. ‘Blue Wicked.’

  ‘The minister’s cat was being droll.’

  ‘Yeah? Well the minister’s cat can fu— fuuurgghhh.’ Retch, spit, pfft, pfft, pfft.

  ‘Did you have fun?’

  Bea shakes her head. I’d hold her hair, but it’s full of hairspray and is the only part of my sister still capable of self-support.

  ‘Perx trouble?’

  ‘Don’t gloat.’

  ‘I’m not, sis. You can talk to me, you know? About anything.’

  Bea makes a noise that could be gratitude, cynicism or the beginnings of another gastric upheaval. ‘Are you going to tell Dad?’

  ‘Not this time,’ I tell her.

  ‘Fucking men.’

  And that’s Christmas.

  Chapter Two

  The drive back to London takes all of Queen’s Greatest Hits and The Beatles 1962–1966, plus most of The Essential Johnny Cash – all Sadie’s. I’m mumbling along to ‘A Boy Named Sue’ when it occurs to me that Sadie’s CD collection consists entirely of compilations. Spread out on the passenger seat are the Carpenters’ Gold, L’indispensable Elvis, Motown Chartbusters Volume 6, etc. And isn’t it all a little contrived? A touch rose-tinted? Where are the not-so-great hits – the ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’s, the ‘Radio Ga Ga’s, the lows that define the highs and make for an honest account of an artist’s output? If I were to compile the highlights from mine and Sadie’s relationship, you’d see the holidays, posh restaurants, presents, parties, sex, cosying up on the sofa . . . and you’d think: Great relationship. But you’d be missing the arguments and insecurities, the nights apart, the weekends lost to work, the bored Sunday afternoons, the faked headaches, failed orgasms and infidelities. That said, we were only together thirteen months, which is a little premature for Tom and Sadie Gold.

  But I’m not listening to Sadie’s eclectic collection out of any kind of sentimentality; it’s just that my own CDs are in the flat in London. Forty-eight hours ago, I couldn’t get out of London fast enough. It didn’t enter my mind to bring music; it’s a miracle I packed two pairs of underpants. Sadie leaves her stuff wherever she drops it: knickers in the bathroom, banana skins on the coffee table, CDs in the Mini. And while I feel justified moaning about the milk turning sour on the countertop, it is handy having a supply of music in the glovebox. Besides, the car is half Sadie’s. A couple of months after she moved into my flat, we spent a weekend in Devon for a wedding. And at some point during the delayed and diverted, eight-hour taxi, train, coach and tube journey back to London, we decided it might be handy to own a car. Sadie decided it should be a brand-new Mini Cooper.

  It’s tempting to say it seemed like a good idea at the time, but I’m not sure that it did. It certainly doesn’t now.

  I liked Sadie the first time I met her.

  We were at a Halloween party. Sadie was dressed as Uncle Fester. I was meant to be Frankenstein’s monster, but when I was introduced to Sadie I reinvented myself as Lurch from The Addams Family. We talked easily, agreeing for the most part but comfortable in our discrepancies too. An instant item, we posed for photographs, got drunk, went to Sadie’s place, had sex, removed our make-up and had sex again. We arranged to meet at a Bonfire Night party the following weekend. Sadie arrived late and tear-streaked and informed me she’d just dumped her boyfriend. A boyfriend I hadn’t – up until that exact moment – known existed.

  Sadie is very close to being beautiful – and some people would tell you she’s all the way there. Tall and slim, pouty lips, intelligent eyes, moulded cheekbones; tick, tick, tick. Instant attraction for sure, but my heart did not go boom. For no reason I could put my finger on, I had reservations, but they were small nebulous doubtlings, easily attributed to new-girlfriend nerves. Also, this smart, sexy woman had just unhitched from her boyfriend, apparently on account of me, and I felt obliged to at least complete the basic inventory of new-couple dates: restaurant, cinema, National Gallery and so on.

  December arrived, and while the doubts hadn’t entirely dispersed, it was now Christmas party season and we had plenty of distractions and festive fun to buoy us along. In January we went skiing. For Valentine’s Day we went to Paris. In March, work took Sadie to Zurich for ten days and me to Slovenia for eight. Sadie’s dad was ill in April. It was her birthday in May. By June we’d been dating for seven months and we did what all couples do in summer: we went on holiday to Palma. And one night, drunk on wine and the sunset and the next best thing to love, I asked Sadie to move in. I remember waking up the next morning and thinking even then that I’d acted in haste. And now I know that I did. It’s easier, I think, to know when something’s wrong that when it’s right, but it’s knowledge we resist – because the alternative is an awful lot of lonely nights and microwave spaghetti Bolognese for one.

  But I ignored the doubts that
never really went away. Sadie moved in and for a while it was new and exciting. We bought a car, we went for drives, we slipped into complacency and then the Christmas party happened.

  The company I produce commercials for is called Blank Slate, and this year’s Blank Slate Christmas party coincided with the conclusion of my last shoot of the year. Meaning, after three thirteen-hour days of marshalling crew, nursing egos and making sure everyone had the right kind of milk in their lattes, I was hoarse, thirsty and exhausted. I needed a relaxing drink, but this wasn’t that kind of party. This was an unabashed schmoozefest swarming with drunk clients we had either worked with in the past or hoped to work with in the future. Free beer for them, hard work for me. And in addition to the clients, there were the directors. We have nine on our roster, most of them talented, affable and amenable. But whether they’re young, old, award-winning or jobbing, they all need reassuring that, yes, you are a unique and special snowflake and the next big script that comes in . . . you, buddy, are top of the list. I’m the youngest producer in the company, but far from the least experienced. I started straight out of college, I work hard and I like my job. The young pups see me as an ally. The old hacks view me as a soft touch. Net result: by the end of the night I probably had more saliva in my ear than beer down my throat. Several of the gang were talking about hitting a club, but I’d had all the saliva I could handle, so I ordered a cab and did a round of goodbyes and happy Christmases.

  When I got to Holly the only thing holding her head up was the straw in her vodka tonic. This had been her first shoot as a runner, and after three days of fetching tea, fetching biscuits, fetching bacon sandwiches, fetching sushi, fetching cigarettes and magazines and skinny triple-shot Starbucks, she was falling asleep on her feet. We both live south of the river, so I offered her a lift. And she accepted. It was as simple and innocent as that. The idea of snogging her in the back seat hadn’t even entered my head. Not at that stage.

  We stared out of the windows in silence, watching the landmarks and London lights roll past. Holly yawned and slumped against me. My arm was squashed uncomfortably against the side of my body, so I slipped it around Holly’s shoulders. Besides, it was cold. We crossed the river and Holly leaned across me, better to see the lights of Albert Bridge reflected in the Thames. Her hair was in my face, so I brushed it away from my cheek. And that’s when it happened. She kissed me. I kissed her. We kissed. In that order. I told Holly that it was probably a bad idea. ‘Yes, probably,’ she said. Then she snogged me again, and I snogged her back, and we snogged all the way through Battersea and Clapham Common and Clapham South until the cab pulled up outside Holly’s flat and she invited me inside. And despite the fact that Sadie was in Stockholm on business, and despite my straining erection, I declined politely. And that’s all it was: a bit of harmless drunken snogging, and maybe a little groping. The cab driver grinned at me in the rear-view mirror. ‘I’d’ve been up there like a rat up a drainpipe, pal.’ I smiled nonchalantly and watched Holly go into her flat, feeling pretty pleased with myself for showing such restraint and character in the face of temptation.