‘Life is busy, and it wasn’t exactly what we wanted to talk about. You and Evan had just got back together, the last thing you needed was to hear our stuff and find another excuse to blame yourself for shit that’s not your fault. And it’s been more than fine for years so no need to bring it up.’
‘Wish you’d told me.’
‘I did, just now. This was the right time to tell you. Everything happens when it’s meant to.’
‘You’ve really taken to therapy, haven’t you? But why are you still seeing her – I assume it’s a her – if it’s fine with Harry now?’
‘Are you joking? I have so much to unpack. I don’t see her all the time, but she was my lifeline when Daddy died. I couldn’t have coped without her.’
Medina enters the kitchen almost at a run. ‘What are you two doing out here? Everyone’s gasping and you’re out here gassing.’
I move away from Fez and go to her, wrap my arms around my younger big sister. ‘Oh God, what’s happened?’ Medina asks. ‘Why are you hugging me like this? Am I ill? What’s going to happen to me?’
‘I just told her about you and Adrian splitting up. And me and Harry splitting up and me being in long-term therapy,’ Faye says. She really is a different woman. I haven’t really noticed that. Faye was always pretty taciturn and slightly removed, but thinking back, she has been more open, less critical in the past few years.
‘Oh, that,’ Medina says.
‘Yes, that, sister who doesn’t tell me anything.’
‘There was nothing to tell. It’s all sorted. Just like all of this is going to be sorted out in no time.’
I’d forgotten. For a few short minutes I’d forgotten why they were here. I step back and as I leave the huggableness of my sister, worry clambers back into place.
‘Trust you, Mez,’ Faye spits. ‘I swear . . . I had taken her mind off it and you’ve brought her right back down again.’
‘Well, if you’d bothered to engage that twin telepathy you tortured me for hours trying to perfect when we were kids, I might have known your grand plan.’
‘I don’t have grand plans, remember? That’s on you.’
‘You don’t have grand plans? All you live for is to plan stuff.’
‘Well, at least I know which college I went to.’
‘I know which college I went to,’ Medina says.
‘Are you sure? Because weren’t you the one who “forgot” which college you were enrolled in and only “remembered” when you’d got Daddy to drive you halfway to another place?’
‘It was an honest mistake. Anyone could have made it.’
‘Funny how it was only you, Messy Mez, who made it.’
My squabbling sisters don’t even notice when I leave the kitchen. Once they’ve got themselves into this mode, there is very little that will stop them. Verity is just leaving the living room at the same time and stops, a terrified rabbit caught and literally petrified in the headlights of my presence.
‘Is it OK if I go to the loo?’ she asks.
‘Of course. This is your home. You can go to the toilet whenever you choose.’
‘Thanks,’ she mumbles.
I stand and watch her go. I’m going to have to talk to her.
But will she want to talk to me?
serena
Now
‘We’re the gold standard, apparently,’ I say to Evan.
He’s reading in bed, bare-chested with his glasses perched at the end of his nose. ‘That’s nice,’ he says dismissively.
This is the closest we’ve got to normal conversation since this all began and I’m sure he’s still a bit annoyed with me. Just as I was – am? – with him. I pull back the covers on my side of the bed and slide in.
‘Don’t you even want to know what for?’
I see him grit his teeth, almost roll his eyes, but not turn to me as he asks, ‘What are we the gold standard for?’
‘I’ll tell you when you’re a little less distracted,’ I snipe because I’m trying here and he’s giving me nothing. Since our row, since we silently agreed to disagree, which actually meant we hid our testiness with each other in front of Conrad and barely spoke at other times, neither of us has made the effort I am making now. Yes, I want us to start speaking again, but I’m not trying alone.
Irritation oscillates across Evan’s face, his eyes stare into the mid-distance beyond his book before he fixes his expression and turns to me. ‘What are we the gold standard for?’
I carefully take his book from him and place it on my bedside table.
‘What are we the gold standard for?’ he asks again. He’s looking tired, frazzled and frayed around the edges. This is what I noticed about myself when I looked in the mirror earlier. Life seems to be catching up with us; things seem to be nibbling away at the sorted life we thought we had and one of the side effects of those nibbles is this: looking older than our years.
I move up the covers so I can climb up and sit astride him. He is suddenly willing to take me seriously now that I’m in front of him, not giving him much choice. ‘Faye and Medina—’
‘Oh, it’s a Witches of Ipswich thing, is it?’ Evan asks.
I slip my hands into the waistband of the Brighton and Hove Albion footie-kit shorts he wears to bed and tug them down past his hips to his thighs.
‘Yes, it’s a Witches thing.’
I grip him firmly then run my hand up and down the full length of his erection. I grin as this contorts his face in pleasure, causes a groan to escape his lips.
Slowly I take off my nightshirt and toss it to one side. Then my hand is back on him, moving up and down, tantalisingly slowly, drawing out the seconds of delight.
‘Tell me,’ he says, trying to sound normal while I’m teasing him.
‘They think we have the type of relationship they’ve both been striving for all these years.’
Still holding him, I shift forward, push the tip of him against me and rock back and forward.
‘Do they?’ he pants.
I place one hand on his shoulder, lift myself up and then guide him into me as I sink down onto the full length of him.
We both softly groan this time as we become one. ‘They do,’ I reply when I can speak.
I rock against him, making sure we keep eye contact. ‘That’s nice,’ he says between his teeth.
‘Isn’t . . . it . . . just,’ I eventually manage. ‘Isn’t . . . it . . . just.’
Suddenly Evan takes control by grabbing my hips. His holds me in place as he starts to forcefully thrust into me.
I bite down again, try to move but he refuses to let me, keeps me in place while he drives himself into me. Our eyes are linked as he finally loosens his grip, but only so he can move me up and down on him, shifting gear again.
Everything is fierce and fast, full and pulsing with pleasure and need and a desperation to connect like this. My hand claws into his shoulder, and ‘UHHHHH,’ Evan cries loudly, forgetting himself.
‘Shhhhhh,’ I hush before I clamp my hand over his mouth. ‘Shhhhh!’ Our children are down the hall, they do not need to hear this.