‘Sadly, none of these magnificent feasts for the senses are likely to take place. I won’t be marrying Finn – because I’m already married! Booooom!’
I make a ‘drop the mike’ gesture, pass the glasses to a confused Edie, and give a low bow as they all stare at me – Willow, in particular, has eyes so wide they might break her face in half.
I grab a bottle of cider, and head outside. I really need a ciggie now.
I find a perch on one of the tables and take a swig from my bottle. It’s been brewed by our friend Scrumpy Joe, who lives up to his name by brewing cider professionally – his parents must have had amazing powers of premonition. Or maybe it’s a nickname, who knows?
The garden of the café is higgledy-piggledy and laid out over uneven ground that makes balancing anything on the tabletops an interesting experience. I like sitting out here sometimes, waiting for people’s milkshakes to start to slip sideways.
The café is on the top of a hill on the top of a cliff on top of the world. Or at least that’s what it feels like, especially on a day like this, when the spring sky is a clear, vivid blue and the sea seems to stretch on for infinity.
The dogs let out a half-hearted woof when they see me, and I raise my bottle in acknowledgement as I count out loud. I’m counting because I’m curious to see how long it takes Willow to make it outside with her thumbscrews and eye-shining torch to interrogate me. I have a bet – with myself, so I’ll definitely win – that it’ll be less than thirty seconds.
Sadly, I’m all the way up to one hundred and eighty before she emerges from the café, pink hair blowing around in the breeze, striding towards me in her spray-painted silver Doc Marten boots. Her hands are on her hips, which tells me she means business.
‘What took you so long?’ I ask, tapping an imaginary watch on my wrist. ‘What time to do you call this?’
‘I had to listen to Edie’s story,’ she says, reaching out to punch me on the shoulder. For no good reason other than we’re sisters. She’s the baby of the family and, if I’m honest, was always the butt of our practical jokes and general twattery when we were growing up. Now she takes every opportunity to prove to herself that she’s not the runt of the litter any more.
The rest of us – me, Van and our other brother Angel – all took off when we were young, and she ended up at home with an ever-declining Lynnie, looking after her on her own until she told us what the situation was. Then two of us came back – and I suspect there’s part of Willow that thinks life was simpler without us.
‘What was that like?’ I ask, frowning up into the sunlight. Edie’s fiancé died during World War II, and she never married. She simply convinced herself he’s still alive, and talks about him in the present tense, and even takes food home for him from the café. I’m not one to judge – we’re all a bit barmy, if we strip away the layers, don’t you think?
‘It involved a swing band and the village hall and nylon stockings she’d been given by an American airman. But anyway … you’re married?’
Her face is all screwed up, and I can tell she’s both intrigued and a bit angry.
‘Yeah. You want to say “WTF”, don’t you? Except you’re too old to use abbreviations, so you want to say the whole thing. I can see the battle raging within you.’
‘The battle raging within me isn’t about saying “fuck”, Auburn – I’m quite happy to say it! Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!’
I laugh out loud – because any word, when you say it repeatedly, starts to sound silly, doesn’t it? Especially one that rhymes with duck and muck and yuck and other similarly amusing words.
I see her trying not to laugh, but that’s not really in her nature, and she cracks eventually. She sighs, and sits next to me, and steals my bottle of cider. That would normally be a strong reason for me to wrestle her to the ground and dribble spit in her face, but I reckon she’s had a shock, so I play nice.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she asks, her voice quiet and a tiny bit hurt. I glance at her, shielding my eyes from the sun, and see that she is in fact hurt. I’d never considered that. When we were young, we weren’t close – in fact we were sworn enemies, forced to share a bedroom, where we re-enacted global conflicts every single day despite our lentil-loving mama urging us towards peace, love and understanding.
Now, though, as adults – bonded over Lynnie and the fact that we each have our own room these days – we’re closer. Almost friends, in fact. The fact that I’ve kept this from her has dented her feelings, and I’m sad about that.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say, patting her knee. ‘I didn’t do it on purpose. I think I just kind of … decided to forget about it. I realise that sounds insane, and it probably is, but it was in a different time. A different life. A long time ago, in a galaxy … well, at least a few hundred miles away.’
‘Well now you’ve remembered, tell me about it. I can’t believe you’re married! Does Van know? Does Finn know?’
‘Nobody here knows. Like I said, I chose to bury it. I barely knew myself. If it wasn’t for Becca and her Groucho glasses, I might have chosen to bury it forever. But … well. Here we are. Me, an old married woman, and you, my spinster sister. Sitting in the sunshine. Sharing a bottle of cider in a fair and equitable manner.’
I reach out to grab it back, but she’s too fast, and holds it on the far side of her body so I can’t get to it without falling off the table. I shrug, and pull my cigarettes out of my jeans pocket instead. She crinkles her nose up in advance, and I say: ‘If you want to hear this story, you’ll have to tolerate the second-hand nicotine, okay?’
I’ve been trying to stop smoking ever since I moved back to Budbury, our tiny corner of the Dorset coast. I’ve tried vaping, and patches, and exercise, but ultimately never seem quite able to shake off the habit. I’ll manage for a while, but then as soon as something vaguely stressful happens – like stubbing my toe, or discovering my mother has cancer, or pretty much everything in between – I start again.I’m a little bit broken, and the ciggies are an external sign, I suppose.
I light up, and soothe myself with that first lovely inhale. I take two puffs, then stub it out on the tiny tin I carry around to use as a combined ashtray and butt collector. Nobody likes a litterbug.
‘That was quick,’ she says, blinking in surprise.
‘It’s my latest health kick,’ I reply, stashing the tin. ‘I only smoke a third of it. Expensive, admittedly – but you can’t put a price on good health, can you?’
Willow rolls her eyes in a way that says she knows I’m stalling, and folds her arms across her chest. Very negative body language, that.
‘Okay, okay …’ I say, realising that she’s tucking her hands away to stop herself throttling me. ‘Well, it was genuinely a long time ago. Eight years ago, in fact, when I was young and carefree and often off my head on various pharmaceutical products. It was when I was living in Barcelona, before I came to London to do my studies and became a productive member of society.’
‘Is he Spanish?’ she asks, not unreasonably.
‘His mother is. His dad’s English. He’s called Seb – Sebastian, which in Spanish is almost the same, but kind of like “say-bass-ti-ann”.’
‘Okay. Say-bass-tian,’ Willow replies, trying it out for size. ‘So I know his name, and how to pronounce it. That’s a start. What about the rest – how did you meet him? Why did you marry him? Why didn’t it work?’
I spot movement from inside the café, and have the feeling that everyone is trying to lip-read our conversation without appearing nosy. The downside