And it was gutting about Uncle Mike. Even though we’d all known he probably wouldn’t be able to get the time off, Christmas wouldn’t be the same without him. Uncle Mike is one of those people who makes everything brilliant the moment he walks into a room.
The horn beeped long and loud, and I roared, ‘Coming – flipping heck!’ waved goodbye to my poor neglected flat and locked the door on my London life. My heels clattered on the cobbles as I slung my bags into the boot, kissed Tom and Jess, then flung myself into the back seat.
After a heated discussion about which radio station to listen to, and having plumped for Capital, we argued about what time we’d get home and whether or not we were late. Then, once we’d reached the motorway, we argued about Jess’s request to go to the loo. I pointed out that, while she was my younger sister, she was twenty-five now and should have learned to control her bladder for the duration of a two-hour journey. Tom pointed out that it was his car and if she peed on the seat he would personally skin her alive, so we stopped at the first service station we came across.
By this time it was dark, nearing five o’clock, and a light drizzle was falling. Capital had long since gone out of range, and we were listening to a CD of carols Jess had produced ‘to get us in the mood’. Tom and I called her tragic for buying it, then sang along for the rest of the motorway, quarrelled again, then played Shoot Shag Marry, yelling rudely at each other’s choices.
‘OK, OK, OK!’ Jess shouted, as we passed the last exit before ours. ‘Tom, this is one for you. OK. Janet Street-Porter, Esther Rantzen, Lily Savage. Shoot, shag or marry?’
‘Good one, Jess,’ I said. ‘Tom, that’s easy, I know who I’d pick.’
‘But you’re weird,’ said Tom. ‘Right. I’d shoot Esther Rantzen. I’d shag Janet Street-Porter. And I’d marry Lily Savage.’
‘Are you mad?’ I shrieked. ‘You’d marry Lily Savage over Janet Street-Porter? No way! She’d eat you for breakfast. And she’d be off with Dale Winton and Cilla Black all day long. You’d be a grass widow.’
‘Hm,’ said Tom. ‘I’ll take a chance. Better than Street-Porter jawing on all day.’
‘No, I like her. She’s into hill-walking and stuff. You’d be able to have great chats. And are you gay? Lily Savage is a man in drag.’
‘Like you’d be able to tell. And since when have you been into hill-walking?’ Tom sneered.
‘That’s not the point. You’ve picked the wrong one, that’s all.’
‘You’re a fine one to talk,’ Tom snapped.
There was an awkward silence.
‘I meant in the game, not in real life,’ he said, after a moment.
‘I know you did,’ I said.
Jess cleared her throat. ‘Lizzy, your turn. OK, this is good. Right – Jonny Wilkinson, David Beckham, Mike Atherton.’
‘Easy,’ I said. ‘I’d shoot David Beckham, because I think he’s a bit of a wally. I’d shag Mike Atherton, because he seems nice. And I’d definitely marry Jonny Wilkinson – I’d live on a rugby field if he asked me.’
Tom slapped his forehead. ‘God, oh, my God,’ he moaned. ‘Are you two serious? For a start, Mike Atherton? Why include him?’
‘He’s the cricket captain,’ said Jess, looking surprised. ‘You know, for England.’
‘No, he’s not, you mallet! He hasn’t been for ages! Jesus…And, Lizzy, even if he was, are you saying you’d shoot David Beckham and shag Atherton instead? I mean, seriously?’
‘Yes,’ I said firmly, knowing I’d made a bit of an error. I mean, David Beckham may speak like a six-year-old girl but look at him! However, I couldn’t let Tom know I agreed with him. ‘I’m telling the truth,’ I said.
‘You’re lying,’ Tom said crossly.
‘So are you,’ I said automatically.
Tom frowned. ‘What do you mean?’ he said.
‘You always do this! You always pick them to annoy me, then lie about who you like best. You never tell the truth about it.’
‘I didn’t pick them,’ Tom said. ‘It’s only a game.’
‘But I’m taking it seriously and you’re not,’ I said.
‘Well, I don’t know what to say. You’re a terrible picker. And I won’t say what’s on the tip of my tongue because you’ll get upset.’
‘What?’ I asked, then realised he was going to say something mean about David. My David, not David Beckham. My ex-David. ‘Oh, right. Forget it.’
Even though Jess, Tom and I all lived in London, we saw each other less frequently than we would have liked. Jess is doing an art foundation course and living in a crummy flat in South Clapham with three schoolfriends. I love my sister, but she can’t even draw a circle, let alone a 3D object, so I’m not quite sure what she does all day.
Tom is a high-powered lawyer. He works terribly hard and lives in trendy Clerkenwell where, in his infrequent leisure time, he surrounds himself with gossip magazines and indulges his obsession for high-tech gadgets. Aside from my parents and sister, Tom is my favourite person in the world. We speak often, usually when he’s still in the office at eleven p.m. and I’m in a pub, drooling into my phone and slurring, ‘Comehere! Youneedadrink!’ Tom is terribly nice-looking. His hair does lovely floppy things without seeming outrageously Huge Grunt-ish, he’s always tanned, and he’s very smiley, which masks the fact that he is the most sardonic, annoying person in the world.
The only person Tom really loves, I’m sure, is his mother Kate, who lives near my parents. When we were both three his father, Tony, had a heart-attack and died. He was only twenty-eight, the next in age to my dad. Tom can hardly remember him now, although he can picture lying beside him in the long grass of the meadow opposite Keeper House one summer and being tickled so much he was sick. I always think that’s a rather unfortunate last memory to have of your dad, but Tom always says no, because it’s complete; he can remember what he was wearing, how he felt, what his dad looked like, and how hot it was. Tom doesn’t talk much about Tony, in fact none of us does. But our house is full of reminders of him, from a little cricket trophy he won when he was twelve to his huge collection of opera programmes, and I think Tom likes looking at them secretly when he goes there. And being in the house where his father grew up.
As we headed deeper into the countryside, the roads became thinner and darker, the trees arching over us. The car wove its way through the old familiar places, the scenes of our childhood that I always forgot about until I came back. We were getting closer and closer to home.
Past the meadow we used to own when my aunt Kate still rode and kept a pony there, and where as children we used to play Funerals for Pets, a rather ghoulish game involving the re-enactment of the various ceremonies we’d held for recently deceased dogs, cats, hamsters, gerbils and guineapigs. Along by the river that had an island at its centre, then skirting the edge of a small wood, where Tom once got lost, gave up on civilian life and determined to be a child of the forest until our other aunt, Chin, found him there. The road sloped gently down the side of the valley and now I could just make out Wareham village, a mile away – it was the same view as the one from my bedroom. Now we were driving past the house where sweet Mrs Favell lived: she had made a pet of me when I was small and rewarded me with old copies of the Radio Times, a glamorous luxury to Jess and me because it was banned in our house as a waste of money. Last time I was home I found an old copy and was disappointed to see that its most exciting feature was on the new series of Ever Decreasing Circles.
We passed the track that led down to the ivy-covered tunnel of the long-neglected railway, along which the steam trains had ferried