‘So? Well? Are you going to tell us? For God’s sake, please tell me it’s not more disgusting wine?’ Dad said.
‘It’s not!’ Mum said.
We sat in confused silence for a moment until Dad gave her a wide-eyed look.
‘So? For the love of God, what?’
‘A holiday!’ Mum said. ‘We’ve won a holiday.’
‘Have we? How marvellous!’
‘The first prize was a trip to see Santa in Finland with up to four children. Thank God we didn’t win that. Second prize was probably a trip to see Santa in Finland with eight children. Now I’ll go and find my diary.’
I think India and I drifted off at this point; our parents went on holiday so frequently that it was no longer of any interest to us. We had even been named for holidays they had particularly enjoyed in their youth: Alexandria and India. They were due to take a month-long trip to Australia soon to visit relatives who lived on the east coast in a place that sounded like Boomerang. Mum had shown us pictures of her cousin and his family, red-faced and cheerful, having a barbeque on the beach and probably in imminent danger of skin cancer.
India came out of the kitchen with a supermarket carrier bag filled with swag. Bloody hell, the place would be stripped bare by the time they left! She did this every time.
‘Hey you, that’s a 10p Bag for Life, I’ll have you know,’ Dad said, outraged, not apparently noticing the bacon, tins of baked beans and the dozen eggs.
Mum came back, riffling through the pages of her diary and frowning.
‘I thought so,’ she said. ‘Houston, we have a problem.’
‘What?’
‘Well, we can’t go. We’ll be in Australia.’
‘When we’re married, Jerry and I are going to go to Australia,’ India said, never one to miss an opportunity. ‘We might go for our first anniversary.’
Dad ignored her. ‘Well, can’t we swap the dates of the prize holiday?’
‘No, it’s September 23rd or not at all. Non-transferable, that’s what it says.’
‘Well, how unreasonable – that’s no time at all. Surely we could go a week or so later?’
Mum looked at him over the top of her glasses. ‘I know you’re a persuasive character, Simon, but I don’t think you could persuade the ship to wait for us.’
His face fell. ‘Ship? Oh, don’t tell me I’m going to miss out on a cruise!’
Dad loved cruising even more than Mum did. They’d been on over thirty.
By now India had collected up an unopened pack of paper napkins, some dishwasher tablets and a new bottle of loo cleaner. If this carried on they’d have to borrow Dad’s trailer so they could get all the stuff back to their flat. And it wasn’t as though they didn’t already have their own Toilet Duck. It was just an ingrained habit with her.
Mum and Dad huffed and argued over the prize holiday dates, and Dad was seriously trying to work out if it would be possible to catch up with the ship halfway through their Australia trip until Mum described the sort of jet lag and expense he would be incurring and he thought again.
I went upstairs to see if there was any shampoo I could take down the garden to my place before India nabbed it. I justified this by telling myself I’d been too busy with showings and keeping the family business in the black to make it to the shops. I could hear my parents still rabbiting on, trying to work out a way for them to take two holidays at the same time, a logistical challenge unheard of even for them. I came back down with some of my mother’s overpriced conditioner and a couple of loo rolls. Through the open front door I could see India loading up the boot of Jerry’s car with some barbeque charcoal and a box of firelighters. They have a barbeque on their cool roof terrace. Of course they do.
In the dining room Mum was pushing down the cafetière plunger and looking pensive.
‘I suppose someone could go,’ she said.
‘What? You mean I go to Australia and you go on the cruise?’ Dad said. ‘Well, it’s a thought.’
‘No, you twit, I mean if we can’t go …’ She paused and raised her eyebrows meaningfully.
‘Oh, I see. Well, yes, I suppose so. We might be able to keep some food in the house for longer than a week too.’
‘Simon, come into the garden for a moment,’ she said. ‘Bring your coffee.’
I had another chocolate and looked at my watch; it was half past four and Jerry and India would be leaving soon, God willing. I watched my sister and her fiancé trying to guess the flavours of the chocolates with their eyes closed and making the other one promise not to trick them with the coffee one.
Jerry would drive them home in his groovy car, to their hip, blonde-wood apartment, and unload their ill-gotten gains before India went to have a long soak in the bath, surrounded by Diptyque candles, and he spent the evening playing on his Xbox. You wouldn’t think a hotshot barrister would waste his time doing that, would you? Not that Jerry looked like a hotshot barrister; he was tall, thin and pale, with leather elbow patches on his tweed jacket. I wondered what India could possibly see in him at first, but I had to admit he was extremely funny, very successful, and besotted with her in a way that resulted in extravagant presents and compliments. Who wouldn’t like that?
When they got engaged last year they’d started out wanting a small, cute wedding with a few friends and family. Now it had grown into something Prince Harry might have envied, in a country house hotel with a complete year’s flower produce from The Netherlands, gauze bags of almonds and embossed scrolls. God knew what it was costing.
I hadn’t a clue what I was going to do for the hen weekend. India wouldn’t co-operate and I was sick of thinking about it. I was a bit off that sort of thing at the moment anyway, thanks to Ryan. Bouquets for the mothers, the honeymoon wardrobe, four or five tiers for the cake? Not to mention the three flower girls I was supposed to keep under control while necking back as much champagne as possible. And before you ask, no, I wasn’t planning to cop off with the best man. The best man was Jerry’s cousin Mark, who was delightful, gay, and would probably have done a better job of styling the event than any wedding planner ever could.
‘So that’s settled then,’ Mum said.
We all looked up as they came back in from the garden and India took the opportunity to wedge a chocolate into Jerry’s mouth. He spluttered in disgust and spat it into a paper napkin with a plaintive cry of ‘Bunny, you promised!’
Bunny?
‘What’s settled?’
Mum sat down and tapped on her coffee cup with a spoon.
‘Dad and I have come up with a solution to this holiday problem. We’re going to let you go instead.’
Mum sat back beaming, waiting for our reaction.
‘Jerry and me? To Australia?’ India said, her eyes widening with excitement.
Over my dead body.
‘No, the other one,’ Dad said.
‘Well, I’m not going to Australia with Jerry,’ I said.
Mum tutted. ‘You girls can be dense sometimes. You and India can go on the cruise.’
I had a moment’s wild excitement at the prospect of a break from what I had been doing for the last few months: sulking in the granny annexe at the end of my parents’ garden after that nightmare weekend when my boyfriend, Ryan, and I had broken up and my flatmate, Karen, decided it was the perfect time to go off and find herself in Sri Lanka.
But then work had been so busy recently