Page 19 of Did My Love Life Shrink in the Wash?
‘Well, I look forward to seeing you inVogue, little Joe,’ she says in a sing-song voice.
She struts up and down the kitchen with him in her arms, throwing her best Blue Steel expression and arching her hips when she gets to the end of the room. Joe does not look convinced but Lucy gets her phone out for some selfies.
‘Didn’t you model once, Luce?’ Meg asks her.
Lucy is our entertainer sister who’s done every job going alongside studying. She went to dance school, spent six months on a cruise ship, has been an extra and once did a two-month stint inLes Misérablesbut currently earns her bread and butter from performing at children’s parties which means she owns a lot of wigs and always has glitter in her bra.
‘It was hardly modelling. It was promo work for an Audi garage. I had to do the splits on a car bonnet to get the punters in.’
‘Lovely,’ says Emma.
‘Degrading. I was in my actual pants on the A316. Though that is how I met Gordon, the one with the big—’
‘You are holding my infant son,’ I say.
‘He can’t process things. He’s only interested in milk. If I tell you’ – she glances around for nieces then proceeds in her best Disney fairy-tale voice – ‘that I had sex for three months with a man called Gordon who had a knob as thick as a beer can then he will have no idea what that means.’
‘LUCY!’ screams Emma.
I keep Lucy close because as much as I love the older two sisters, the youngest has been good entertainment in these early days of motherhood. She occasionally comes to hang out or we meet here and dine off Emma’s better internet speed and satellite TV packages. I can also live vicariously through her tales of going to gigs and clubs and hear how she’s not slept and got her boobs out for reasons of fun and frivolity.
‘So, plans for the next few days?’ I ask Meg.
‘Oh, nothing much. Eat the contents of Ems’ fridge. I’ll have to hang out with Mum and Dad, museums and shite for the kids.’
‘And no Danny?’ I ask, referring to her husband.
‘No, he’s working and doing boring Lakeland stuff. He’s really got quite dull in his old age. It’s all walking sticks and mint cake. He’s bought a flat cap, you know?’
Lucy interrupts. ‘Flat caps are cool.’
‘He doesn’t do it as a style statement, he looks like the old farmer offBabe. Also, big news – his brother is coming home soon.’
‘Stuart?’ I ask.
Lucy cackles unattractively. Stuart was the brother I once had a drunken dry hump with, though Lucy also had her way with him, years later, at Meg’s wedding. His name is now used to taunt and ridicule me. I’ve never told anyone this but I actually threw up on his knob the evening we met.
‘Give him our best, won’t you?’ Lucy says, putting an arm around me. I hate them all. Meg reaches over to take her nephew from her, her face lighting up to play aunty.
‘God, he’s a gem. Is he sleeping much?’ asks Meg.
‘I have no idea. He just doesn’t keep to normal hours.’
‘They do that. You look rough.’
‘Meg, seriously?’ Emma signals from across the kitchen.
‘I’ve looked rough for years,’ Meg replies. ‘It’s what kids do, they drain all the good humour and youth out of you.’
‘I HEARD THAT!’ screams her other daughter, Eve, as she enters the room, and bundles herself into her mother’s lap for a giggle.
‘We made Mummy fun. She was boring before she met us,’ Eve says.
Meg shakes her head and looks into the distance, as if trying to wind her memory back that far. She wasn’t boring. But love, and her family, mellowed her out. It changed something in her for the good. Eve disappears and I hear the clatter of all my nieces’ footsteps on the stairs again.
‘And is it normal for Joe’s brain to be throbbing?’ I ask.
Emma rolls her eyes at me. ‘Explain throbbing.’
