Free Unlike a Virgin by Lucy-Anne Holmes Page A

roll my eyes. What is it about this weekend and people conspiring to make me sing? I’ve been quite happily
not
singing for years.
    ‘Why?’
    ‘He thinks you’re too talented.’
    ‘Oh, does he?’
    ‘And so do I.’
    ‘Come again?’
    ‘I agree with him.’
    ‘Oh, of course you do.’
    ‘Don’t be facetious.’
    ‘When did he say this?’
    ‘This morning.’
    ‘Mum …’
    ‘Grace …’
    ‘Dad’s dead,’ I say softly, and I walk towards her and try to put my arms around her, but she’s rigid and I feel like a cow.
    ‘I did get the letter from the cemetery.’ My mum says the word cemetery so quietly that it’s barely audible. It’s the same way she says all words that are in any way associated with Dad’s death.
    ‘Oh! Brilliant. Where is it?’
    ‘I replied.’
    ‘Oh right—’ I start, but something in the way she looks at me makes me stop. ‘What did you say to them?’
    She doesn’t reply; she just walks calmly over to the knifeblock and pulls out a carving knife. She’s pointing it at me when she speaks. Not deliberately, as though she’s about to stab me, but it’s still pretty macabre.
    ‘Mum, what did you say to them?’
    ‘I told them they could have the land,’ she says, and she starts to carve the beef.
    And so another terrible meal at my mother’s has begun.

 
    I drop Danny off outside the pub. The karaoke has started and I can hear two girls murdering Girls Aloud. Not literally. That would be disturbing. I really like Girls Aloud. I don’t listen to the radio, so I know absolutely nothing about pop music, but Wendy always buys me Girls Aloud CDs because they remind her of the girl band we formed at school with another girl. We were called Destiny’s Baby Sister. I know – dreadful. But we were fourteen, and we were definitely better than these girls in the Carbuncle tonight.
    ‘So what are you going to do?’ Danny says. I’ve let him out my side, and now that I’m back in the car, he’s crouching down beside my window.
    ‘About what?’
    ‘About your dad’s grave.’
    I close my eyes and sigh.
    ‘Dunno.’
    ‘You look shattered.’
    ‘Cheers, smoothy. You won’t be getting no action from me. Oh, babe, I’ve got to go. The pharmacy shuts at ten and I’ll just about make it.’
    We have a quick kiss and then I drive off.
    Sometimes I wish I had a brother or sister. Actually, that’s a complete falsehood: I
always
wish I had a brother or sister. I’ve been playing my own fantasy sibling game for years. I used to fantasise about having a younger brother called Charlie or Rufus, or something quirky like Felix. He would be two years younger than me and would completely adore me, obviously, because I was his big sister, and I would have trained him from an early age to know that I was always right about everything. I would teach him about girls and help him shop for clothes, and spoil him rotten at Christmas. I would introduce him to everyone as my ‘baby brother’ and that would make him blush a bit because he’s quite shy. Mum would adore him as well, which would be good because then we’d have something in common. I’m sure Mum wouldn’t be nearly so mental if I had a baby brother.
    However, I’m split fifty-fifty between Felix Flowers, the little cutie, or a nice, big, sensible sister who had an amazing ability to sort everything out. Wendy’s got the perfect older sister. Her name’s Lucy and she’s thirty-three, married with two children and she does things for Wendy like email her to remind her of family members’ birthdays. She even offers suggestions of what presents to get them. I’ve modelled my fantasy older sister on her. She’s called Alice and would be a maternity nurse. Alice is extremely capable. She would have noticed that Mum had stopped leaving the house way before I did and she would know how to make Mum happy. Shewould have stopped Mum spending thousands on her credit card, and best of all she would have twin girls, called