Free It Would Be Wrong to Steal My Sister's Boyfriend by Sophie Ranald Page A

pudding and glasses of port. I poured myself a brandy and sat down and tried to chat to Gill, who asked me about my plans for New Year’s Eve, presumably thinking it was a safe subject.
    “Rose and I are having a party at our flat,” I said, and I saw Gill’s lips tighten at the mention of her name.
    “I’m really sorry about what she said back there,” I said. “She’s had a lot to drink and I suppose with it being Christmas it brings back memories of Mum and the feelings are a bit raw. I’m sure she’ll be down soon and feeling absolutely mortified.”
    Gill sort of sniffed, and I realised that Serena would have confided in her over the years about all the little examples of Rose being ‘difficult’ – the loads of clothes put in thewashing machine with all Serena’s left behind in the laundry basket; the lovingly cooked meals loaded with chilli, which Serena can’t eat; the china figurine of a cat that had been a wedding present to Dad and Serena, which Rose accidentally smashed. Admittedly it was a bit hideous, but still.
    Then Dad came downstairs looking no happier, and took me aside and said, “I’m afraid Rose has decided to go back to London, Ellie.”
    “But how can she?” I asked stupidly. “There aren’t any trains until tomorrow.”
    “She’s rung a boyfriend. Some bloke called Oliver. He’s on his way to fetch her now.”
    I couldn’t help feeling a lurch of excitement at the prospect of seeing him.

CHAPTER SIX
    When I arrived home three days later, Rose was out. The flat had that slightly stuffy, dusty smell places get when they’ve been empty for a few days, and the beautifully-decorated Christmas tree was shedding its needles on to the parquet floor. I dumped the huge carrier bag of Christmas presents for Rose, which she hadn’t bothered to take with her, in the hall and headed up to my room, put my bag on the floor and then sat down on the bed, looking down at my hands and feeling sad, anticlimactic and generally at a loose end.
    We’d tried to maintain the pretence of a normal Christmas after Rose left with Oliver, who had introduced himself politely to all the family but refused anything to eat ordrink, clearly finding the situation as cringily awkward as the rest of us. He barely spoke to me, simply perched on the edge of a chair and made desultory conversation while we all waited for Rose to reappear, and when she did she said, “Shall we go, Ollie? Goodbye everyone, enjoy the rest of the day. Ellie, I’ll text you.” Then she and Oliver had walked out to his car (a low-slung sporty thing I think may have been a Jaguar) and they drove away, leaving silence and a feeling of emptiness behind them. Frankly it was all just shit and although I tried not to show it I felt so angry with Rose and embarrassed for her and myself, as if I were somehow to blame. And Oliver, of course, remained as remote and untouchable as ever.
    Part of me had really wanted to leave myself, head back home and go out with my friends or to work or somewhere – anywhere – to escape the bad atmosphere. But the office was closed until the second of January, I didn’t want to go back to the flat in case Rose was there with Oliver, there was no room for me in Claire and Pers’s little matchbox and besides I didn’t want Dad and Serena to feel like they’d been deserted by another daughter. So I stuck it out for three more nights, chatting to them about the babies and making pots of tea and being dutiful, and instead of enjoying having them to myself, by the end of it I was really relieved to go. But now that I was home, I couldn’t seem to decide what to do with myself. If we were going to go ahead with Rose’s ambitious New Year’s Eve party plans, we’d have to have a conversation at some stage, but she hadn’t been in touch with me and I was buggered if I was going to be the one to give in and call her first.
    After a while I got up, unpacked, found homes for all my Christmas presents, swept up