We Are Family

by Nicola Gill

  Jess sighed heavily. A sigh that signalled she found Laura unbearably tedious.

  ‘Mum told me, you know,’ Laura said. ‘That the two of you both agreed I was an idiot when it comes to Jon.’

  Jess looked shocked. ‘No. She said you were an idiot when it came to Jon and I said aren’t we all idiots when it came to love? I was defending you.’

  ‘Well, sort of.’

  ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, Laura, believe what you want to believe.’

  Laura scratched at a patch of eczema on her arm. She’d been carrying around this lump of anger for months now, and it was hard to just suddenly let it go, even if what Jess was saying did put a rather different complexion on things. Mind you, that was if her sister was telling the truth. ‘It seems a kind of funny thing for you to say. I’m mean it’s not as if you’re an idiot when it comes to love. Mr and Mrs Perfect live happily ever after.’

  ‘Oh, shut up, Laura. You know nothing about my life.’

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Jess was putting her coat on when Laura suddenly blurted, ‘I want half of everything.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Jess said, knotting the belt on her trench coat.

  Laura shifted from foot to foot. She hadn’t meant to just come out with it like that. It had sounded much better when she’d rehearsed with Billy’s teddy bear. It was just, she was already so wound up by the row about Jon. Not to mention having eighteen five-year-olds in her house. ‘Mum’s will. I know she’ll have left everything to you and it’s not fair. I want half.’

  Jess took a step backwards, almost stumbling on the huge jumble of assorted footwear behind her. The palpable look of hurt on her face made Laura feel a flash of guilt but she pushed the feeling away. As Jon kept reminding her, she was only asking for what was rightfully hers.

  Jess spoke very quietly. ‘Firstly, we haven’t even looked at Mum’s will yet. Secondly, if she has done anything that isn’t scrupulously fair, then I’m pretty hurt you would just assume I’d be fine with that.’

  ‘What? You’re saying you’d turn the money down?’

  Billy burst into the hallway announcing that his guinea pig had done a wee on Lola’s hand. He was almost hopping up and down with the excitement. He ran back to the scene of the crime, still squealing.

  Jess looked at Laura and shook her head. ‘I would absolutely turn the money down. But thanks for thinking so highly of me.’

  Laura’s head spun. Jess had this way of making her feel guilty all the time. ‘I was just saying—’

  Jess cut her off. ‘I know exactly what you were saying.’ She picked up her designer handbag from where it was sitting next to the radiator, and Laura noted with a slight rush of embarrassment that she’d forgotten to remove the underwear that had been drying on there. All those mums and dads who had walked past and looked at her undies. And they weren’t even her good pants; they were the chewing-gum-coloured period pants with the knackered elastic.

  ‘Lola, Hannah,’ Jess called out, ‘it’s time to go.’

  The girls appeared in the hallway immediately with Billy trailing behind them. ‘Buzz did a wee on you!’ he trilled. ‘Buzz did a wee on you!’

  The girls started putting their shoes on. They really did not behave like normal children. When Laura told Billy it was time to leave anywhere, there was an immediate and full-on tantrum. At the last playdate he went to, he’d hidden upstairs under the bed and Laura had had to drag him out while he kicked her repeatedly in the shins.

  ‘Right,’ Jess said. ‘Well, bye then.’

  She was using her ‘deeply wounded’ tone that made Laura feel like screaming. ‘Thanks for all the help with the party and the clearing up.’

  Jess gave her a chilly smile. ‘That’s what sisters do.’

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Laura had only meant MsRealityCheck to ever have one outing. In fact, in the cold and sober light of day after posting her comment about Jess’ cashmere article, she’d felt deeply ashamed of herself. Whenever she’d done any online journalism, she’d been shocked by just how vicious people could be below the line, and she’d certainly never imagined becoming ‘one of them’. Also, Jess was her sister and, while you don’t have to be bessie mates with your sibling, you don’t post anonymous comments on their site.

  But now Laura was sitting here reading an article that Jess had written on transforming your home on a shoestring budget, and she was just itching to take to the keyboard.

  You don’t need a lot of money to have a stylish home, Jess wrote.

  How would you know?

  It’s easy to find great homeware on the high street.

  But easier still to buy it in designer shops.

  I found some of my very favourite pieces in skips!

  You’ve found one ‘piece’ in a skip ever. And it was a skip in Chelsea! Skips in Chelsea don’t count.

  Laura’s fingers hovered over the keypad. Was she just doing this because Jess had wound her up earlier by being so judgy about Jon? Because even if her sister had been telling the truth about the ‘idiot’ conversation, it was clear she had a pretty low opinion of Jon (and consequently of Laura, for being with him). She’d made Laura furious by acting all mock-hurt about the will too.

  If Laura didn’t leave a comment on this article, someone else was bound to. And they probably wouldn’t say it nearly so politely as Laura would.

  Your home is actually filled with very expensive things, she typed.

  No, that was no good; she was supposed to be a stranger. Judging by the photographs on your site, you’ve got lots of expensive things in your home. Maybe you should come clean and admit it’s a lot easier to have a stylish home when you have money?

  She read it back to herself. Nothing wrong with that. It wasn’t unkind in any way. And it would be good for Jess to be a bit more self-aware about how she came across. By helping her to do that, Laura was actually doing a good deed.

  Even if she did have to admit to taking a bit of pleasure from how much it would annoy Jess.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Laura hadn’t expected MsRealityCheck to get a reply from Jess and she certainly hadn’t expected it less than five minutes later. Typical Jess to be so efficient in responding to her audience (not that she’d replied to the cashmere comment, come to think of it).

  Thanks for getting in touch. I am lucky enough to have some more expensive things in my home, but lots of it was bought on a budget. Always lovely to get feedback though. x

  Laura almost hurled her phone at the wall. True, the things in Jess’ home were bought on a budget – but it was a big budget! And the whole tone of her message was just so passive aggressive, especially the kiss at the end.

  Aaargh! Jess was annoying even when Laura was being someone else.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  It wasn’t like in the movies. You didn’t all trek to a dark-panelled solicitors office and sit around while a man with salt-and-pepper hair looked over the top of his half-moon glasses and slowly read out the will. To my beloved daughter, I leave my emerald earrings and the sum of …

  Instead, Laura and Jess were sitting in Jess’ immaculate white kitchen with its huge floor-to-ceiling glass doors to the garden. Laura would have preferred to have been in a dark-panelled office; it would have been more comforting. And she would have liked to have a salt-and-pepper-haired man there to shout and rage at. Someone who could be made to look at the figures again because no way – no way – could your ‘inheritance’ be £212.42.

  ‘Fuck!’ Laura said. As she’d walked up Jess’ chichi Clapham road this morning – a road where there were never less than three loft conversions being undertaken at any given time – Laura had repeated a mantra to herself about making sure she got half her mother’s assets. Indeed, she’d spent days telling herself exactly that. Jess had acted all outraged at the idea that she’d accept everything, so now would be the time to see if she’d literally put her money where her mouth was. What Laura had never even s
topped to consider was that there would be bugger all to leave.

  The plumber who had been upstairs fixing Jess’ boiler appeared in the kitchen doorway. ‘Do you have a bucket, love?’

  Jess opened one of the glossy white cupboards and asked him if he knew yet what was wrong with the boiler.

  ‘No idea!’ he said, grinning widely.

  Jess pulled out a bucket that looked as if it had never been used before. Laura stared at it. What kind of person owns a pristine bucket?

  The plumber took it from her and disappeared up the stairs, whistling tunelessly.

  ‘Are you sure we’ve worked everything out right?’ Laura said.

  Jess rubbed her temples and nodded. ‘I’ve checked and double-checked. I’ve triple-checked. I just had no idea how much interest Mum had clocked up with that equity release scheme. I don’t think she realized either, to be honest.’ She picked up a J-Cloth and started wiping a practically non-existent smear on the stainless steel fridge. She was always cleaning; it drove Laura potty.

  The plumber reappeared. Did Jess have a screwdriver? Jess pulled one from a drawer and off he went with it, the whistling fading out like the end of a record.

  ‘It was a bit stupid of Mum,’ Laura said.

  Jess shrugged. ‘It’s easy to get talked into these sort of things by some sharp-suited advisor. I guess she started off just needing a bit of cash and she didn’t realize what she was getting into. Then, of course, she got sick.’

  It was typical of Jess to defend Mum and, of course, it made Laura feel instantly grubby and guilty. She pulled at the skin around her nails. She hated herself for being as disappointed as she was. All her life she’d prided herself on not being greedy or materialistic. Also, what kind of person worries about money when they’ve just lost their mother? ‘I guess we won’t be buying that holiday home in the Maldives, then!’

  Jess laughed. She didn’t look as gutted as Laura felt. But then it was easy for her not to be gutted. She lived in this house, she drove a shiny red Mini, she always had new clothes (not that she bought most of those – she was constantly being sent freebies. Like she needed more stuff). Laura thought about Jon and how he was always sneering at Jess and Ben behind their backs; saying they were so spoilt and how they had no idea how ‘real’ people lived. Laura knew what he meant, of course she did, but a part of her wanted to defend them a bit too. Because while she and Jon had spent most of their twenties out of their heads dancing in dark clubs, Jess and Ben had been working their proverbial backsides off. So, yes, sometimes Laura felt like the literal poor relation, but she couldn’t in all honesty say it was completely unfair.

  There was a sound of whistling getting closer and closer again and the plumber reappeared, asking for an old towel. Good luck with that, Laura thought, they’re probably still sitting fluffily in their White Company packaging.

  Jess disappeared in search of the towel and Laura was left alone sitting at the island unit, her feet dangling in a way that always made her feel faintly ridiculous. She took a sip of the disgusting green tea that Jess had made her. She knew it was supposed to be very good for you, but frankly if swallowing it was the price of a few more years on this earth, she just wasn’t sure it was worth it. She realized she’d completely forgotten to make an appointment with the GP, damn it. Still, the incident at the wake was a while ago, so surely if she was going to drop dead it would have happened by now? No need to suddenly start panicking about her own mortality. She washed the green tea down with a big swig of Gaviscon.

  £212.42? She had never thought her mother’s death was going to make her a rich woman – although her family might share the Kardashians’ ability to be embarrassing, their bank balances were wildly different – but she had thought she was going to get enough to buy a new washing machine.

  She couldn’t even begin to imagine what Jon was going to say. He’d already spent most of the money in his head. Last night he was saying he might get a new laptop so he could write his novel anywhere. (Laura had resisted the urge to say that Jon would still have to be disciplined enough to sit at his computer, whether that was at the kitchen table or in a coffee shop.)

  Jess came back rolling her eyes and muttering about how you’d think a plumber might come a bit better prepared and they were paying him enough for goodness’ sake. Still, she supposed she ought to be grateful she’d managed to get anyone out; February was peak season for plumbers. Her neighbours were having a hell of a job trying to find someone to install their new wet room.

  ‘I’d better go,’ Laura said. Today was the last day of her paid compassionate leave from work (compassion, like everything else, had a time limit, especially when there were ‘Shock Confessions’ to be extracted from people) and, although she had planned to have the rest of this week off unpaid, the unveiling of her ‘inheritance’ had made her think that wasn’t such a good idea. She decided she’d call her editor and ask her if she could start back tomorrow – she was pretty sure Dani would be keen as her messages of ‘sympathy’ had still managed to make it clear they were swamped.

  Laura stood up and put on her coat. It would do her good to get back to work. And what had she really been planning to do with the rest of this week anyway? She may have talked about things like getting the flat straight and going to art galleries but she’d probably have ended up just sitting about feeling sorry for herself. Well, that and watching back to back episodes of Queer Eye. She couldn’t imagine Jess ever watching TV in the daytime. And, even when she did watch TV, it was probably things like Newsnight and Question Time.

  Yes, it would be good to get back to work – weird, but good.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Laura would have loved to have had an invisibility cloak to get to her desk unnoticed. It wasn’t so much being back at work she’d been dreading but other people’s reactions to her – the orphan – being there. How was the normal office small talk going to go when ‘how are you’ and ‘what have you been up to’ felt like desperately loaded questions?

  She stood waiting for the lift and trying to breathe. It would be fine. She would soon be talking about story leads and cutting copy. It would be good to get back to normal (whatever the hell normal was).

  There were only twelve people on the Natter team but they shared the floor with several other titles and as Laura walked in, it felt like all eyes were on her. She tried to keep her gaze focussed on Amy, who was giving her an encouraging smile from the sidelines.

  Karen the deputy editor and Natasha the beauty editor came and hugged her. Several others said they were so sorry for her loss. Greta, one of the designers, teared up as she offered to make Laura a coffee. She was going to put oat milk in it because the last thing Laura needed right now was dairy.

  Laura sat at her desk, her legs trembling.

  ‘Laura,’ Dani, her editor, said, sitting down on her desk and tilting her head to the side. ‘I’m so sorry about your mum. Are you okay? We don’t want you to feel you need to come back before you have to.’

  Laura told her she was fine and was looking forward to getting back into a routine.

  ‘Good, good,’ Dani said. She’d see her in the editorial meeting in half an hour.

  Laura’s stomach plummeted. Was she really up to the editorial meeting? To pitching ideas for stories only to have Dani shrug them away. She’d have to be. Anyway, she had some good ideas. She’d spent her commute frantically searching news sites and socials and she was confident Dani was going to love the botched plastic surgery idea.

  She decided she needed a glass of water and headed towards the kitchen. Oli from Design was approaching from the other direction, but he suddenly turned and doubled back towards the break-out area. Maybe he’d forgotten something.

  Back at her desk Laura couldn’t help noticing the atmosphere was very subdued. There was almost always music playing in the design department but there was nothing today. Also, there was no banter flying around about what people had been up to the night before. She hoped
the maudlin mood wasn’t because of her. Come on guys, she wanted to shout. I can hear ‘Dancing in the Moonlight’ without bursting into tears (well, at least not because of grief). A few jokes about how bad your hangovers are won’t tip me over the edge.

  A stream of people came to talk to Laura and she had variations of the same conversation with them all. Yes, cancer. Yes, it always does come as a shock even if you’re expecting it. Yes, it did feel a bit weird to be back at work but it would probably do her good (she also very much needed the money; a small detail the likes of which her sister and some of the other mums from school seemed to overlook when they told her it was ‘too soon’).

  After a while, although Laura very much appreciated people making the effort, she was finding it all pretty exhausting and starting to wish everyone would just ignore her. Good Grief had warned her that going back to work could be very tiring and said she might struggle to complete simple tasks, but she was sure even a fairly tricky journalistic endeavour would be more straightforward than navigating the choppy waters of trying to make her co-workers feel okay about her loss. When Gareth had told James he’d seen his mum last night, he’d glanced over at Laura looking utterly mortified, as if the shocking revelation that other people still had mothers would be too much for her to bear.

  Amy appeared at Laura’s desk and said it was time for editorial. They headed towards the Bunch of Grapes (all the meeting rooms had been named after local pubs, something Laura had always found extremely strange).

  As they were walking towards the meeting room, they went past a clump of people who were laughing, but the second they saw Laura they stopped. It’s okay to laugh around me, Laura wanted to shout. Hell, she wouldn’t have even have minded someone making her laugh.