Page 14 of Annabel and Her Sisters

‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘I do. But you also know– or you should– that she needs them. That they are her support system.’

‘A couple would serve the same purpose,’ Derek said briskly as he got in the car. I glanced back fearfully. The window to the sitting room was open and Derek had a voice like a master of ceremonies.

‘No,’ Ginnie said decisively. ‘All dogs stay, and that’s the end of it.’

I knew my sister disagreed slightly, but I loved her for saying this.

I shot her a grateful glance. Two against one had always helped, especially when we were younger.

When Dad had been alive and we’d been logging in the woods, Ginnie and I had been a bit hopeless– done the bare minimum then sat on the ground and chatted whilst Clarissa put whole trees on her back.

I’d been dangerous with even with the tiniest hacksaw, and Ginnie had shrieked at the creepy crawlies, so we’d been delegated to gathering kindling, which we also shirked. So we sat and bitched about our sister.

‘Show-off,’ Ginnie would mutter as we watched her expertly chainsaw great swirling rounds from felled trunks before axing them on a stump into quarters.

‘Anal,’ I’d whisper as, back home, she’d methodically stack them in the woodshed like some Swiss chalet owner.

It was actually a work of art in its way and I sometimes wondered guiltily if Ginnie and I had driven her to be like this, so wildly did our paths diverge: when she’d laughed at our French skipping and endless dolls’ tea parties, we’d perhaps been even more defiantly feminine, tried to do something with her hair, plait it, which she’d resist. Could it be that the three of us had driven each other to take up extreme positions? Egged each other on?

At Pony Club camp the boys had lined up outside our horse trailer for blow jobs.

Ginnie and I had been mortified, which Clarissa loved.

So she did it even more. And the rest. It was almost as if our horror motivated her.

No, I thought now, as I waved her away in the drive.

It wasn’t our fault she’d chopped her finger off once and had to have it grafted back on in hospital.

Or that she’d had an abortion at sixteen.

She had to take some personal responsibility for the way she was.

No one did these days, of course. The fault always lay with upbringing, other people.

Nurture, not nature. But surely a combination was possible?

And I knew, too, that Ginnie wanted Clarissa out of the house when Lara was around.

Whilst my mother gently sympathized, Clarissa gleefully encouraged, giving her niece shooting lessons for her birthday, which Lara didn’t want.

That wasn’t why she wanted to join the army.

To kill people. As in most things, Clarissa missed the point.

Ginnie and I wandered back inside, passing two Father Christmases on the way.

‘Any idea where the Grotto is?’ one asked anxiously. ‘We’re a bit late.’

‘In the timber barn.’ Ginnie pointed. ‘Go through the wild flower meadow, over the cattle grid and you’ll see it.’

‘Thanks.’ They hurried off.

‘No weddings?’ I asked.

‘No, not this weekend, so we’ve got this lot, and actually, we might be able to cut down on those now; give us a few weekends back.’

‘You mean because of the cash injection.’

‘Well, yes.’ She hesitated. ‘You wait, though, Annabel, till it’s your turn. Seven dogs is a–’

‘I KNOW!’ I roared, and I don’t often. Ginnie looked stunned. ‘But it’s the–’

‘Yes, yes, I know, it’s the deal,’ she agreed. ‘Sorry.’

‘Why were you shouting, darling?’ My mother looked worried as we rejoined her in the sitting room. Hugo had gone back to work.

‘Oh, you know, Ginnie banging on about my single status again,’ I lied.

I can, blithely. But nothing terrible. It’s not as if I’d lie about a crime I’d committed, and I get irritated when people say vitriolically ‘he/she lied!’ as if it’s the worst offence imaginable.

In my book there are far worse. Cruelty.

Bad manners. Disloyalty. Pig-headedness.

No one in mind, obviously. Of course I love my older sister. For Mum. For Dad.

Mum smiled. ‘I’ve told Ginnie you’re happy as you are.’

See? A bit of a lie going on there, too. Who was it said only the other day that it was about time? But my mother was sensitive. Kind. This sort of thing just oiled the wheels.

‘Anyway, since I’m here, shall we see about settling the dogs into their new home?’ I ventured.

‘Yes, let’s,’ said Ginnie quickly. ‘They’re in the kitchen, and in fact I think Hugo’s already gone to sort it out.’

We trooped outside, the dogs surrounding my mother’s tall, erect figure, I was pleased to see, no stoop at all.

In the distance we saw Hugo banging a post in with some mechanical fencing device, and then another figure, an elf, in red and green, talking to a lady with no clothes on, or not many. Oh God. Aunt Joan. We hastened up.

‘Um, I found this lady in the woods,’ the elf explained, bell tinkling on his hat. ‘And she seemed a bit confused.’ He looked startled.

‘Ah yes, thank you,’ began Ginnie. ‘It’s our aunt, she–’

‘I’m not confused, young man, it’s you who are deluded.

’ Aunt Joan was in a huge bra– a tremendous feat of engineering– and a grubby white slip: her paints and collapsible easel were under her arm.

‘I told you it was June, and you and your friends insist it’s Christmas!

’ She turned to us, sotto voce. ‘He’s clearly not well.

I’ve called social services. On my new mobile.

’ She brandished it proudly, reaching up into her knicker elastic for it.

‘No, Joan, it’s a film crew, I keep telling you,’ explained my mother, exasperated. ‘Why don’t you listen?’

It was a relief to hear my mother return to her more usual role of formidable younger sister. ‘And do put a dress on, please. How many times?’

‘Why? They walk around in nothing.’ My aunt pointed to a tanned girl in tiny shorts and a crop top. She had a clipboard and earphones and was clearly overseeing operations.

‘She’s the director,’ Ginnie explained.

‘And she’s a lot younger,’ my mother told her sternly. ‘It’s unseemly, Joan, at your age.’

‘Balls– at my age you can do what you like. I’m not sure I like it here, it’s too mad. I’ve just seen Father Christmas with an axe through his head. Blood everywhere. Now that’s unseemly. Sorted the dogs out, Lea?’

‘Yes, thank you.’

‘In that case I might go home tomorrow.’ She turned defiantly to Ginnie.

‘Oh, no problem!’ said Hugo and Ginnie in unison, a trifle too emphatically. Hugo even paused in his fence-banging, his face suffused with delight.

‘On the other hand, I might not,’ declared Joan, who was no fool. ‘Anyway, social services tell me they can’t section you, young man, unless you’re a danger to yourself or others. Are you?’

The elf opened and shut his mouth, bewildered.

‘Elf three, over here now , please!’ yelled the girl with the clipboard. ‘We’re shooting the sleigh ride scene and you’re going to be shot, so you need to fall off and die.’

‘So clearly I am in danger,’ the elf muttered as he fled. ‘They told me elf two was doing that. Never be an extra,’ was his parting shot. ‘You always end up dead.’

‘So it’s a film,’ Joan mused as she followed us to the dog pen, the Fluz firmly on a lead. ‘Ginnie, you might have said.’

‘I did, Joan, when you came in for coffee,’ Ginnie told her wearily as Joan paused to take her teeth out. She offered them to the Fluz, who licked them eagerly. Then she popped them back in. Ginnie and I watched in horror, but Mum hadn’t seen.

‘Well, I had my mind on other things, wondering if this whole dotty arrangement might be a bad idea, and that was before the sheep episode. But a film crew, eh?’ Joan turned to watch the action in the distance.

Her eyes were narrowed. ‘I wonder if I can be of any help? I was a continuity girl back in the day. Worked for the BBC. Even worked with David Niven. I say, young lady!’ She raised her voice and marched off.

Oh yes, still marching, at eighty-eight.

My mother went into the pen. At the far end was a cool stable and adjacent trees afforded the paddock shade, although it was a small one, Lara was telling her, so the foals didn’t get too excited and charge around too much.

For the dogs, though, it was huge and they ran around enthusiastically, sniffing and wagging, the Fluz thrilled to be off the leash.

‘But Joan is extraordinary,’ Ginnie told me quietly as we watched the startled director remove her headphones to listen. ‘You must admit. And she has a home, for God’s sake. What’s she doing here?’

‘No idea,’ I muttered. ‘And I’m pretty sure Mum doesn’t either.’

My mother had one eye on her older sister, who had marched off to speak to someone else, no doubt the continuity girl– a boy, in this instance– and explain how she might be able to offer her invaluable assistance. Even Mum shook her head and rolled her eyes to the heavens.