Chapter 5
Aunt Annie waved as she parked her duck-egg Fiat 500, reversing repeatedly in and out, edging closer to the pavement, at increments of what seemed like a millimetre at a time. Finally, Annie turned off the engine before exiting the micro-car like a model from the 1950s. Annie looked radiant, her gym leggings matching the colour of her car and her nail varnish, and she smelled of Britney Spears’ Fantasy – her signature fragrance.
‘I’ve just booked a girls’ holiday to Ibiza,’ enthused Annie. ‘Have to celebrate being twenty-one again somehow!’ Annie looked a full decade younger than her older sister, Catherine, Kitty’s mother, even though there were only two years between them.
Annie always brought life and soul to family occasions, always insisting on a glass of something sparkling. Being unencumbered by husbands, children or even pets, she was a woman who seemed not to have a care in the world. Her job as a receptionist at the local Fiat showroom seemed to be a mere extension of her social life. Any time Kitty called in, Annie would be in deep conversation, emitting breathless utterances and gasps at the news being shared. She never asked how Kitty’s life was going, and didn’t seem interested in much beyond her own extra-fun, super-exuberant life. That was just the way she was. Not everyone could be bothered hearing how you were, not when there was gossip to impart, and today it particularly suited Kitty because she wasn’t quite ready to try to explain away Dave’s sabbatical.
Annie poked her arm into Kitty’s and marched her through the small wrought-iron gate, up the path, to the front door. ‘I’ll leave the car here,’ she said to Kitty. ‘Pick it up in the morning. Need to celebrate my big day!’ She rang the doorbell. ‘What do you think of my brows?’ She twisted her face so Kitty could get a good look. ‘Hollywood Mega Brows… meant to define the face. Enhance my cheekbones and disguise the droopy lids. Magda in the salon says it makes me look as if I’m in my forties. What do you think?’
Kitty was about to agree when the door was answered by her mother.
‘Happy birthday to me!’ exclaimed Annie, giddily, making Catherine laugh, as she always did.
The two sisters were so different: Catherine who worked in a high-powered career, a single mother, who never went away with friends for alcohol-fuelled weekends; and Annie who lived in the here and now, whose only real concern was with having fun. Sometimes Kitty looked at her mother, who had risen at 5.30a.m. every morning, gone to the office, returned at 6.30p.m. to cook dinner and later resumed her work at the kitchen table, and wondered if she would have been happier if she too had disappeared sporadically to the Balearics.
For the last three decades, Catherine had worked for a bathroom warehouse firm, rising to the heights of deputy chairperson and now, with the retirement of the very head of the company, she had been given every reason to believe that she was next in line to take over. Finally, she would receive the recognition she deserved – a reward for her excellence and competence. Kitty was planning a little gathering when Catherine’s promotion was official, which should be imminent.
Catherine looked at Annie and Kitty in turn. ‘You look tired,’ she said to her daughter. ‘Have you been sleeping?’
‘I’m fine,’ insisted Kitty, smiling at Catherine, but she was thinking about what she could or would say to Dave. At work, she always chanced upon the right word, but she couldn’t find them for Dave. What could she say to make him come back and give her another chance? How could she prove that she wasn’t pressurising without pressurising him? It was impossible. Life without Dave seemed wrong somehow, they had been together so long that the thought of being on her own was terrifying.
Her only home comfort was lovely Romeo and she’d left him that morning with his head on his pink velvet pillow, blanket tucked around his little body, ear bandaged like Van Gogh and a look on his face as though to say, ‘Sorry for all this trouble.’ She’d kissed him goodbye, thinking that she would be far more lost if Romeo left her than if Dave did. And then she’d stopped, wondering if that was how she really felt. It was just, she reasoned, Romeo was so easy to love, and the fact that Romeo loved her back – which with cats was never a guarantee – made it even better.
‘I’m fine,’ Kitty now insisted to her mother, dismissing all those troublesome thoughts of Dave and Romeo. ‘Anyway… hadn’t we better get this party started?’
‘Woohoo!’ Annie pulled on an imaginary train horn.
They sat at the table in the small kitchen and sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to Annie and then clinked their glasses of champagne.
‘So, you’re nearly catching up with me,’ said Catherine. ‘Welcome to your seventh decade.’
‘Seventh?’ Annie looked puzzled. ‘Don’t you mean sixth? Anyway, I have the teeth of a much younger woman. Honestly, going to Budapest for my veneers was probably the best money I ever spent.’ She glinted her teeth at Catherine. ‘Well, your money. Which I will pay back, just as soon as I can.’
‘No need…’ Catherine brushed it away.
Annie began to tell them about her preparations for Ibiza. ‘So, spray tan, extra dark. Three kaftans, of varying length. Full body hair removal.’
‘Full body?’ said Catherine, raising one eyebrow.
Annie nodded. ‘Of course. And, well, I was thinking of getting another tattoo while I was there. Something which encapsulates my life’s journey so far…’ She took another sip of her champagne. ‘Something like… Life is a Rollercoaster…’ She stopped. ‘Or maybe your names? Catherine and Kitty…’
Catherine laughed. ‘Please do not,’ she said. ‘Have some silly phrase drawn on, but our names would be just awful.’
For a moment, Annie looked hurt. ‘But you’re my family…’
‘Yes, of course we are… but we don’t need to be tattooed on your leg.’
‘It was going to be my forearm.’ Annie was beginning to smile as well.
‘What about some birthday cake?’ said Catherine. ‘That might take your mind off tattoos.’ She picked up the cake knife and began slicing it into wedges.
‘Does it have many carbs?’ asked Annie, eyeing the chocolate icing. ‘Because I’m currently low-carbing… and before you two say anything, fizz doesn’t count.’
‘I’ll have a slice.’ Kitty hadn’t been saying very much, just trying to smile along and act as though everything was entirely normal. One thing she couldn’t do was go low-carb. Sugar was going to be the one thing which might get her through the next few weeks – surely it couldn’t be longer? – before Dave came home. She could feel a slight panic beginning to rise, but she smiled at her mother as she took the plate with a slice of the chocolate ganache.
‘You know,’ said Annie, ‘I think I will high-carb today, as it’s my big day. I’ll have that one with the icing. That big piece there.’
Catherine laughed again, but Kitty found herself thinking that Annie never held parties for Catherine, or ever remembered her birthday. And as she never had any spare money, there were never Christmas presents either, but Catherine never seemed to mind, happy to just have her younger sister around.
‘So,’ Kitty said, ‘you should get the news this week? Your promotion!’
Catherine nodded. ‘I think there’s going to be an announcement on Wednesday. Mr O’Neill has booked Thursday and Friday off, so Wednesday will be his last day.’
‘My sister. The chairperson,’ said Annie. ‘Or are you CEO? Chief anyway. Who’d have thought it? You were always the chief of our family. Pick up my pieces, sort out my bits, the yin to my yang, the champagne flute to my fizz. I don’t know what I would do without you.’ She raised her glass.
‘Thank you, Annie,’ said Catherine. ‘Now, more cake? And you can take some home with you if you’re high-carbing.’
‘I will be just for today,’ said Annie. ‘And then I am back in golden goddess mode. Just as soon as Magda aims her tan gun at me and fires.’
And Catherine laughed again, as though Annie was a small child to be indulged.