This Holey Life (2 page)

It was during the Eurovision song contest of 1978 that I first realised something fundamental about my big brother, Martin. Well, two things actually:

1. He was always going to be better than me. He was always going to be quicker, stronger, smarter, taller, richer, cleverer, smugger, more manipulative, more cunning, more self-assured.

2. I didn’t really like him.

We’d all picked our country, the way we did every Eurovision, a family tradition. Mum went for Greece because she liked the costumes and had a thing for Demis Roussos
like Alison Steadman in
Abigail’s Party
. Dad, ever the clown, took Norway. Martin and I had our usual tussle, which, of course, he won. He got the United Kingdom. He got the
favourites, Lynsey de Paul and Mike Moran with the classic ‘Rock Bottom.’ And me? I got a French woman singing in French about a bird and a child.

But I was to have the last laugh that night. By some blip in history, ‘Rock Bottom’ was beaten into second place by the French woman, Marie Myriam. I could’ve kissed her. In
fact, I do seem to remember rushing up to the telly and pressing my lips against the screen.

‘Don’t do that, Vicky-Love,’ said Mum. ‘You’ll go blind.’ Then she left the room to go and put the kettle on. She was always leaving the room to go and put
the kettle on.

If I had been struck blind, I wouldn’t have seen the look Martin gave me. A death threat look. Victory had been cruelly snatched from his hands by his puny little sister with the
buck-teeth and frizzy hair.

But ‘L’Oiseau et l’Enfant’ was my one and only taste of glory
vis à vis mon frère
. And in some weird way that evening, my minor win somehow made me
realise I was destined to forever be the underdog. The little sister. That was the role I would have to play until the end of time.

We grew up and this was confirmed. Martin was still quicker, stronger, smarter. He was more successful, too, in every way imaginable. A better job (his university lecturer to my primary school
teacher), a better house (his semi to my terrace) in a better area (his Dulwich to my Penge). He married up a class to a beautiful woman (I married Steve), and together they spawned the
ecologically correct number of children (his Jeremy to my Rachel, Olivia and Imogen). Martin had it all – career, wife, house, location, son – but there was only one thing he had that I
coveted. His boy. Because once I had a boy too.

Then one Boxing Day, thirty years after that Eurovision, Martin turned up on my doorstep with only a duffle bag, a beard, ten-year-old Jeremy and a three-quarter-size cello.

‘Hi Vicky-Love,’ he said, his mock-Mum voice. ‘We’ve come to stay.’ And without waiting to be invited, he ushered in Jeremy who proceeded to dump his cello in the
hall, ensconce himself on the sofa, and steal the television remote from a gob-smacked Rachel.

That was the point at which I should’ve put my foot down. Stamped it hard. Stopped the past repeating itself. But what did I do? I did what Mum used to do in times of crisis. I left the
room and went to put the kettle on.

Chapter One:
Wednesday December 26th

‘So, are you going to tell me what this is all about?’ I hand my brother his tea, sit myself down in the armchair and take a good look at him.

He has already made himself at home on the sofa, my new leather sofa (usurping Jeremy who has commandeered Rachel to find him turkey sandwiches). He is red-faced above his revolting beard,
wheezy from forty a day, and his legs are splayed to leave little to the imagination. I want to throw satsumas at him.

Martin takes a tentative sip and winces. How dare he? There’s nothing wrong with my tea. I make good tea. I am a curate’s wife. It’s in my job description. The one that’s
not actually written down anywhere but that I am expected to know by heart. And soul. ‘Don’t you have any sugar?’

‘Yes, funnily enough, we have sugar. Would you like sugar in your tea, Martin?’

He lifts his eyebrow. His bushy eyebrow. ‘Why are you being arsy?’

‘I am not being arsy.’

‘You are being arsy.’

‘If you think I’m being arsy, it’s only because you’ve turned up at nine o’clock on Boxing Day evening when we’re in the middle of putting the kids to bed and
you haven’t even told me why.’

Steve has quietly fetched the sugar bowl and handed it to Martin. Martin shovels in three heaped teaspoons and stirs it frantically. He evidently has anger issues.

‘I mean how long are you planning on staying?’

‘That’s the whole point, Vicky. None of this has been
planned
.’ He sighs, all dramatic, and tugs at his beard. I want to rip it off. ‘Claudia’s kicked me
out.’

‘I see. And you took Jeremy?’

‘No, I didn’t
take
Jeremy. She kicked him out too. Said it was time I shared the childcare responsibilities.’ He takes another slug of tea. ‘Any
biscuits?’

Steve slips out to fetch the biscuit barrel. He returns, holding it aloft in the manner of one of the Magi. He gives it to Martin.

‘You’ve got a biscuit barrel,’ says Martin. ‘How retro.’ He helps himself to a Bourbon, completely oblivious to how patronising he sounds or to the biscuit crumbs
he’s scattering over the new leather sofa, the only new thing this house has seen in a very long time, apart from baby Imo.

It’s at this point, when he notices my fists begin to clench, that Steve finally decides to speak up. ‘Would you rather have a beer, Martin?’

‘Now you’re talking,’ Martin smiles back at Steve, a small boy offered sweets.

Steve disappears again to the kitchen. We can hear rummaging in the fridge. Clanking and fizzing.

‘You’ll have to sleep on the sofa,’ I tell Martin, trying to sound like a grown-up – this is
my
house – but I suspect there are undertones of that puny
little girl with the buck-teeth and frizzy hair. I thought I’d shrugged her off with the combined efforts of an orthodontist and ceramic hair straighteners but she has come back to haunt me.
She must have been hiding in Martin’s duffle bag. ‘And Jeremy can have the zed-bed.’

‘Zed-bed?’ Martin doesn’t even bother to stifle a laugh. ‘Sorry, am I in a time warp?’

‘No, Martin. You’re in my house.’ I underline this statement by flouncing out of the room, which is good timing because once I am in the hall – our poky hall, made pokier
by the wretched cello – I can hear little Imo whimpers coming from above.

My breasts are tingly and heavy. I feel like marching back in there and telling Martin that, to see him squirm. But unfortunately I can’t bring myself to mention the word
‘breastfeeding’ to him. He’s my brother. He’s Martin.

I climb the stairs, slowly, wearily. Maybe things will be better in the morning. That’s what Mum always used to say.

Then I hear his voice call out to me: ‘Night, night, Vicky-Love.’

Hours later, all is quiet. Steve lies next to me, warming his cold feet on my legs, smelling slightly of beer. ‘I had to keep him company,’ is his excuse.
‘You left me to it. I had to listen to his story. It’s a mess.’ He tries to squash a hiccup. ‘And this can’t be good for poor old Jeremy.’

Poor old Jeremy is wrapped up in a sleeping bag on the zed-bed in the back room. Martin is on my new leather sofa with a Pocahontas duvet and pillow set kindly donated by Rachel. (
I’m
too big for Disney, Mum. Disney’s sad.
) I don’t have to see for myself how Martin looks. I can picture him perfectly well, no different now at six foot two with a paunch and a beard
than he was at fourteen with spots and smelly feet. He somehow takes over any room he enters. He has one of those ‘big’ personalities, which wouldn’t be so bad if he were
charming, nice even. But he’s neither of those. I can only wonder how it’s taken Claudia so long to take this latest action. A lesser person would have done it years ago. And yes, if
Steve had access to my thoughts, he would tell me to be more understanding. More forgiving. But when it comes to Martin that is quite impossible.

‘Do you think you could stop huffing, Vick. I’m trying to get some kip. Imo will be waking us soon.’

‘He’s got me all stressy.’ I sit up in bed, adjusting my breast pads and disentangling my nightie from the duvet.

‘I know.’ Steve uses that tone of his he reserves for the kids or a parishioner with learning difficulties. ‘Just relax.’ He makes a half-hearted attempt to rub my back.
‘Claudia will be begging him to go back before you know it,’ he goes on, stifling a yawn. ‘She’s besotted with him.’

‘Mmm, maybe. I’m not so sure.’ I wriggle his hand away and lie back down, trying some deep breathing, the way Steve’s always encouraging me to do.

Maybe. Bizarrely, Claudia worships the ground Martin treads on with his big, flat, still-smelly feet. Worships the very air he hogs. Well, she did. Maybe she’s simply proving a point:
she’s not the pushover he thinks she is. Or maybe – please, no – maybe she’s... serious?

Thoughts for the Day:
Why do women always follow men? Look what happened when Pocahontas came to England to be with John Smith. Will Claudia cave in and crawl after her
husband, plucking him from the perils of Penge? And what will become of me? I thought I’d be a plumber’s wife till Steve retired. And now look. Steve’s a vicar, a curate. And
I’m a curate’s wife. Only I don’t want to be. I want to be me again. Only I’m not sure I actually know what that is anymore.

Chapter Two:
Saturday December 29th

I am locked in my bedroom. Not from the outside, barricaded by a makeshift Berlin wall of Encyclopaedia Britannicas, craftily constructed by Martin as he used to do when
he’d had enough of my ‘whining’, but from the inside. Why? Because Martin is still here, downstairs, sprawling his over-indulged body across my new leather sofa, amongst the
ravages of a cold meat lunch, three days on from his unexpected arrival. And Jeremy is practising the
Harry Potter
theme tune on his cello. Or is it
Lord of the Rings
? Or
The
Simpsons
? They’ve all blurred into one mournful dirge over the course of the last few days. Whatever happened to Elgar?

Steve’s disappeared to the park with the girls, rather more quickly and enthusiastically than usual, to get some fresh air, leaving me to deal with Martin and Jeremy and
Top Gear
. I
lasted five minutes before having to storm up here with a gin and tonic, two aspirins and the remainder of a giant Toblerone. The giant Toblerone was a Christmas present from Rachel who spent her
pocket money on me, wrapping it carefully (
You’ll never guess what it is, Mum
), and putting it under the tree – only to discover her cousin Jeremy would eat half of it for
breakfast a week later. Imo is too young for pocket money. At six months, she’s too young for most things except milk. My milk. And Olivia got me a pack of dusters. Yes, dusters
. To help
with your cleaning, Mummy.
At three years of age, Olivia is the one to get my cleaning genes. The ones that came from my grandmother, bypassing my mother, whose fondness for tea-making was the
height of her domesticity.

So, to pass the time, I’ve treated myself to a long overdue tidy-up, which is something I could thank Martin for, if thanking Martin wasn’t a task that went against the grain. But I
can’t help that feeling of martyrdom creeping through my bloodstream like malaria, knowing that while Martin is slobbing away to his heart’s content on my new leather sofa, I am
performing household duties usually reserved for springtime. But then I would never have tackled the contents of the bottom of the wardrobe. I would never have found the box.

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