That first afternoon of the visit, Aunty Anne looked solemnly at her younger sister. “I’ve still got the legs of a girl!” said Anne, surprising them all. They couldn’t see their mother’s legs because of the duvet. Fifteen to One was on the telly, a ruthless, hectic quiz. Their mother asked them to turn the sound down.
“She always had incredible legs, your Aunty Anne. Mine were two sticks next to hers. You ask her nicely, she’ll do the splits for you.”
None of them rushed to ask.
“I couldn’t anymore,” laughed Aunty Anne. She tried to get them all laughing, and their mother tried, but they couldn’t.
They were worn down by the heat of the afternoon. It was cooling now, but the heat seemed to stand in the room. Briskly, Aunty Anne said, “And what are we going to eat tonight?”
Their mother shouted after her, as she went to take over in the kitchen: “It’s a bit of a mess in there. We haven’t got any of the right things in...”
On their way up to the flat, Aunty Anne had lagged behind as the girls went up with her cases. She stared at the flaky paint of the stairwell, the broken lights. “This is where our Lindsey’s ended up,” she said, then looked shamed because the words carried up the stairwell, so they all heard her. Someone had dropped shampoo down the stone stairs, and it oozed and spread in the heat, making the stairs smell of pine needles and soap. “It must have spilled out of someone’s shopping bags,” said Linda cheerily. “Usually it smells of piddle down here.”
That first night their aunt did them a fry-up, one of her
specialties, she told Mandy, who pulled a face. Linda trooped out to the corner shop for the things they needed and their aunt acted shocked by the prices.
“That’s what you get when you live in a holiday resort!” She turned away from the cooker, to smile at Wendy, who found that she’d been staring. “Do you feel like you’re always on holiday?” asked her aunt.
“No,” said Wendy, who’d never until that moment thought of living anywhere other than Blackpool.
She bought me a silver cardboard box filled with chocolate serpents. The box was tied with green ribbon, springing open at the slightest touch as it sat on the cool white table top. Aunty Anne rapped her knuckles on the cafe table. “Real marble. That’s quality that, Wendy.”
She had brought me out alone for afternoon tea. I went expecting it to be something of a ceremony, but I wasn’t sure why I’d been singled out. She sat me down and presented this box of minty chocolate serpents. We peeled them free of foil and crunched them up, laughing, as we waited for the waitress. Aunty Anne had smudges of milk chocolate round her mouth and I didn’t feel I knew her well enough to tell her. This was three days into her visit and she was still new.
Already, though, she had dyed her hair a stark, matte black. Same wild style, now a solid black. Our mother shook her head. “She never could make up her mind about things like hair.” Mam had a lot of patience with her sister, maybe because she hadn’t seen much of her over the years.
One night I heard them talking late. My sisters and I were eating in the kitchen and Timon was my guest. I sat proudly beside him as he wolfed down hot sausage sandwiches. We ate them with a lot of pepper and his eyes moistened when he realised, and Mandy watched him like a hawk for signs of weakness. But he swallowed peppery sausage down without exclaiming or sneezing. Mandy and Linda were drinking him in, all the while.
Mam and Aunty Anne were supposed to be watching Peter Cushing in The Beast Must Die, but they were talking in quiet, earnest voices. I could hear them through the serving hatch, which we never closed.
“I found it hard enough bringing just one up,” Aunty Anne was saying. “Though Colin was a worry. I can’t imagine what it must have been like, seeing to three bairns, all by yourself.”
Mam didn’t seem to want to talk about it. “You just get on with it, don’t you?”
“I wish I’d come through more to see you, to help out.”
Mam wasn’t a great one for accepting help though. She was pleased to see her sister on this visit, but every time Aunty Anne did something—swooshing around the living room with the hoover, clattering dishes in the sink, or ironing in front of the telly—our mother’s eyes would burn into her back with envy and resentment.
Aunty Anne said, “We haven’t talked about this properly, but afterwards...I’ll sort everything out.”
Mam waved her hand, putting this conversation off.
Aunty Anne protested, “But we never talk about important things, not until it’s too late. Our family’s always been the same.”
“I’m tired, Anne.”
“I’m just saying...”
“Leave it for now. Not much needs sorting, anyway. I’ve not got much to pick over.”
“There’s the girls.”
A pause. I was glad my sisters were busy talking with Timon. I was glad I was the only one listening to this.
Our mother said, “Only Wendy needs seeing to. Only she needs your help, Anne. The others are old enough now.”
“She’s just a baby,” said our Aunt.
And after the silver, chocolate serpents, eaten in defiance of the signs that told us we should not consume our own foods on the premises, we had cinnamon toast, which came in long, ginger fingers, sparkling with crusted, caramelised sugar. Aunty Anne bit into a finger and wrinkled up her eyes
