LITMIR.BIZ

       OCTOBER

      Saturday, 1 October

      I got an email from my father today, suggesting we all ‘get together’ for lunch soon, which was quite unexpected as I thought he was still living in Portugal. Apparently he has a ‘surprise’ for me. I am dubious about this, because although part of me is an eternal optimist and thus immediately thinks perhaps he is coming to tell me that he has decided to transfer a large sum of money to me, or that he has put his house in Portugal into my name now to avoid death duties and because I need it more than my sister, no good ever comes of his ‘surprises’, as they inevitably take the form of his announcing that he is either getting married again or divorced again.

      If one were feeling generous, Daddy could be described as something of an aging roué, but really as he gets older, his habit of getting married and divorced on what seems like an almost annual basis is getting rather embarrassing. We did think that his last wife, Caroline, had finally got him to settle down, and she did stick it out a remarkable seven years, before throwing in the towel when she caught him in bed with her cleaner, at which point he decamped to Portugal, claiming that it was for the golf, and not, as Mummy waspishly suggested, that he had run out of shags in Sunningdale, since he was reduced to bedding the staff at the golf club.

      My fears over his latest ‘surprise’ were confirmed with a call from my dear sister Jessica, who had received a similar email, also summonsing her to the meet-up. Jessica, trying as ever to be the condescending elder sister, poo-pooed my concerns that we were about to be introduced to our latest stepmother.

      ‘For heaven’s sake, Ellen. He’s seventy-five years old. Why on earth would he want to get married again at his age? Surely he’s learned by now.’

      ‘Maybe not. Remember Carrie Barker? Her granddad got married three times after his first wife died when he was seventy-five!’

      ‘Yes, but his wives kept dying of old age, so he had to get another one because he’d never washed his own underwear. That’s hardly the same as Daddy. He’s spent enough time between wives to be reasonably self-sufficient.’

      ‘Well, what do you think he wants then?’

      ‘How should I know? Maybe he’s decided to move back to the UK so he can spend more time with his grandchildren.’

      ‘He hates children. He didn’t even really like us that much when we were little, and pretty much went out of his way to avoid us. He is immensely proud of the fact that he has never changed a diaper, and still complains about the time Jane vommed on him when she was a newborn. That’s been the only saving grace in the revolving door of wives. At least his general dislike of children meant that there were no new brothers and sisters to take a share of our inheritance!’

      ‘He likes Persephone and Gulliver.’ said Jessica, with the indignation of a mother’s love. ‘Everyone likes Persephone and Gulliver – I’m constantly told how charming they are. Maybe it’s just your children he doesn’t like!’

      ‘He does not like your children!’

      ‘HE DOES!’

      ‘NOT!’

      ‘STOP being so petty!’

      ‘SHAN’T!’

      ‘Ellen, I will hang up if you can’t conduct a civilised conversation like a normal adult.’

      ‘Oh, all right!’ I grumbled. I honestly don’t know what it is about Jessica. She is my only sister and I love her, I honestly do, but I don’t really like her very much. She always rubs me up the wrong way, usually by being so bloody superior, and then I find myself just fighting the urge to kick her in the shins, or push her over in a muddy puddle and laugh at her. Our ability to still squabble like children at the ages of forty-two and forty-five does not give me much hope that the magical day will ever dawn when Peter and Jane will stop fighting and be friends and get on without one or the other trying to brutally murder their sibling. And anyway, Jessica’s children are monsters of hot-housed over-achievement and will doubtless be running the country before they are out of their teens, if Jessica has anything to do with it. (I still cringe, though, every time I remember that I have a niece and nephew called Persephone and Gulliver, but Jessica is immensely smug that nobody else she knows, not even any of the children of the other parents’ group mummies from either of her pregnancies, has the same names as her offspring, and in fact since records began neither ‘Persephone’ nor ‘Gulliver’ has ever appeared on a list of ‘Most Popular’ names. She was mildly less smug when after a brief googling I was able to inform her they did both appear on a list of the Most Pretentious Middle-Class Children’s Names. That was a very good day …)