LITMIR.BIZ

       11

      If there’s one thing you don’t need after a dark night of the soul, reliving your worst moments from the past and facing up to a grim present, it’s a Sunday lunch with family. Particularly, my family.

      I’d love to give Esther a swerve today but she’ll be waiting on a debrief from last night, not to mention I’ll get a horrendous guilting about how she’s catered for me.

      In the competition between How Much Aggro To Not Go vs How Much Aggro To Drag Myself There, Esther’s vigour makes the latter choice a clear winner.

      I’m summoned for midday, decent booze in hand. Luckily, I rootled out some decent bottles of Beaujolais from the last time Robin was here. Despite his ‘fresher week’ diet, Robin liked classy booze.

      I may be skint but a taxi to Esther’s is the only plausible option on a Sunday when she lives on the wrong side of the city and a journey by public transport would take in three buses and half the Peak District. I stare morosely out of the window as the view changes: the boxy post-war houses and takeaways and chippies and bookies of the largely itinerant community of Crookes give way to the city centre, then out into the Peaks until we’re in greener and pleasanter spaces.

      My sister, her husband and their son live in the village of Dore, in an architect-designed detached house. It’s palatial, with a double garage and bi-fold kitchen doors leading on to a properly kept rectangle of garden, with a large patio for barbecues in summer.

      Inside, Esther is fond of the sort of uplifting wall art that says things like LIVE LOVE LAUGH. It’s weird, because she’s the world’s least whimsical person. It always has a whiff of the floggings will continue until morale improves to me. I might get her one saying LAUGH DAMN YOU.

      As much as my still-delicate stomach feels like it’s on a catch-up delay, like I’ve walked too quickly on an airport travelator, the scenery from the cab window soothes me.

      Of all the ways I could feel a failure, still being in my home town is something I’m obstinately proud of. I love Sheffield, even if it is often freezing and everything is uphill. If cities have a spirit, then its spirit is mine.

      ‘Here she is, the pink sheep of the family!’ says Geoffrey, who answers the door and critically assesses my coat. If I had to find a Geoffrey quote to sum up Essence of Geoffrey, it’d be this greeting; ostensibly merry but delivered with teeth, not his place to say it, too close to the knuckle to be easy to laugh at.

      Yet I’m required to, or I’m churlish. Participating in my own ridicule: it’s what I do best.

      He’s always in a size-too-small Pringle V-neck, his hair, teased across his pate, and a curious unnatural colour that Esther and I secretly christened Butternut Squash Shimmer. I give a strained smile, pulling my arms out of my furry outerwear as he takes the wine from me and twists the label round to face him, re-balancing his readers.

      ‘Hmm … not heard of this one. Looks like it’ll help wash the taste of the broccoli away, at least, har har.’

      Boom, a one-two punch. He grins and I grimace and not for the first time, I think: I know it was a tough time, Mum, but really, him? Then consider I’m not in the strongest position to be thinking such things.

      The kitchen is a blur of activity, doors in the range cooker being opened and banged shut and oven gloves being clapped together. Geoffrey considers himself a Yorkies expert – he’s one of those men who turns everything into a contest – so he and Mark and Mum cluster round the pudding mix in a Pyrex jug, debating tactics, though Mum is hanging back so not as to get her wrap dress splattered. My mum is expensively silver-blonded, and always immaculately turned out. Geoffrey once referred to her as ‘the gold standard’. Eeesh.