the garden and the cliff?’
Assuming their mother was showing them the best room in the hope of winning them over, Pru, who was always quickest off the mark when it came to getting what she wanted, jumped in: ‘I do!’
Connie’s shoulders slumped dramatically. ‘I knew she’d get the first choice. It’s not fair. I really like this room. Pru gets the best of everything.’
Fighting the urge to scream, Dorothy forced a bright smile and kept her voice tone jolly as she told them, ‘Prudence, wipe that conceited look off your face. Connie, please refrain from sulking. I have a super room for you – follow me.’
Pru pushed past Connie, who whispered, ‘You always get the best.’
And Pru replied sotto voce: ‘Tough shit, little sister.’
When their mother opened the door of the blue room, Connie’s mouth dropped open as she took in the double-aspect windows with views of the beach and the bay. ‘Yes!’ she cried, fist punching the air. ‘Yes! This has to be the best room. I love it! Thanks, Mum.’
Pru was now the one who was in a sulk. ‘I thought you said you wanted the other room.’
‘Nope. This is mine and that is yours. Fair’s fair, eh, Mum?’
Dorothy, distracted by the screech of the plumber drilling in the en-suite, answered vaguely, ‘Yes, of course, darling. Sort it out between the pair of you. Off you go.’ Moments later she was lost in a discussion about power showers and hot-water tanks.
Pru glared at Connie. ‘Give me this room.’
‘No. You chose yours. This is mine.’
‘It’s too big for you.’
‘No it isn’t.’
‘The other room suits you much better.’
‘Why?’
‘Yellow is your favourite colour.’
‘No it isn’t. I like blue.’
‘You’re spoilt.’
‘You’re jealous.’
Dorothy wandered back in from the bathroom.
‘All settled, girls?’ Registering the sulky expressions on the girls’ faces, she promptly abandoned all efforts to placate them. ‘Oh, for Heaven’s sake – why don’t you two go and explore the beach before I banish the pair of you to the box room – you’ll have plenty to mope about then, won’t you?’
*
Nothing more had been said about the bedrooms. Not because Pru had given up; she was just biding her time.
The family didn’t visit Cornwall again until the Easter holidays. That first day, both sisters were squashed into the back of their father’s new Range Rover, surrounded by the bedding, kitchenware and other household bits and pieces their mother had packed around them after they’d got in.
Henry insisted on having Radio 4 on for the entire journey, so the girls plugged themselves into their Sony Walkmans, staring glumly out of the windows at the passing traffic.
At Bristol they stopped for elevenses. Moody as hell, Pru and Connie trooped in behind their parents, scowling at the food on offer in the cafeteria.
Dorothy tried to adopt a light, cheery tone: ‘OK, girls, what do you want?’
‘A doughnut,’ said Connie.
‘That’s very fattening,’ said Dorothy, looking pointedly at Connie’s rounded tummy. ‘Have an orange juice and a banana. Pru?’
Connie’s lip wobbled, stung by the suggestion she was overweight.
Pru, still plugged into her Walkman, didn’t respond. ‘Pru!’ her mother asked again. No response. Henry took the headphones off his elder daughter’s ears and shouted, ‘Take those bloody things off and answer your mother!’
Pru stared blankly. ‘What?’
‘Your mother has asked you three times: what do you want to eat?’
‘Nothing. And she only asked me twice.’
Henry took the Walkman and headphones from Pru’s hands and stuffed them in his pocket. ‘Right. I’m confiscating these.’
‘But, Dad!’
‘What do you want to eat?’ he barked again.
‘Nothing,’ she shouted, and stalked off to W H Smith, throwing over her shoulder: ‘This is SO unfair.’
Henry nearly went after her, but Dorothy laid a hand on his arm. ‘Let her go. I’ll be glad of the peace.’
*
Back in the car, Pru glowered and sulked without her Walkman. Connie smugly and irritatingly listened to hers, flicking her sister the occasional two-fingered salute.
After a while, Pru waved her hand in front of her sister’s face in order to attract her attention.
‘Hello,’ she said exaggeratedly. ‘Earth to Constance! Let me have a listen to yours, Con.’
Connie was indignant. ‘Why should I? It’s your own fault Dad took them off you, not mine!’
‘Oh, come on, Connie,’ Pru wheedled, going for the sympathy vote – a tactic Connie was always a sucker for. ‘You know I’ve been desperate to listen to that new Madonna tape for weeks, and you did promise to swap when we left London. I was going to let you have the Kylie one, remember?’
‘But Dad’s confiscated it.’
‘Exactly – not fair! Come on, you know I’d do the same for you.’
‘You would not!’
And so it went on, with Pru eventually breaking her gentler sister down.
Connie managed to tune out the tinny strains of Madonna’s ‘Express Yourself’, and stared out of the window, drinking in the Cornish scenery as it sped by. She hoped that Pru wouldn’t be a complete cow over the whole bedroom business, but she had a horrible suspicion that her sister would outwit her again, same as she always did. She sighed loudly, attracting a quizzical look from her father through the rear-view mirror.
At last the Range Rover crunched slowly down the lane and into the driveway of Atlantic House. Pru got out quickly and, with suspicious brightness, told her father: ‘I’ll help you take the luggage upstairs.’
He raised an eyebrow in surprise and disbelief, but handed her a suitcase and a couple of pillows and opened the front door for her.
A couple of minutes later, Connie climbed the stairs, lugging her bags behind her, and threw open the door of her bedroom, the big and beautiful blue room.
‘Surprise!’
