picture of Winston Churchill, which someone had attached a fluffy moustache to.
When they were slumped opposite each other, and Imogen had had time to take in the scene, she wanted to laugh at how clearly related they were. Demi sat across from her – younger, prettier and more fiery with her blue highlights and nose piercing adding that little edge of rebellion, but they both wore jeans, band t-shirts (The Who and The Velvet Underground respectively), bright hoodies and leather jackets. Except she had a pint of cider and Demi had a Guinness.
‘Go on then,’ Imogen gestured with her pint. ‘Spill.’
Demi leaned forward, hands splayed to tell her story in that Greek way, all backstory and impressions, but she stopped, leaned back and sighed.
‘I’m just not as good a person as you are,’ she said, tracing the rim of her glass with a fingertip. ‘You stayed at home until you were twenty-six. You paid the bills, cooked, looked after your dad, stayed in contact with the family. You never missed a birthday and you were studying and working two jobs!’ Demi shook her head. ‘I can’t seem to be there for either of them. They say I’m selfish, and they’re probably right.’
‘I did it because I had to, Dem. I had no choice. Your dad being sick, well, he’s better now, but your mum is always going to see him as ill. You know what she’s like. It’s almost a competition as to who can love him the most. I don’t blame you for not playing along.’
Demi shrugged. ‘That whole time he was sick they both pushed me away. He didn’t want me to see him weak; she didn’t want to sacrifice any time with him. But now he’s better and things are still … weird. They didn’t want me to leave, but they don’t really want me there, either.’
Imogen sighed. She didn’t really have any insight into her Auntie’s weird ways. But she knew what it was like to watch one parent dedicate themselves wholly to another and get forgotten in the process. How weird that it should happen to her cousin in such a similar way. A small, bitter part of her complained that at least Demi got to keep her dad around. She shook her head.
‘My dad couldn’t survive without me. That’s why I stayed,’ Imogen shrugged. ‘It doesn’t mean I wasn’t planning my big escape that whole time.’
Demi looked up hopefully. ‘Do you think you would have left if Babs hadn’t come along?’
Imogen thought about it. ‘Eventually. But I would have been in my forties and really resented him for it.’
‘You would have left before then, Saint Imogen,’ Demi laughed.
Imogen shrugged, honestly unsure. At the time it felt fated: Babs moving in, hitting her savings target, the promise of the job. It was like the stars had aligned … except that she should have know better than to believe in fairy tales.
‘If it hadn’t been now, it would have been three months from now when I woke up to Chico biting my face. Or over dinner listening to Babs giving me a life lesson on the importance of intimacy in lovemaking.’
Demi choked on her drink, and Imogen just nodded, grinning. As irritated as she was that her cousin had arrived uninvited, it was nice to have family. She hadn’t realised how lonely it had been without the bustling noise of all the cousins, and second-cousins, and third-cousins at their get-togethers.
‘Did you go to Kristina’s baby’s christening?’ she asked Demi, thinking of the hilarious invite she’d received where the child had been photoshopped into a variety of unlikely scenarios. One of them being on board the Death Star.
‘Yup, it looked like a dragon had vomited blue and gold everywhere.’
‘Oh, stop it.’
Demi raised an eyebrow and smirked around her pint. ‘The baby screamed blue murder, then shat in the font.’
Imogen pressed her lips together. ‘… Holy crap?’
Demi’s shoulders shook. ‘Cheap shot.’
‘But quick,’ Imogen grinned. ‘So, then what happened? The priest declared that the devil was inside little … ’
‘Frank.’
‘Excuse me?’ Imogen dribbled her drink down her chin. ‘What?’
‘The baby. He’s called Frank.’
‘Why?’
‘Who the fuck knows? But there was this big hoohaa about the priest refusing to christen him unless he had a Greek name –’
‘– yep, I remember those arguments.’
‘So when the baby shat in God’s magical paddling pool, it was of course because he didn’t have a strong Greek name.’ She put on a thick accent.
‘So what happened?’
‘They donated a hundred quid to the church and the baby’s middle name is Apollo.’
‘You’re shitting me?’ Imogen shook her head, grinning.
‘Nope, talk to Frank for that.’
The afternoon passed into evening, full of laughter and ridiculousness.
‘Please, come on! Big city! Lots of things to do!’ Demi cajoled. ‘There’s this band I love playing in Camden tonight. Let’s go?’
Imogen’s usual excuses – ‘I’m broke, I’m exhausted, I’m lonely’ – suddenly seemed flat and empty. She needed Demi to bring life, get her motivated, but Imogen wasn’t sure what she brought to the equation. She tried not to think about it.
‘Sure, why not?’
‘Good, I knew you were still fun really.’ Demi sipped the cocktail that she had convinced Keith to make, which was an alcoholic disaster, and winked.
Demi had always been one to make things happen, one who would turn up unannounced with train tickets to a random destination and a massive grin. More often than not, they ended up at a tiny station in the middle of a field and spent most of their time waiting for the return train. But occasionally they’d find a great pub, or a sweet lake, or hidden garden, and return feeling like something new had been discovered. She had life. The indefinable thing that Imogen had never been very good at. Demi knew about make-up and clothes. She knew how to walk into a room, how to start a conversation with a stranger. Whenever Imogen went out with Demi, she always came back with a raging hangover, five new Facebook friends and the numbers of people she didn’t remember in her phone. That didn’t happen when it was just her. You had it or you didn’t. She liked to think she had talents her younger cousin didn’t, but pulling a perfect pint or being able to excellently reference your essays suddenly didn’t seem very relevant any more. She was the sensible one, the hard worker, the serious face. The one who stopped Demi running away, and comforted her aunt, and made sure her dad ate vegetables. Yet when Demi turned up, she got to be fun. But the payoff never seemed to be worth it. It was like the universe knew she was an impostor.
When they crashed into her flat at three a.m., desperately gnawing on the kebabs they’d cradled close to their chests on every night bus home, Imogen knew that she should have seen it coming. The realisation hit her harder than that sixth shot of Jaegermeister.
‘I
