blinked at me. She wasn’t used to people standing up to her. My parents went to endless lengths to keep the peace. They always had done. I wasn’t so forgiving.
‘I’m hoping they like pizza,’ I said to thin air. Alice had ducked under the stairs and was scrabbling about looking for something. Ignore and avoid – her usual policy when there were things she didn’t want to hear or face.
She emerged with one little girl’s shoe. ‘You might have to go shopping. Poppy keeps moaning that her toes are at the end… again.’
‘I can do that. Anything else?’
‘No.’
I followed her into the untidy lounge where my eldest niece, ten-year-old Poppy, had sprawled her lanky length along the sofa and was watching television. She was all arms and legs at the moment, as if they’d grown ahead of the rest of her. Her clothes looked as if they were racing to keep up as well although at least, unlike Ava’s, they were clean. Six-year-old Ava had a magnetic ability to attract every sort of dirt known to man and always appeared to have been dragged through the proverbial hedge backwards, forwards, and upside down. A cloud of tangles circled her chubby face, dimples pierced her knees and elbows, and there was a long bloom of orange juice all down her white aertex school shirt.
‘Okay, babes. Time to go. Auntie Claire is here.’
Ava began scooping up the collection of toys surrounding her which spilled over her arms as she dropped one as soon as she’d picked up another.
‘But Alice, this hasn’t finished yet,’ said Poppy, not even turning from the television. Clearly now she was ten, she was too cool to give me a hug or call my sister ‘Mum’. I could never be sure whether Alice encouraged it or not.
Once upon a time, when she was younger and I babysat more often, we’d been pals.
‘Auntie Claire has a television.’ Alice paused. ‘Oh God, you do, don’t you? It wouldn’t surprise me if you didn’t.’
I gave her a withering look. ‘Funnily enough, yes. Flat screen and everything.’
‘Well of course you do, Miss Moneybags. Not everyone has the cash to splash.’ Her mouth pursed into an angry pout.
Tough. Maybe I shouldn’t have dissed her ancient chunky television but every now and then one of her needles hit home and I couldn’t help retaliating.
‘Does it have cartoons?’ asked Ava suddenly glancing up from her toys.
‘Er, I think so.’
‘You mean DVDs, stupid,’ snapped Poppy.
‘I’m not stupid.’
‘Yes you are.’
Ava went over and pulled one of Poppy’s plaits with a sharp tug and threw one of her toys at her head. Poppy seized it and hurled it back, hitting Ava square in the face.
Ava immediately began to wail, indignation giving her lungs a certain power.
‘Poppy!’ snapped Alice rushing over to scoop Ava into her arms. ‘It’s okay, baby. Poppy Harrison, apologise to your sister this minute.’
I frowned. Hardly fair. Ava had clearly started it, but unfortunately the scenario was horribly familiar.
Poppy pursed her small mouth and glared at her sister. ‘Soz’, she said with begrudging defiance.
Alice rocked Ava for a minute until the overloud noisy sobs abated. ‘Poppy, you’re the oldest; you’re supposed to be nice to your little sister.’
Old patterns, I thought.
Look after Alice, she’s only little. Remember, Alice is the youngest.
‘What about the house?’ I asked. ‘Bills etc. Anything need sorting out?’
Alice shrugged. ‘Dad takes care of all that. Everything’s on direct debit.’
Dad really did take care of everything. At our farewell dinner he’d taken me aside and asked me to keep an eye on Alice while he and Mum were away with the words, ‘Seriously, I’d like to wring the neck of the guy she got in to do the hedge. It cost me £150 and you should see the state of it. She needs a bit of support with that sort of thing. I think they see her coming.’
I absentmindedly rubbed at the scratch on my arm, which was finally healing thanks to the course of antibiotics. ‘Anything else?’
Alice shrugged. ‘Don’t think so.’
She stood on the doorstep to see us off, both girls waving madly from the car.
‘Who wants to make pizza when we get in?’ I asked, determined that for the next seven days I was going to be ‘fun Auntie Claire’ and that they would have such a good time they wouldn’t miss their mum too much.
‘Me, me!’ yelled Ava from the back.
‘That sounds cool,’ said Poppy with an approving nod as she sat next to me in the front seat.
I nodded back. They were both good kids; there was no reason that this week shouldn’t be a breeze. All I had to do was entertain them over the weekend, get them to school each day next week and feed them each evening. My stomach started to knot at the thought of all that that entailed. What if I couldn’t do it all? What did I know about children?
Chapter Six
Oh my God, I was dying. Already, Monday morning was a train wreck. I wished I was in the office where I knew exactly what I was doing. Who knew getting two children up, dressed, fed, and ready for school could be such hard work? I was making enough of a hash of my own life at the moment, how did I think I could manage the lives of two little girls as well?
Despite doing several Everest-sized mounds of washing – I think Alice had been saving it all up – I’d missed Poppy’s school shirts and she’d thrown a teenager-in-training strop when I’d suggested she wear one of last week’s.
‘You can’t be serious,’ she’d yelled. ‘That will ruin my life.’
‘I hardly think so,’ I said, almost laughing at the drama, except it wasn’t funny, and I went into the utility room to rummage in the pile. I found a Poppy-sized white short-sleeved shirt with the school logo and gave it a quick shake. It seemed clean enough.
‘Look, here you go. This will do and I’ll wash the rest today.’
‘No,’ she wailed.
I closed my eyes and counted to ten. ‘Poppy, just for today, please wear this shirt.’
‘No! You’re being mean and horrid.’ She snatched it from my hand. Bright tears shone in her eyes and then she left the kitchen, slamming the door with enough force that all the dishes on the draining board rattled.
‘I haven’t done my homework,’ announced Ava placidly from the kitchen table where she was toying with her toast as Poppy’s feet
