This was going to be the kind of Sunday afternoon where your face ended up feeling like you’d been staring into the spout of a kettle as it boiled.  Rhea could just feel it.

It was her mother’s birthday and all the relatives were coming over, so everyone was stressed-out and snapping at everyone else.  Rhea had just been sent up to get changed because her original outfit wasn’t beige enough, or something.  The one she had on now was too tight around the shoulders and the waist and was probably going to have sweat stains all over it in about an hour.  She leaned over her bedside table to open her jewellery box, and her arm stuck to the surface.  Who even knew why?  Sometimes surfaces just got sticky on their own.  She decided not to put on any jewellery after all.  Some things weren’t worth the effort.

Rhea wasn’t looking forward to seeing the family.  Grandma Mary glared at everyone and always had to have her way, Uncle Geoffrey bored everyone to death, Aunt Barbara said nasty things when you least expected it, and Aunt Cathy drained the life out of a room (and she genuinely couldn’t help it, which just made you feel guilty).  And then there was Cousin Sadie, Geoffrey and Barbara’s daughter.  Rhea had a lot of fond memories of her, but she hadn’t seen her in a few years, and, in that time, a whole lot had happened.  Mum and Dad had prepared them- Sadie might not be how they remembered her.

Rhea rubbed at the sticky bit on her arm.  She’d have to spray it with some water in the bathroom, if her brother and sister weren’t blocking it up.  As soon as she got into the hallway, she heard the sound of her parents squabbling in their room.  Or, not exactly squabbling, but Mum fretting about the dinner and making it Dad’s problem as well.  “…and it doesn’t matter, really it doesn’t, but I had it planned, we were just going to go out to a nice restaurant with some of my friends and their partners, but then my mother gets involved and suddenly we’re making dinner for everyone…”

It was a high-pitched, miserable sound that was easily drowned out by the taps running.  Rhea didn’t know what happened when you grew up that stopped you being able to put your foot down.

From the upstairs landing, she could hear her brother watching TV in the living room.  Chris always turned it up about ten decibels louder than it needed to be, so you could figure out the gist of what the characters were saying even if you weren’t close enough to hear the words.  Knowing the kinds of shows Chris liked, it was probably a lot less irritating that way.  Instead of joining him in there, Rhea wandered into the kitchen.  She opened up the cupboard, found a packet of spaghetti, and drew out a piece.

As she put the dry spaghetti in her mouth, Rhea suddenly thought, Why am I doing this? 

She paused there for a moment, spaghetti between her teeth, and couldn’t think of an answer.  Raw spaghetti didn’t actually taste of anything, so maybe it was the feeling of it snapping against her tongue?  Rhea didn’t know.  It was just something she did when she was bored.  Maybe she should…

The doorbell rang.  Rhea went to answer it, stopping only to take the spaghetti out of her mouth and stick it in the bin.  She might not have been looking forward to seeing the family, but she didn’t want them to think she was completely nuts, either.

*

They were in the living room- nine people stuffed into seats meant for five, and Rhea had ended up sitting on a crisp packet that Chris had left on the sofa.  Her younger sister, Gemma, was explaining to everybody how much she hated war.  She often did this.  One night last week, they’d had to spend all of dinner listening to a speech on how Gemma, personally, thought homelessness was a bad thing.

“The one thing I always want to tell people is, war is always caused by greed,” she told everyone, “If we give up greed, then we give up war.  But we all have to do it.  Even wanting a new toy or the latest shoes, it all adds up.”  Gemma wasn’t looking directly at anyone as she said this.  She never did.  Once you set her off, it was full steam ahead- she more-or-less forgot you were there.  “It just makes me so angry when I see the girls at school always talking about the clothes and things they want.  It’s like they don’t even care about the world outside them.”

Uncle Geoffrey cleared his throat.  “All you can do is look to your future, Gemma.  That’s the only sensible thing to do.  Always look to your future.”  (Uncle Geoffrey’s biggest talent was saying things that were supposed to sound very wise but didn’t actually mean anything.)

Gemma nodded solemnly, which showed that she was on her best behaviour.  Most of the time, if you interrupted her, she called you names or tried to kick you under the table.

Everyone was here except for Cousin Sadie.  When Mum mentioned her earlier, everyone had looked solemn and shaken their heads, almost on cue.  “Everything she ever worked for, completely destroyed,” Aunt Cathy had said, “You never get over something like that.  Never.”  And then there had been a long silence, as Rhea felt a hot, sickly feeling spread across her stomach.

Grandma Mary was the only one in the room who’d actually got a seat to herself, which would have been no surprise to anyone who’d ever met her.  She lifted her head, sipped her tea, and declared, “Nobody cares about people anymore.  Only money matters.  A cheap gild with nothing underneath.”

The strange thing was, Rhea thought, that Grandma Mary’s house was kind of the opposite of that.  It was full of expensive things, but it was also covered in dust and smelled faintly of sour milk.  But whenever Rhea mentioned this to her parents, they told her that it was actually a very beautiful and charming place and that Rhea dreamed of one day having a house just like it.

There was a muffled giggle, and then Mum whispered, “Chris, put it away!” 

Grandma Mary’s head swivelled round to see what was going on.  Chris did his best to hide the magazine he’d been looking at (Kerrang!, Rhea knew without even seeing it), but it was too late.  Grandma Mary held out a hand towards him.  “Show me,” she said, in the kind of voice that allowed no argument.

Chris tried to argue anyway.  “I’m not reading it anymore, Gran…”

“Show me.  I want to see what you were laughing at.”

Chris looked to Mum and Dad for help, saw he wasn’t going to get any, and reluctantly took the magazine out from behind the sofa cushions.  He stood up and walked over to Grandma Mary, looking like he was struggling against the tide with every step.

Grandma Mary took the magazine from his hand, flicked to a random page, and sniffed.  “‘In the band, I’m known as the guy who takes the biggest shits.’  So this is culture?”

Chris blushed bright red and looked at the floor.

Grandma Mary handed the magazine back to him.  “In the rubbish bin, please.”

After Chris had left the room, Aunt Barbara thought of something that made her grin wickedly.  “Rhea,” she said, in her smoothest, most playful voice, “Do you still love Savage Garden?”

“No,” mumbled Rhea, resisting the urge to grit her teeth.  Mum and Dad would just tell her not to be rude.

Grandma Mary gave an approving nod.  “Cured you of that.”

Just as Rhea was wondering whether she’d murder everyone in the room given the chance or let her parents and Aunt Cathy live, the doorbell rang.  Everyone’s faces changed.  It was Cousin Sadie.  They were going to see the extent of the damage.

Rhea heard Chris’ footsteps on the stairs (having stashed the magazine in his room instead of obeying Grandma Mary), before he opened the door and said hello.  Sadie’s voice sounded pretty normal, using practically the exact same words everyone else had used to tell Chris how lovely it was to see him again and how tall and handsome he was getting.  Even Grandma Mary had said that he was growing into a fine young man.  Possibly she’d changed her mind after the Kerrang! incident, though.

Rhea concentrated on the voice, trying to see if she could spot any differences.  The last time she’d seen Sadie had been five or six years ago, just before she’d got engaged to Jonah (whose name was not to be spoken in this house), but most of Rhea’s memories were of her as a teenager.  In her head, Sadie was perpetually young and excited and exciting, playing the best music and telling the younger kids long, involved stories that they didn’t completely understand.  So she didn’t know if she sounded different because of intense misery or just because of being older.

When Sadie came into the room, the first thing Rhea noticed wasn’t her hair or her face or the fact that she was a bit chubbier than Rhea remembered.  It was her dress.  Specifically, the colour of her dress, a deep blue the colour of peacock feathers, the colour of the sea in pictures of Barbados or Hawaii, the colour of…  Well, Rhea couldn’t think of anything else.  She didn’t have much of a reference point.  It seemed to her that most of the blues she’d seen recently had either been the pale, milky kind you got in the sky or the darker kind you got when your biro leaked.  It was as if she’d forgotten that things could have actual colours.

“Hi, everyone!  Happy birthday, Auntie Em!”  Sadie flung an arm around Mum’s shoulders and gave her a kiss on the cheek.  “I wasn’t sure what to get you, but I remembered how much you liked red wine, so…”  She took a long pink paper bag off her other wrist, and handed it over.

Mum took the bottle out of the bag, and stared at it in wonder.  “Oh, Sadie, this is lovely…”

Sadie moved over to the right.  “How are you, Cathy?” she asked.  Aunt Cathy laughed bitterly, and started telling her about the problems she’d been having with her liver.

As they talked, Rhea saw a quick movement on the other side of the room.  Grandma Mary had grabbed Chris’ elbow.

“The next time you don’t appreciate what you have,” she told him, “You think about what Sadie’s gone through.”

Rhea wasn’t sure what Grandma Mary thought Chris didn’t appreciate, but she saw him nod anyway, and that seemed to be an end to it.

*

For some reason, Rhea’s mother had started cooking stir-fries four or five times a week, so that whenever you got something different you practically wanted to jump for joy.  Today, the dining room table was covered in chicken and veg.  And there were seats for everyone.  You could actually sit down without somebody elbowing you in the side by mistake.  Rhea hadn’t felt this good all day.

“Of course, all Mike will talk about is his daughter’s wedding,” said Uncle Geoffrey.  (Mike was probably someone he worked with.  He hadn’t bothered to explain.)  “He’s trying to rent a castle.  Apparently that’s the ‘in’ thing.”  He gave a little chuckle.  “It’ll set him back half a million at best, but he’s never known how to say no to her.  Especially not on her big day.”

“She wants to feel like a celebrity,” added Aunt Barbara (so at least one other person knew who the hell these people were), “Horse-drawn white carriages, bridesmaids dressed up like sugarplum fairies.”  Her mouth twisted in a sneer.  “It’s grotesque.  All for a man she met on the internet.”

Cousin Sadie frowned.  “Oh, come on.  I like him.”  But she didn’t get to expand on that, because Grandma Mary needed to have her say.

“If you ask me, it’s not just foolish.  It’s an insult.”  Grandma Mary looked from one end of the table to the other, to make sure that everybody was giving her words the attention they deserved.  “Think of all the women who are killed by men they meet on the internet.  And here she is, celebrating it.  If she goes through with the wedding, then your friend shouldn’t pay for it- he should publicly disown her.”  She took another bite of chicken, just to add emphasis.

Sadie laughed.  “‘Publicly’?  How’s he going to manage that, an ad in the local paper?”

Grandma Mary turned her most withering glare on Sadie, who didn’t seem to notice.

Aunt Cathy took a rusty, creaking breath that made everybody’s heart sink.  She was actually Mum and Geoffrey’s younger sister, but between her health problems and the way her husband’s death had hit her, she’d always seemed frail and elderly.  “I read a story in the paper about a woman who met up with a man on the internet.  She thought she’d met the man of her dreams at last.  They found her body in a sewer pipe a week later.  Don’t try and tell me there’s a God.”

Nobody did.  There was an awkward, morbid silence, broken only when Gemma decided to start one of her sermons.

“Most of the people in my class spend all their free time on the internet,” she announced, “I think that’s so sad.  They don’t even have any concept of the real world; just what they see on a screen.  They don’t realise…”

Grandma Mary raised her voice loud enough to drown Gemma out.  “Geoffrey, I’m planning to get the picture in my hallway properly valued.”  (Rhea knew the one she meant.  It was of a greenish-brown horse against a brownish-green background.  She’d always felt sorry for that horse- it looked as if it was about to drop dead of the plague.)  “Maybe we can finally find out whether it’s a real Constable or just ‘after’ Constable.”

Uncle Geoffrey dabbed his mouth with his napkin.  “That’s a good idea, Mother.  Of course you’d have to be careful who you asked- there’s a lot of people these days looking to take advantage.  Maybe I could…”

Sadie got up to use the toilet.  Geoffrey broke off so that everyone could listen for the sound of the door.

As soon as it shut, Aunt Barbara whispered, “Speaking of weddings…”

Nobody had been speaking of weddings for the last five minutes, but at least they’d got off the subject of that bloody horse painting.  “Oh?” asked Mum.

“Jonah’s booked into the Grand Hotel in August.”  She sneered again, even more energetically than before.  “A big, sparkling ceremony for him and That Woman.”

Rhea and her siblings had been warned not to mention Jonah and That Woman in front of Sadie.  They’d been warned not to mention the divorce, or the miscarriage that had happened a few months before that.  Any reference to the fact that Sadie’s life was now in shambles was off-limits.  In front of Sadie, anyway.

Mum’s hand went to her mouth.  “No!”

“He’s actually been trying to invite some of Sadie’s friends.”  Aunt Barbara looked like she wanted to spit on the floor with every mention of him.  “Can you believe it?”

“Disgusting man,” growled Grandma Mary, “I wouldn’t set my dog on him.”

There was a loud snuffle from Cathy.  “I’m sorry, it’s just…”  She dabbed her eyes.  “When I think about poor Sadie…  She should have had her own family by now.  She deserved it.” 

“But it can’t be more than about a year since the divorce came through,” said Mum, “He’s getting married already?”

Uncle Geoffrey made a noise with his teeth.  “I hate to say it, but…”  His voice dropped to a whisper.  “…three to one she’s pregnant.”

Sadie’s voice came from the hall.  “I do think he’s rushing into it, yeah.”  She wandered back in and sat down.  “But I probably shouldn’t be the one to tell him.”

Mum and Uncle Geoffrey were frozen in horror.  Sadie just tucked her chair in and picked up her knife and fork again. 

Grandma Mary wasn’t the sort of person who got embarrassed.  She looked from one end of the table to the other, in search of an excuse to change the subject.  “Rhea, you’ve barely spoken a word all afternoon.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen a girl so sullen.  Are the rest of us not worth talking to?”

Rhea felt her skin crawl all the way up her back.  This was going to be her version of the Kerrang! moment, she could tell.

“Your grandma’s right, Rhea,” said Mum, “You owe it to people to be sociable.  Especially when they’ve come all this way.”

If there had been anything worth saying, I’d have said it, thought Rhea.  “OK.  Sorry.”

That wasn’t good enough for Grandma Mary.  Nothing ever was.  “Manners maketh man.  Even if you are so self-absorbed that everyone else is irrelevant, you should at least have the decency to pretend.”  She took the kind of pause that assassins probably took when they were working out where to land the killing blow.  “If you’re so uninterested in the world outside you, then maybe it’s not such a surprise that your exams turned out the way they did.”

The heat spread from Rhea’s face to her neck, and from there to the rest of her body, a sickly little acid bath rolling downhill.  When had her parents even told Grandma Mary about her exam results?  Why had they told her about them?  They must have known it would just lead to a moment like this.  They must have actually wanted it.

Cousin Sadie let out a little snort of laughter.  “Gosh, why wouldn’t she be sociable?  You’ve been so friendly and welcoming!”

Grandma Mary turned to Sadie, and her eyes seemed to bore into her soul.  When Sadie didn’t wither up and die like she was meant to, she said, “You know, I’ve always felt that sarcasm was the very lowest form of wit.”

“That’s nice,” said Sadie, “I’ve always felt it was wrong to bully children.”

Time stopped.  No-one dared move.  No-one dared say anything.  The universe had shrunk down to Sadie and Grandma Mary, sat in their chairs, staring at each other.  It had shrunk down to whatever was going to happen next.

There was probably a part of Rhea that felt insulted at being called a child.  Every other part was screaming, She just talked back to Grandma Mary!!!  TWICE!!!

From the next chair, Chris nudged her in the side and whispered, “Why couldn’t she have been here an hour ago?”

Mum shushed him.  She hadn’t looked away from Grandma Mary for one second.

Grandma Mary finally gathered enough venom to talk.  “It disgusts me how bitter you’ve become,” she told Sadie.

“Sorry to disappoint you, I guess,” said Sadie, going back to her food.

*

Dinner had been finished for ten minutes or so.  Mum and Dad were clearing the table.  Geoffrey and Barbara were upstairs, trying to talk Grandma Mary out of leaving early.  They were trying quite hard, because they were the ones who’d driven her here, and if she went, they had to as well.

A moment ago, Rhea had passed them on the landing and heard Uncle Geoffrey say, “You know, it wasn’t really about Rhea, mother.  She was thinking of her own child.”  Because Heaven forbid anything really be about Rhea.

Sadie was talking to Aunt Cathy in the living room, and Rhea decided to go in and join them instead of getting drafted into the cleaning-up.  The living room was a lot nicer now that there were some spare seats and the crisp packet was gone.

Cathy had an open newspaper spread out over her lap, which was always a bad sign.  “Look at this,” she told Sadie, “There’s a man who used to be a member of a Neo-Nazi group, and he went around giving lectures about how he got out.  He made a living giving people advice on how to leave hate groups.  Then last week he got arrested for sending racist hate mail to his neighbours.”  She made a dry tutting sound.  Somehow, Cathy always gave you the impression that she didn’t have any spit.  “I don’t think people ever change, not really.  All they do is learn to lie better.”

Sadie shrugged.  “Well, if I believed that, I wouldn’t be working in drug rehabilitation, would I?”

Rhea’s ears pricked up.  “I didn’t know you worked in drug rehab.”  All her parents had ever told her was that Sadie was a nurse (and therefore a better person than you, was the implication).

Sadie looked around, and gave her an embarrassed grin.  “Sorry, forgot you were there.  I didn’t mean to shock you.”

“No, you didn’t,” said Rhea (which was a bare-faced lie, and they both knew it), “I just didn’t know you worked there.”

“My mum and dad don’t like to talk about it.  Not around the family, anyway.”  She smoothed down her skirt.  “Can’t really blame them- can you imagine what Grandma Mary would say if she knew?”

Rhea could imagine.  Wasting resources on people whose problems were their own fault.  Spoiled celebrities who spent all their time at the Priory.  Filthy junkies who’d stab you for your loose change.  “What’s it like?”

“Um…”  Sadie thought for a moment.  “Well, it’s definitely not what Grandma Mary would make it out to be.  Mostly it’s just people who think their problems are some kind of horrible secret no-one else would ever understand, and they’re stuck with them forever.  They don’t get to be happy or have the things normal people do.  All they get to do is scrabble around desperately and be terrified of getting found out.”  She pointed a finger in the air for emphasis.  “And the best bit of the job is when you see it gradually dawn on them that that’s not true.”

Rhea nodded.  She could picture it.  It would be like dozens of weights dropping off your shoulders, one by one.

“Most of them are probably shooting up again the day after they get out,” sniffed Aunt Cathy.

“We do see some people back again, yeah,” said Sadie, completely unfazed, “You’ve just got to keep trying.”

Cathy closed her paper and stretched out an arm to point at Sadie.  “You’re the one who should get to be happy.  You.  After everything thar man put you through…”

Sadie frowned.  “Who, Jonah?”

“Throwing you away like a piece of rubbish.”  Cathy sounded as if she was on the verge of tears.  “Like you were broken.” 

“Cathy…”  Sadie moved forward in her seat.  “You do realise I was the one who asked Jonah for a divorce?  Not the other way round?”

Rhea sat bolt upright.

“Because you found out about him and That Woman,” insisted Cathy.

“No.  There was nothing to find out, as far as I know.”  Sadie was using that gentle voice that everyone used when Aunt Cathy got into a state, but she also sounded a bit… exasperated?  Amused?  Maybe both?  “I asked him for a divorce because we weren’t happy together.”

And Rhea knew what Grandma Mary would say about that, too.  Not happy together?  Your grandfather and I often weren’t happy together.  Your parents aren’t always happy together.  But we all managed not to behave like a child throwing away a toy when they’re bored of it.  It seemed to Rhea that, in this family, the big secret to happiness was to tell Grandma Mary as little as possible.

Aunt Cathy stared at Sadie in confusion.  “But if you’d had the baby, things would have been different.”

Sadie shook her head.  “If we’d had the baby, we’d have spent the last year sorting out custody arrangements.  And it would have been worth it, but…”

The was a crashing sound from above them, and it took Rhea a second or two to realise that it was the footsteps of somebody storming down the stairs.  Uncle Geoffrey appeared in the doorway, breathing through his nose in the way that people did when they were trying to calm themselves down.  “Hello.  Rhea, is your mother still cleaning the table?”

Rhea nodded.  For a second, she worried that he was angry at her for being in here instead of helping.

Sadie met his eyes.  “So…  Are you still thinking of leaving?”

“No.”  He cleared his throat.  “I’ve told your grandmother that if she wants to leave early, she can make her own way home.  I’m going to spend time with my sister on her birthday.”  He turned around and went into the dining room.

Sadie tutted.  “I wonder what happened up there?”

“Nothing good, I know that,” said Aunt Cathy, “Nothing good.”

About an hour later, Rhea found out what Grandma Mary had said to make Geoffrey so mad… because of course it had been something Grandma Mary said.  Chris had been going past them on the landing just before Geoffrey stormed out.  He said Grandma Mary had listed pretty much every bad thing he, Rhea and Gemma had ever done, and concluded, “If that’s the kind of behaviour Sadie’s willing to condone, then maybe it’s just as well that she didn’t become a mother.”

*

“Sadie seemed to be holding up well,” said Dad as they waved her off.

“Putting on a brave face,” said Mum grimly.  Sadie and her parents had been the last ones to go- Grandma Mary had bullied Aunt Cathy into giving her a lift home earlier in the afternoon.  It was just the five of them again.

They went back into the house, and Mum gave a happy sigh as she closed the door behind them.  “Well.  That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

“No, not after Grandma Mary left,” said Rhea, before she could stop herself.  It was true, though.  For the last few hours, everyone had had a little more space to breathe.

“Rhea…” growled Dad, but Mum put a hand on his shoulder and smiled, so he let it drop.

“Oh, poor Cathy,” said Mum, not quite laughing, “I’ll phone her in a moment and check she had a safe journey.”  Which roughly translated as, I’ll repay her for being stuck in a car with our mother for ninety minutes by listening to her whine about it for an hour.

With nothing much left to do, Dad went into the living room and switched on the TV.  Bit by bit, like planets settling into their orbits, Mum and Chris ended up in there with him.  Rhea and Gemma went to the kitchen instead.

“I know we don’t want to admit it,” said Gemma, “but Grandma Mary was right.  When we’re around people like Sadie and Aunt Cathy, it helps us appreciate what we have in life.”

“Hm,” said Rhea.  She opened up the cupboard and found the packet of spaghetti from earlier.

“I mean, what was Chris doing, reading Kerrang! while people were round?  He should have known what was going to happen.  I don’t know why he wants to read stuff like that anyway.  It’s not exactly making him a better person.”

Rhea stared at the spaghetti for a moment or two, trying to work something out.  She shut the cupboard door, and went to fetch something from under the sink.

“What are you looking for?” asked Gemma.

“Just some cleaning spray.”  She found some behind the bleach, and took out a sponge to go with it.  She was going to get rid of that sticky patch on her bedside table, and then she was going to work out what had caused it in the first place and get rid of that.  And after she’d finished, maybe she’d burn this damn dress.

The End