Peony Place. Jules Wake

I might have to get you to lend me the money for the flight, though.’

      ‘Whoa, whoa!’ I held up my hand. ‘Slow down. What are you talking about?’

      ‘India,’ she said with exasperation as if I were completely stupid. ‘I’ve been invited to go. I only have to pay for my flights.’

      ‘Alice, you can’t just go to India. You need jabs and things.

      ‘Poo, don’t be silly. Of course, I can. I’m not you. Don’t even think about being a mean, old stiff and making me turn down this amazing opportunity. It’s been my dream to go to India forever.’

      Translated as, since she met Jon at Yoga class six months ago.

      ‘But what about the girls? You can’t take them with you. Don’t they have school?’

      ‘Of course I’m not taking them. Don’t be silly.’

      ‘Well who’s going to look after them?’

      ‘You are, of course. It makes perfect sense. It’s not as if you’ve got anything else to do.’ She folded her arms and gave me a bright look of triumph. ‘You were complaining you never saw them.’

      ‘I think what I actually said was that you don’t ask me to babysit anymore. It was an observation rather than a complaint. Not quite the same thing.’

      ‘Well, here’s your chance. You can babysit every night for a week.’

      ‘Gosh, how kind of you. I don’t suppose it’s occurred to you that I have my own life, thank you very much.’

      ‘Yeah and how’s that going right now?’ Alice’s eyes gleamed maliciously. ‘All those friends of yours queuing up to see you, are they?’

      I bit my lip and kept my expression bland even though she’d touched a raw nerve. Friends were few and far between. With the unexpected precision of a well-targeted dart, I remembered my conversation with Ashwin Laghari. I’d lost some good friends over the years, sacrificed on the altar of my job. They tend to give up when you repeatedly turn down invitations, but when you’re snowed under it doesn’t seem to matter. You only realise the loss when it’s too late.

      ‘I’ve got plenty of things to do. A whole house to decorate, actually.’ There, that’s what I would do. As soon as I’d finished my coffee I’d go and buy some magazines, Ideal Home or something. And a BBC Good Food Magazine. I’d start cooking, so that I ate properly. And I’d take some of those exercise classes. Get really fit. I’d alternate between Pilates and HIIT classes. Go running every morning. Dave, a colleague, had been badgering me to join the company team to do a charity 5k run. I could use the time to train. Or I might even learn a language.

      ‘Claire, are you listening to me?’

      She waved a hand across my face and I realised with a wry smile that I hadn’t heard a word.

      ‘Alice, you can’t go to India. Not without planning it properly. Why don’t you wait until the school holidays when Mum and Dad are back? The girls are used to staying with them.’

      ‘Don’t you understand? If I don’t go now I’ll never be able to go. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. This place is booked up years in advance. I’d never be able to afford it. Please, Claire. I’m suffocating. I’ve been with the children night and day for the last ten years. I deserve some time off for good behaviour. They can spend some quality time with their favourite auntie.’

      ‘I’m their only auntie.’ My dry sarcasm was wasted on her.

      ‘And they’ll be at school most of the time, so you’ll have the days to yourself.’

      ‘Alice, I can’t have the girls.’

      ‘Why not? Give me one good reason. It’s only for a week.’

      I opened my mouth, about to tell her all the reasons why, but then it struck me that perhaps I might enjoy getting to know my nieces. After all, it would only be for a week and I had four to fill.

      Chapter Five

      ‘Claire, you’ll have to sort this out. I just haven’t had time.’ Alice lugged an overflowing laundry basket down the stairs leaving a trail of broken wicker twigs in her wake. ‘It’s the girls’ uniforms. They’ll need them for Monday.’

      Somehow, Alice, who was incapable of finding and affording a man to sort her hedge out, had managed to book and pay for a flight to India, get a few injections and pack bulging bin bags of belongings for each of her children.

      It was Friday evening, a mere five days since I’d bumped into my sister in the street, and I’d arrived to collect Ava and Poppy as Alice was leaving at crazy o’clock the next morning.

      ‘And what about school? What time do they have to be there? And what time do they finish? Does the school know I’m looking after them? What are their teachers called?’ There was so much I didn’t know and faced with the bin bags – which were really bothering me; surely Alice had some proper holdalls or something? – and not much else, I felt woefully underprepared. Surely I needed lists of where they needed to be and when, along with names and telephone numbers.

      ‘Don’t fuss, Claire. Poppy will be able to tell you everything. And don’t let her boss Ava about all the time.’

      ‘I’m hardly fussing.’ Looking after two children was a big responsibility. ‘I’m just asking for basic information. Like food. What do they like to eat?’

      Alice rolled her eyes. ‘Food? They’re children not some strange species. Fish fingers, spaghetti hoops, chicken nuggets. That sort of thing. Honestly Claire, you need to come down off that pedestal of yours and live in the real world.’

      ‘And you need to stop being so rude. I’m doing you a massive favour here.’

      Alice 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