A Christmas Gift. Sue Moorcroft

throat.

      Alarmed, Georgine guided her sister to one of the dining chairs. ‘So something is wrong,’ she exclaimed.

      Blair allowed her head to drop onto Georgine’s shoulder. ‘I wish I didn’t have to tell you this right now. I’ve been racking my brains for alternatives but I’ve come up empty.’ She heaved a sigh that stirred the ends of Georgine’s hair, and Georgine’s heart fluttered unpleasantly, all kinds of unwelcome scenarios of illness flashing through her imagination.

      ‘Please tell me,’ she breathed.

      Blair groaned. Then she sat up straight with the air of one who was pulling herself together, though her eyes still brimmed. ‘It’s over between Warren and me. We’ve had a humongous row and he told me to leave.’

      Georgine stared, searching her sister’s tear-streaked face. ‘No! He adores you. His eyes follow you round like a spaniel—’

      Blair scrubbed her cheeks with her palms. ‘Not any more. He’s tired of what he calls my “money-pit ways”. We’ve been having problems. You’ve had enough to worry about so I haven’t let on, but it’s all been building and –’ her voice began to wobble ‘– last night he told me he was throwing me out of the last chance saloon. I took today off work to pack my things.’

      ‘But surely …’ Georgine broke off, unable to categorically deny that Blair was bad with money. She threw it at anything that took her fancy. Automatically stroking her sister’s hand, Georgine thought of the mini-break she and Blair had shared in October half-term – Warren hadn’t been able to take the time off work so Blair had invited Georgine to the smart barn conversion in the country in his stead. They’d each had a king-sized bedroom and sumptuous en-suite, and it had still left a bedroom empty. Georgine had thought at the time that it was pretty extravagant for two people.

      Since then, she’d been sucked into the whirl of putting on the Christmas show, more concerned with how to evoke Christmas with a black curtain and a twist of tinsel than how things were going in her sister’s life. ‘Oh, Blair,’ she breathed remorsefully. ‘I didn’t realise.’ She blinked hard.

      Blair’s attempt to laugh caught and broke. ‘All we’ve done tonight is say “oh, Blair” or “oh, Georgine”. What a pair.’ She found a tissue in her pocket and blew her nose, then tossed back her hair. ‘You won’t believe this but I came here to ask you to put me up until I sorted myself out. What timing, eh? Just what you don’t need.’ She propped her elbow on the table dispiritedly.

      Georgine gazed at her sister, having an idea of what was coming next and knowing she’d be incapable of refusing.

      ‘Unless …’ Blair went on tentatively. ‘Unless it’s actually exactly what you do need? What if I did move in here? A rent-paying lodger would help you out too. You’d be able to have the heating on and catch up the arrears on the utilities much sooner.’

      Georgine tried to compose her features into an expression of neutrality, but it was hard to fall on the suggestion with a cry of joy. ‘Are you sure you’d really like it, Blair? My second bedroom is tiny. Teeny-tiny.’ The sound of Blair’s footsteps tracking restlessly from room to room upstairs made sense now. She must have been assessing the space, trying to envisage herself moving from Warren’s spacious four-bedroomed house in Peterborough to a small share of Georgine’s bijou abode. That she even saw it as an option spoke volumes for her situation.

      Blair must be desperate.

      ‘Of course, it goes without saying that you can stay,’ Georgine said quickly. ‘It’s just that you’d have to be tidy because the house is so small that you can’t move if you just dump stuff all over the place. It’s a far cry from Warren’s big, bay-fronted detached.’

      Blair made a face. ‘You make it sound like a palace.’

      ‘It might be, compared to this,’ Georgine pointed out. ‘Big rooms, high ceilings, an attic conversion.’ Mostly full of the detritus of either Warren’s life or Blair’s.

      Blair inspected her nail varnish, lower lip jutting. ‘That attic conversion was tiny really.’

      ‘But bigger than I could offer you here.’ Georgine tried a joke. ‘The box you keep your Christmas decorations in is probably bigger than my spare room.’ Then, gently, Georgine reached out and stroked Blair’s shining hair. ‘You’re welcome to come. It’s just that you’ll have to be really, really realistic about two things.’

      Tipping her head back, Blair closed her eyes with a mock groan. ‘Don’t come all big sister on me!’

      Georgine pressed on remorselessly. ‘You do have to pay rent, I can’t afford to feed you or face an increase in household bills. And you’d have to respect my space.’

      ‘Because you freak if there’s a thing out of place.’ Blair sighed.

      It seemed an unnecessarily harsh description, but Georgine accepted that her sister was emotional and anxious. ‘I don’t like to live in chaos, that’s true.’ Whereas Blair, smiling and sunny, expansive and generous, lived as if she truly didn’t notice when she put something down and never touched it again. Magazines, make-up, shoes, clothes seemed to whirl into new and unexpected resting places in her wake. Doors and drawers opened themselves and never shut. A mountain of unwashed dishes had usually ornamented the worktop in the vague vicinity of Warren’s dishwasher – and there was no such thing as a dishwasher at Georgine’s.

      Blair blew out her cheeks and gazed at the ceiling as if looking for inspiration there. ‘I can’t move in with Dad.’

      ‘No. You’d affect his benefits,’ Georgine agreed, which happened to be true. More importantly, she’d give her own room up to Blair rather than let her burst in and disrupt their dad’s already difficult existence.

      ‘It’s not fair on him since he had his stroke,’ Blair insisted, as if Georgine had disagreed with her. ‘He needs his space and his routine.’ She paused and sighed, her eyes once again bright with tears. ‘I hate to see him living on sickness benefits but he’s never going to be able to work himself into a better income bracket now, is he?’

      Guilt and regret lurched into Georgine’s gut. ‘No.’

      Blair’s gaze flew to Georgine’s face. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound … It’s just that he used to be so different. We all were.’

      ‘It’s OK.’ Georgine didn’t need to be told everything her sister wasn’t saying about the spacious home Randall France once provided for his family via Randall France Construction. She also had vivid memories of fab holidays in Malta and Italy, the indulgent Christmases that had seemed to begin weeks in advance of December the 25th, sometimes involving extended trips to America to visit their grandparents, Earl and Patty, when relatives both close and distant had crowded in to join the fun.

      Randall France had been so vital then, pushing his business to new heights through hard work, vision and ambition – though a little caution and consolidation wouldn’t have gone amiss, it later turned out when Georgine had been nineteen and Blair nearly seventeen.

      ‘Maybe I should give Mum a call and ask to move in with them,’ Blair mused caustically. ‘Good old Terrence might give me money to go away.’

      Glad of this small break in the tension, Georgine rolled her eyes. ‘And you think I’m a neat freak? Compared to Terrence I’m a slattern.’ She suppressed a sigh as she got up, knowing herself to be the best option for her sister, at least for a month or two. Though Blair was too nice to actually say ‘you owe me’, Georgine did, in fact, owe her, so she’d shove aside her misgivings and welcome the additional income.

      ‘You can move in whatever you need to.’

      Instantly, Blair’s dazzling smile flashed out as she leapt to her feet. ‘I’ll be a model lodger, I promise.’

      ‘I know. You might be right that this could work for both of us.’ Georgine accepted her