I also know that I need to talk to my sister, admit that I have broken my vow. But even the thought of that, even that cannot keep the beam from my face today as my mind flashes back to snippets of our evening, to the intimacy shared.
‘Stop a minute, I need a break for a sec,’ Cass shouts from the other side of the wardrobe, bringing me back to the present. I balance my end on the stair. ‘Oh my God, whose idea was this?’ she pants.
‘Umm….yours?’ I state.
‘No need to be clever about it,’ she snaps from behind the walnut panels.
‘We’re doing well, we’ve just got it around that corner,’ I say, ‘and I really wasn’t sure we were going to manage that without resulting in a call to 999.’
‘That may still happen.’
‘Are you indirectly threatening me with violence?’
‘Not so much indirectly.’
‘What have I done?
‘You’re being annoyingly perky this morning and I don’t like it. I have a head that feels like someone has squeezed it in a vice and then stamped on it.’
‘Did you have a great birthday though?’
‘Yeah, yeah, I did. It was cool.’ Her voice trails off a bit and like a terrier on the hunt my ears prick up a little.
‘You don’t sound so sure.’
‘No, it really was.’ Her tone peps itself up again. ‘And it was interesting to see you there, clearly a regular...’
‘Hardly,’ I say. ‘I’d only been there once before.’ I peek around the side of the wardrobe as I say this and she peeks back. I stick my tongue out. It doesn’t matter how old you get, your siblings are your siblings and that is acceptable behaviour until one of us hits the grave, and quite possibly after.
Cassie sticks her tongue out as well and I see she is managing to shape her hand into the finger gesture on both sides of the wardrobe. Charming.
‘Clearly a regular and, most interestingly, with the woman youweren’tflirting with in the sauna,’ she continues.
‘Uuuhhhhhhh...’ I issue a long growl.
‘Oh, you can make all the growly noises you want, I saw the way you looked at each other last night. I’m not blind. The sparks between the two of you could have lit up an entire town. In fact, if the electricity ever fails, I’ll just get you and Lily round and plug the two of you into some sort of generator.’
‘Are you feeling rested fully now? Shall we do the last bit?’ I suggest, changing the direction of the conversation. ‘One, two, three, hup.’
‘Kzzzkzkkkzzzzz.’ Cassie makes some bizarre sort of crackle noise as she lifts again and I ignore her. We finally get the wardrobe down the rest of the stairs, with a little wall bashing, and hoist it into the van we borrowed from Marcus, Cass shrieking that her womb is going to drop out if I make her do any more lifting. I resist pointing out that whilst I know very little about wombs, that seems biologically unlikely, and it is her poxy wardrobe in the first place.
Sitting on the short wall in the front of the flat, Cass is still huffing and puffing as if she has just run twenty-five miles, and I pass her my water bottle.
‘It’s kinda sad saying goodbye to this baby.’
‘Baby? It’s got to be about two hundred years old and is the size of four grown men.’
‘I know, but still. The choir will be able to make good use of her. I look at her and I see so many imaginary worlds. It’s a real Narnia wardrobe, one that once you push past the old furs and smell of mothballs you get lured into hidden worlds from children’s storybooks from years gone by.’
‘Do you have fur coats?
‘Fake ones, yes, I do. I was wearing one last night, you fool,’ Cass says and I shrug. She gives me a withering look and continues, ‘I just liked the idea of opening the door and seeing them and imagining what might happen if I stepped in.’
‘Did you ever step in? Were you lured into magical worlds?’
‘Nah. I’m still a bit claustrophobic so it was one of those things that seemed like a good idea but you know... Anyway the community choir are very happy to take it on.’ I am not unaware that Cass had wanted a wardrobe like this all her life and now is getting rid of it. I am willing to bet Jas is behind this.
‘Yeah, and you can see it when you’re up there painting the scenery for this year’s production.’ I squidge her shoulder sympathetically as I speak, knowing that will be my job now but unable to resist teasing her a little longer.
