‘Can I do anything to help?’ I say, peering at his recipe book.
‘Hands off my Ottolenghi,’ he scolds me. ‘You know I don’t approve of meddling.’
‘Didn’t you say this had to be in the oven by seven so it’s ready by the time the others get here?’ I point out, but he nudges me out of the way, says it’ll be fine and cranks up a Blondie track instead.
I retreat to the dining table to pick up my phone. When there’s no new text, I click on WhatsApp to look there too.
Jeff peers out from behind the fridge door.
‘Jules. For crying out loud.’
‘What?’ I ask innocently.
‘She only messagedan hour ago.’
I straighten my spine. ‘I was checking tomorrow’s weather, if you must know.’
His lips purse. ‘So what does the forecast say?’
‘Rain,’ I say, defiantly.
He locks eyes with me. ‘What percentage?’
‘What?’
‘We live in Manchester and it’s February. Of course it’s going to rain,’ he drawls. ‘What’s the percentage?’
‘Who do you think I am, Alexa? Anyway, it’s been sunny for the last two days.’
‘I think we both know thatyou were checking on Frankie,’ he replies.
I take a mouthful of my gimlet. Then another.
‘So what?’ I confess, resentfully. ‘Given my mad dash with the passport yesterday, you can hardly blame me for wanting to satisfy myself there have been no more dramas.’
He sighs and backs off, shaking his head. ‘Poor Frankie,’ he says affectionately, finally opening the oven door to slide in his casserole dish.
‘PoorFrankie?I was the one who had to rearrange meetings, pay for a parking ticket and have a run-in with some random bloke at the tennis club. If something like this happens before she’s even left the country, how is she going to manage for the rest of the trip?’
‘She will befine,’ Jeff says firmly, though it’s impossible to know if he actually believes this or is simply contradicting everything I say because that’s what we’ve always done.
My brother and I love each other deeply, but we love bickering almost as much. It’s a family sport. One we’ve been playing forever and which anyone without the good fortune of having a sibling relationship as close as ours might think indicates we don’t get along.
In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. I adored him from when I was tiny. Every photo album we’ve got from the 1980s is filled with pictures of me gazing up at him in admiration, surrounded by My Little Ponies, or at a table for a tea party while I served invisible cups of Earl Grey. I’d have done anything for him. Despite being a shy, frankly cowardly child, I once challenged a boy to a fist fight for sneeringly calling Jeff ‘gay’. To my astonishment, the kid backed down,at which point Jeff hugged me, declared me his hero and added, ‘But you do know Iamgay, right?’
‘Can I give you a manicure, Aunty Jules?’ Bella, Jeff’s eleven-year-old daughter enters the room with her beauty case, followed by one of the family’s three cocker spaniels.
‘It’s nearly bedtime, sweetheart,’ Jeff says. ‘Time to get your PJs on.’
‘But you said I could stay up late if I finished my English homework, the essay about my favourite sandwich. I’ve written five pages.’
Jeff’s eyes widen. ‘Must have been a hell of a sandwich.’
‘My nailsarein need of some TLC,’ I tell him, examining them.
‘Oh, go on then,’ he replies, kissing Bella on the head, before she happily skips over to me and takes out a bottle of polish.
Jeff and Andy had been talking about adoption for years before they got serious about it. It was a big step, but I was still never sure what took them so long. Jeff did once drop into a conversation that he was worried about people treating a child differently because they had two dads, to which I delivered an impassioned speech about how he simplymustn’tlet other people’s prejudices prevent him. We were in the veg aisle at Sainsbury’s at the time. He told me to shush and stop threatening him with a courgette. But I remain confident to this day that I was instrumental in persuading him it was a good idea, even if, annoyingly, I’ve since heard him attribute their decision to an episode ofModern Family.
