The Siblings

by Alison T. BondThe Siblings

And so Shirley said she had no reason to stay. She’d leave the lying, cheating scum. Once she’d got this deadline at work out of the way. She’d leave and she wouldn’t look back. She’d show him. He’d regret it immediately. She knew he would. He would beg her to come back and no, she wouldn’t back down. It was over. Eight years of marriage, down the drain, because he’d thrown it away on some cheap young floozy.

I think I muttered something along the lines of, ‘Have you thought this one through?’

But she was adamant. Her mind was made up, that was that, she’s just that sort of person, my sister. She was leaving her husband over a fling with a trollop, taking him to the cleaners along the way. A phrase I always found rather silly. To hate a spouse so much you make them all clean and shiny. A very odd terminology, still it’s frequently used, so who am I to argue?

I rather half-heatedly continued to try arguing the pro’s and con’s of her decision, as any caring sister should do, but Shirley never shut up long enough for me to get a word in edge ways. Our arguments throughout our formative years, and indeed into adulthood were always a one sided affair. Hers was the opinion that counted so far as she was concerned. She was that sort of person.

I was five years her junior and she always liked to make sure I knew my place, and that place was after her, in all things. I don’t think she ever really forgave me for being born. She had revelled in being an only child and did not take to sharing the limelight with me easily. She always made sure I knew she didn’t like me very much, and if I am honest (if I’d been lucky enough to have had the choice) I too would have picked a different sibling.

When I was three years old she wheeled me to the door of the pharmacy in my buggy and then ran back home and began to happily play with her toys. Luckily, our next door neighbour had been out shopping and spotted me as she passed by, cooing gently as she brought me back home. Mum and Dad were furious. Shirley was denied spending money for a week. She pinched me rather hard on the leg in a rage at my unwanted return and was denied a further weeks earnings for her trouble.

I was useless at school, whereas Shirley had been head girl. She routinely ignored me in the corridor whilst in her final year, when I, still a wide eyed newbie looked for familial reassurance. She attained top marks in everything. She managed to pass every exam she took with an air of ease and after university, she became a PA for a top accounting company and never looked back. According to her, she basically ran the company for them. She certainly knew exactly how much everything cost. Yet if I think about it, she really never knew the actual true worth of anything.

She had married Jim after a whirlwind romance. She didn’t manage to keep up the nice, breezy facade for very much longer than the honeymoon. Once they were back home, she reverted to her snide old self. Unless, of course, there were other people in the house, when she was a delight to be around. Her dinner parties were the talk of the village where they settled. She could coordinate the serving of the menu with a gliding ease. As if sweeping around the dining table on skates. She was the perfect hostess, she was just that sort of person and I, well I could barely boil an egg.

And Jim. Poor old Jim. Never getting a word in. Possibly opening his mouth with the intention of saying something in his defense, yet never given time to actually form a word let alone a full sentence. Just standing there, weathering the barrage of abuse hurled in his direction. Usually in a list of misgivings about his abilities as a husband, or as a man in general. Nothing he did was right. Simply not good enough for Shirley.

Jim had wanted to start a family. He had always dreamed of being a dad. Already having two grown up nieces by the time he married Shirley, he had hoped to add to the gene pool. Shirley however, did not feel the same way. It would damage her career irreparably, not to mention the effect on her figure.

As she buzzed around selfishly fulfilling her life plan, she hadn’t envisaged Jim would look elsewhere for affection and she had snapped when she found out he had a girlfriend. That the ‘trollop’ was pregnant too, well, an earthquake would have caused less damage than that particular outburst.

But as it turns out, Shirley was wrong, Jim wasn’t begging to be taken back. The marriage was over.

At the weekend, she relocated south to start at her head office, first thing Monday morning. A fresh start. London would suit her much better anyway. Much more cosmopolitan, much more ‘her’ she remarked. Jim could go to hell.

Jim will be a father soon. After the heartache Shirley put him through all those years, finally he had found happiness. Shirley is of course livid that he has moved on from her without a look back, as any true narcissist would be. She’s just that sort of person.

I’m going to wait until after Jim and I are married and I give birth to tell her that I’m the ‘trollop’ she has such disdain for. I’m looking forward to her reaction.

I guess I’m just that sort of person.

© Alison T. Bond 2015

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