Don't Get Me Wrong by Marianne Kavanagh Page A

baby’s late. Like you were. And how’s she sleeping at the moment?”
    â€œFine, I think—”
    â€œI only ask because the mattress in the big room is quite soft. I remember that. Fine for me, obviously. But she might find a firmer mattress suits her better as she gets bigger.”
    â€œAre you saying that you’d like to have Eva’s room, and Eva should move into my room, and I should sleep on the sofa?”
    â€œWhy—do you think that’s a good idea? It hadn’t even occurred to me. But I’m completely happy if you think that might be the best solution.”
    â€¢Â Â â€¢Â Â â€¢
    What I don’t understand, thought Kim, at the top of the loft ladder—peering into an attic full of the accumulated junk of twenty-five years’ worth of family chaos—is how Harry managed to get himself so mixed up in our lives. None of my friends have their sisters’ attachments coming round for Sunday lunch,turning up at birthdays, hanging round on bank holidays, and inviting themselves round for Christmas. He doesn’t ask. He just assumes. A family friend. Like a creepy uncle.
    I never liked it. Even before I found out he was cheating on Eva. Like the time he turned up just as we were going to Brighton for the day. Kim, holding on to the aluminum ladder, stared into space. It was the summer I was seventeen. Eva was going to her Welsh commune for a month, teaching guitar workshops, and this was our last special day before she went, before I lost her for the whole of August. I stood there in my straw hat and blue sundress and said, What’s he doing here? We had the picnic all packed, with Mr. Kipling fondant fancies, and cloudy lemonade, and salt and vinegar crisps, all silly stuff reminding us of our childhood, and it was going to be just me and Eva on the pebble beach, in the Lanes, on the pier. Just the two of us throwing chips at the seagulls. And then, suddenly, there was Harry in a white T-shirt that showed off the muscles in his arms, looking at me as if this was some kind of huge joke. She said, Don’t stress, he can drive us there. And I said, But we were going on the train . A special offer on the train . And she said, But the car will be quicker. And I said, But why’s he coming? Why’s he here? And she just smiled and said, We’ll have a good time.
    And I remember thinking, No, this is the way it works: you’ll have a good time, he’ll have a good time, and I’ll just sit there getting in the way. Like I always do. Sitting on the big gray pebbles watching you and him cavorting in the waves.
    I’d spent years trying to make sense of it. Once Eva was sitting in the garden playing her guitar, pretending to be Mama Cass (which she really could do, pretty much, because she hadthe same kind of voice), and I went and sat next to her on the grass, pulling at those stiff stalks that stick up all over the place and never break, just bend. When she’d stopped singing, and was letting her fingers walk over the strings, trying out new sounds, I said, “Why does Harry spend so much time at our house?”
    It was probably that same summer as the Brighton trip. Or maybe the year before, when I was doing my GCSEs.
    She said, “Why? Don’t you like it?”
    Even then, we weren’t always straight with each other. I don’t know why. Maybe in case the truth was too frightening. “I just wondered.”
    She smiled and picked out the tune of “It’s Getting Better.”
    I said, “Doesn’t he have a home of his own?”
    â€œHave you asked him?”
    Me? Why would I ask him anything? “No.”
    â€œMaybe you should.”
    Why? Why can’t you tell me?
    But Eva had a way of sliding off anything she didn’t want to talk about. There wasn’t any point in haranguing her when that happened. You could go on and on asking questions forever and she’d just