Welcome to the Real World by Carole Matthews

music all day. I think Evan David was still miffed that I left after the rehearsals this afternoon, especially as I turned down a lift in his limo, but he didn't mention dinner again. I'm going to have to get an advance on my wages from Ken the Landlord as I'm currently spending all my income on Tube fares.

    The front door of Joe's building is broken, so I push inside and, as the lift is in a similar state of disrepair, climb the stairs. Some of the doors have black rubbish bags outside and there's a general air of neglect. Had my parents dreamed of my brother and I going to university and getting great jobs and living in four-bedroom detached houses in suburbia, then they must be sorely disappointed. My clutch of middle-range GCSEs proved to be three quarters of useless when it came to getting a good job, but my two-year foundation course in Fashion and Textiles means that I do very tidy hems on curtains when required. And, as I've already explained, my poor brother's steady job in the bank went out of the window when he was forced to become a full-time caregiver.

    I know that Mum worries that both of her children are living in homes that are one step up from slums, but house prices in London are so expensive that I'd have to move miles away from my family to ever have any hope of buying a place of my own and I couldn't bear that. I want to be where I've grown up, with all my friends and loved ones around me. That's surely more important than having your own pile of bricks and mortar. I wouldn't want to be in, say, Northampton or Norfolk or Nottingham, when everyone else was here. Besides, I'm not sure that Joe and Nathan could manage without me. Wherever I went, I'd have to take them, too.

    I knock on the door of their flat and, moments later, Joe lets me in. 'Hi, sis.' He pulls me to him in a nonchalant hug. 'Haven't seen you for days. Thought you'd run off with a rich Arab sheik.'

    'I did consider it,' I say, 'but they couldn't cope without me at the King's. Betty's on holiday and we're short-staffed.'

    'Ah. Same old story,' my brother commiserates.

    Nathan is sitting upright on the sofa, breathing rhythmically through his asthma inhaler. The big clear plastic globe that he uses as a spacer for the drugs nearly obscures his tiny face. I go over and subject him to a kiss, which he tolerates graciously as it's only on his forehead. 'How's my favourite nephew?'

    He pulls his inhaler out. The tube has a smiley clown's face on it. 'I'm your only nephew.'

    His voice is always slightly husky due to his medication and is punctuated by a breathless wheeze.

    I hug him to me. 'That's why you're my favourite.'

    Nathan giggles and, abandoning his inhaler, flops back onto a cushion. My nephew is possibly the nicest-natured child in the world. He has a mop of blond hair, blue eyes. Nathan looks and behaves like an angel. Despite the difficulties his illness brings, he's never been one of these tantrum-y children that you see being dragged through supermarkets screamingprobably because he's been aware from a very young age that any overexertion brings on an asthma attack. He's borne all his troubles with stoicism beyond his tender years and my heart breaks for him. When all his friends are running round like things possessed, Nathan sits quietly on the sidelines waiting until they remember to come back to him.

    I ruffle his hair. 'I love you.'

    'Yuck,' Nathan says.

    'Finish your medicine.' Obediently, he takes up his puffer again.

    Following Joe back into the kitchen, I jerk my head back towards Nath. 'How is he?'

    'Good,' Joe tells me brightly. 'Not bad.' Some of the light goes out. He shrugs with a certain hopelessness and says dully, 'You know how it is.'

    Only too well. Next to Joe on the work surface is the sizeable stash of drugs that follow him and my nephew wherever they go.

    'Has he been to school today?'

    'No.' My brother shakes his head. 'Not today.'

    My nephew misses a lot of school. Not through any fault of