My sister and I are very close. Very close. It wasn't always that way but our relationship changed suddenly one night 20 years ago, in the back seat of the family car, within a few feet of our parents.
We both grew up in Cheltenham in the west of England. Although Meg was two years older than me, even at five years old I looked like the Incredible Hulk beside her. I take after my dad, a big-boned placid sandy-haired Welshman, whereas Meg is a younger version of mum, short, delicately built but with a fiery temper. With a shoulder-length mop of ginger hair, big green eyes, long pale lashes, chubby peaches-and-cream cheeks, button nose, cupid's bow mouth and dimpled chin, even at 20 she could easily have been taken for a 14-year old. At six-feet-two and with a nose broken at 16 in an unruly scrum, at 18 I looked ten years older than I was. As infants we generally got on very well but we grew apart in our teens. Meg didn't do very well in the final exam at her primary school and went on to a large mixed-sex school whereas I breezed through my exam and was admitted to a rather exclusive boys' school.
The difference in age between an 11-year-old boy and a 13-year-old girl is in reality a lot bigger than two years and we increasingly had little in common. Due to our different schools we had different sets of friends with different attitudes to life; I was a model pupil and captain of the school rugby team whereas I gathered, from whispered conversations between my parents, shouting matches between them and Meg, and the sort of company she kept, that my sister was a bit of a wild child. Her hair and clothes often stank of tobacco, she frequently stayed out late into the night and more than once she seemed bleary and hungover the following morning.
We used to go on holiday each year to Scotland, my dad driving us up there overnight. Meg and I would slump down at opposite ends of the back seat of our Range Rover, either sleeping or she listening to her personal stereo and me playing Donkey Kong on my Game Boy. At the resort we spent as little time as possible in each other's company. When she was 18, despite her rebellious nature, Meg qualified for the University of East Anglia on the other side of the country, and for two years I saw little more of her.
My 18th year was to be the last time I joined my parents for a family holiday before I departed myself for university. We expected it to be just the three of us but, to our surprise, a few days before we were due to leave Meg unexpectedly came home. She was in a foul mood, spent most of her time in her room, and said she didn't want to come on "the fucking family jaunt" and would be happy to be alone at home.
Two days before we left for Scotland, as I was going to bed I heard Meg in her room scream -- a real Hammer Horror screech of unbridled anguish -- and burst into deep wracking sobs. She sounded in genuine pain and I wondered if she had hurt herself, maybe through self-harming or something. Nervously I gently tapped on her door, fully expecting to be told to fuck off. She gasped and stifled her sobs, turning them to whimpers, but said nothing.
Feeling as if I was taking my life in my hands I opened the door a crack and whispered to ask if she was okay. Still no reply so I warily entered; Meg's bedside lamp was on and I saw she was propped up on one elbow in a sleeveless silky nightie, her face red and streaked with tears. She looked so fragile that an unfamiliar wave of compassion passed over me and I stepped forward, put down on her bedside cabinet the mug of cocoa I'd made myself, sat lightly on the very edge of her bed and asked her what was wrong. She just stared at me for a few moments then, shocking me to the core, flung herself into my arms, sobbing into my chest.
I should explain at this point that, between study and rugby, I'd never had much experience with the opposite sex. The most intimate I'd ever got was a couple of snogs and tit-gropes in dark corners at school discos shared with the girls' school down the road to ours, with girls I didn't even know. As a result, having a shuddering, attractive young female press herself to me made my jogging pants start to look like a circus big top as my cock leapt to attention, even though she was my older sister. My face was burning with embarrassment but thankfully Meg didn't seem to notice.
After a minute or so she sat back and, between taking sips of my cocoa, started to pour her heart out to me. It turned out that Meg's problem was her complicated love life. She'd slept with several fellow students, male and female, at uni before falling head over heels with one particular boy. They'd been together more than six months and talked about moving in together; then one of Meg's ex-girlfriends had suggested a threesome. Meg herself had been reluctant but her man thought it sounded fun so she went along with it to please him. In the weeks since then he'd started messing her about, making excuses not to see her and not replying to phone messages. Finally, the day before she came home he'd told her he was dumping her in favour of the other woman. Earlier this evening Meg had phoned him and begged him to give her another chance, even if she had to share him, but in the end he'd hung up on her.
